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Stories to explore

State Library is a home for readers and writers, literature and storytelling. Want to search the latest issue of a journal or magazine? Desperate to find your next favourite book or essay? Need a podcast to listen to while you write? Here, staff from Reading, Writing & Ideas and black&write! share the stories they love each month. You’ll also find our latest interviews with local writers and creatives.

A woman in red leggings and a black jumper jogs on a street. She has a marathon number on her chest.

Read

Historian Rosa Campbell weaves a great story about women's sport, by starting with a tale you might have heard before: when Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

Campbell has also created a digital map highlighting 1970s feminist and lesbian sports culture in Sydney. 

'Playing the game' by Rosa Campbell, published by Overland  

Read it here
Composite image of Melissa Lucashenko and Melanie Saward

Listen

Two south-east Queensland First Nations authors are in the publishing spotlight this month – Melissa Lucashenko with her novel Edenglassie and Melanie Saward for her debut Burn. This is a great episode offering a deep dive into each author's book. 

Melanie also notes the influence of Melissa's ground-breaking essay 'Writing as a Sovereign Act', published in 2018, on her own work. 

via ABC Radio's The Book Show  

Listen here

Read

What are Reading, Writing & Ideas staff reading now?

An orange book cover with a motif of black and white road markings. "Blood" by Tony Birch.
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott. The cover shows stylised plants in blue, yellow and red dots, with a silhouette of a woman falling.
Salonika Burning by Gail Jones. The cover is purple and shows pink and red flowers and a black & white photo burning.
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Blog posts

9 writers stand and sit on couches in John Oxley Library at State Library of Queensland. Outside the windows is the city at night.
"Who has time to write applications? The obvious answer is no one."
Meet 5 writers who won development awards at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards.
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Portrait of Ngarrindjeri Elder Aunty Elaine Kropinyeri. Aunty Elaine is smiling at the camera and wearing a blue dress.
A night to remember
Ngarrindjeri Elder Aunty Elaine Kropinyeri joined us at the Queensland Literary Awards to present an award in her great-uncle's honour.
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Smiling, dark-haired woman wearing black suit and statement earrings
Queensland poet unleashes power and precision in The Jaguar
Queensland poet Sarah Holland-Batt talks about grief and activism, and how she wrote the multi-award-winning collection of poems, The Jaguar.
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Explore your favourite journals

Griffith Review
Griffith Review
Griffith Review is a literary and current affairs journal that offers fresh takes on big ideas.
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Meanjin Quarterly
Meanjin Quarterly
Meanjin was founded in Brisbane by Clem Christesen (the name, pronounced Mee-an-jin, is the word in the Turrbal language for the finger of land on which central Brisbane sits) in 1940.
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Overland
Overland
Overland – Australia’s premier radical literary magazine – has been showcasing brilliant and progressive fiction, poetry, nonfiction and art since 1954.
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Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review (ABR), one of Australia’s major cultural magazines, presents high-quality journalism and new writing for the widest possible audience.
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