Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
On ‘Remember Ronald Ryan’, by Barry Dickins
'PLEASE ADMIT THE bearer…to the execution of Ronald Joseph Ryan, on 3rd February, 1967.’ This invitation, received by journalists covering...
The new wave
LATELY, THREE LOCALLY made films have escaped Adelaide for the world, all directed by women. Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays,...
The engine of Christmas
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Dr Seuss,...
Lessons of Enlightenment
Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soulAnd sings the tune without the wordsAnd never stops at...
On ‘The White Earth’, by Andrew McGahan
The first breathtaking pages of The White Earth describe a fire tearing through wheat fields. This is the first of many fires, and as the novel progresses it is this particular element that will come to symbolise some of the more frightening, and ugly, aspects of the Australian psyche.
Do your practice and all is coming
I’VE NEVER BEEN the sporty type – built for comfort rather than speed, more shot-putter than marathon runner. I...
From the outer sanctum
IT WASN’T UNTIL my young daughter asked why Sam Newman was calling me and the rest of The Outer...
Circling the city
FOR THE LAST two years I’ve been walking the streets of suburban Melbourne, armed with camera and notebook, a...
The challenges of achieving gold
BOTH NAOMI MCCARTHY and Duncan Free are Olympic gold medal winning athletes. Naomi was vice-captain of the Australian women’s water...
High expectations
AS AN NRL commissioner, one of my duties was to be at the 2015 Telstra Premiership grand final. It...
A landscape of stories
Winner of the 2015 Nature Conservancy Australia Nature Writing PrizeABOUT EIGHTEEN MONTHS ago, I started to spend time walking...
To everything there is a season…
NORWEGIANS WORK ONE HUNDRED days less per year than Australians. The whole country savours its precious few months of...
