Tony Birch Journalist Profile

Articles

Books to take you places this summer

Nov 27, 2024 | indailysa.com.au | Omar Sakr |Isabel Greenberg |Cosey Fanni Tutti |Tony Birch

Non-Essential WorkPoetry by Omar SakrRecommended by NickAs I read Omar Sakr’s Non-Essential Work, I was struck by the ability of poets to encapsulate emotions, lives and times through rhythm and language. An award-winning poet and writer born in Western Sydney to Lebanese and Turkish Muslim migrants, Sakr writes poetry that connects with people, producing context that can make us laugh, reflect, analyse and feel. This was something special that I took from this book.
A Western Sydney Book Club Women & Children by Tony Birch

Oct 31, 2024 | eventbrite.com.au | Tony Birch

A Western Sydney Book Club explores books by contemporary authors, with an initial focus on Australian writing. Monthly conversations about books led by guest authors, for readers in and connected to Western Sydney. Women & Children by Tony BirchAmal Awadwill facilitate the conversation about Tony Birch's novel Women & Children. Amal is a writer, director and performer.
Humming - LIMINAL

Jun 23, 2024 | liminalmag.com | Tony Birch

the poet marks the pagea dot, circles, a black marka letter speaks, a word soundslines vibrate with energy this woman is a forcea threat to all you laybefore her, before usshe is the warrior we need C.P.G. – once did they call her ‘poetess’? in school did they call her‘diligent’? ‘well-behaved’? she called back to the deaf & blind I am not your pet, your projectI am not a threat, your enemyonly I can save you, only if, only if youread, listen, think, respect for once, be humble
Book review: Fragile Creatures by Khin Myint

Jun 14, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Tony Birch

Fragile Creatures, a debut from Perth-based writer Khin Myint, delivers a telling insight when the author is a long way from home, feeling vulnerable and lonely. Myint is in Syracuse in the United States. He has just walked through an impoverished Black “ghetto” and encountered a drug addict beneath an overpass. He returns to the house where he is staying and calls his mother in Perth.
Counter-narratives from the colonial archive: Tony Birch on the writing of Kim Scott

Apr 23, 2024 | shorturl.at | Tony Birch

I was first struck by the power of Kim Scott’s writing while I was far from home, in both a physical and cultural sense. In 2003, I was in the United States, staying at Harvard University, outside Boston. I’d been invited to speak at an Australian Studies conference. The gathering attracted major Australian writers and thinkers, including Gail Jones, Frank Moorhouse, David Malouf and Meaghan Morris.
At its heart, Bruce Pascoe's Black Duck is a love story of both people and Country

Apr 8, 2024 | smh.com.au | Tony Birch

MEMOIRBlack Duck: A Year at Yumburra Bruce Pascoe with Lyn HarwoodThames & Hudson, $34.99 When Bruce Pascoe published Dark Emu with the Indigenous-owned publishing house Magabala Books, he could not have foreseen the phenomenon that the book would create. Ten years after its release in 2014, Dark Emu has sold close to 400,000 copies. It has had a major impact on our understanding of the relationship between Aboriginal agriculture and Country.
What Makes a Good Read?

Mar 15, 2024 | clunesbooktown.com.au | Tony Birch

General Admission 60 Mins Alice Pung, Tony Birch, Joanna Murray-Smith are writers who’ve had works on the Year 12 syllabus. They’ll discuss what it takes to keep the next generation reading - with Rebecca Fraser in the chair. Alice Pung has written two memoirs, an essay collection and edited two anthologies.
Running, reading and grieving in Japan

Mar 1, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Tony Birch

I’ve been to Japan several times. Yes, I admire the speed and efficiency of a bullet train, and the heated-seat, laser-accurate bidet that is a Japanese toilet. Most of all, I love the footpaths, walking tracks and running trails. An earlier visit to Japan, in March 2019, began a few weeks after the death of my younger brother. I’d previously lost other family members, some of them elderly and others who’d died too young. Some violently, several others of an overdose related to heavy drug use.
On Kim Scott by Tony Birch

Feb 1, 2024 | blackincbooks.com.au | Tony Birch

'I value Kim Scott's fiction so highly because I feel that his approach is to put the flags aside. That Deadman Dance asks us not to consider who we were so much as who we could be, collectively, in the future.'Noongar writer Kim Scott has won the Miles Franklin Award twice for his novels. In this moving essay, Tony Birch shows how Scott uses fiction as a pathway to truth.
Pictures of you

Jan 25, 2024 | themonthly.com.au | Tony Birch |Mark Dreyfus |Nick Feik |Connor O'Brien

When the manager of the nursing home called, I was busy creating a map. “You may want to come in soon,” she said. I asked her how long it would be. She paused and remained noncommittal, beyond suggesting “a couple of hours, or perhaps a day”. Generalisations leave me anxious, particularly when they relate to time. I sat at my desk, looked down at my unfinished map and accepted that I wouldn’t be completing it that morning.