Literary Studies

Lost in the bowels

Recasting Helen Garner as an MFA craft seminar

by Beejay Silcox •

May 2022, no. 442

On Helen Garner: Writers on writers by Sean O’Beirne

Black Inc., $17.99 hb, 138 pp

Literary Studies

Lost in the bowels

Recasting Helen Garner as an MFA craft seminar

by Beejay Silcox •

May 2022, no. 442

Helen Garner (photograph by Darren James/Text Publishing)

Oh, how I detest tiny books – those cutesy little hardbacks that are sold next to the novelty bookmarks and greeting cards. 101 Reasons Why Dogs/Cats Are Better Than Cats/Dogs; Inspo quotes for Insta feminists; The Pocket Marcus Aurelias (for the stoic on-the-go); The Pocket Tarot (for the soothsayer on-the-go); The Tao of Something. They are the literary equivalent of supermarket checkout chocolates – sugar-fix books. Stocking stuffers. Gag gifts. Op-shop cloggers. Toilet-floor lint collectors.

Beejay Silcox

By this contributor

Beejay Silcox is an Australian writer and critic, the Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival, and chair of the 2024 Stella Prize. She was also the recipient of ABR’s Fortieth Birthday Fellowship. Her literary criticism and cultural commentary regularly appears in national arts publications, and is increasingly finding an international audience, including in the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian and The New York Times. Her award-winning short stories have been published at home and abroad, and have been selected for a number of Australian anthologies.