NEWS: NZ film tour, special screenings.
Here are some pics of me in Aotearoa New Zealand, back when my film launched just before Christmas, then later (the yellower of the pictures!) when I was lucky enough to be invited to the New Zealand Comedy Festival, where the film screened and the Fred award was handed to the excellent David Correos. Yes, it’s a literal gumboot. The other image over on the right? That’s me photographed for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Those guys are raising money to support projects like the one they’re working on with me to preserve, protect and celebrate the work of creative screen workers.
If you’ve seen the film, you won’t be surprised to learn that my old man had opinions about awards. He was, shall we say, a bit of a skeptic. I think he would have been a little bit chuffed to know, though, that his audience turned out like they did to see the movie both in Aotearoa New Zealand and in Australia, and that it was nominated for two AACTA Awards (one for the spectacular editing by Aleck Morton) as well as a Film Critics Circle Award and an Aus Critics Award. It won Best Direction at the Capricorn Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Australian Writers Guild Awards (the AWGIES). So maybe, upon careful reflection, he’d revise his opinion on awards just this once if I asked him nicely.
Me in The Monthly
“All that pumped-up bravado falls away,” he said. “And almost to a person, the next thing that happens is they cry for their mum.”
And, oh man, that hit hard. Partly because I related.
I wrote a pice for The Monthly about the experience of being a young person in the current age.
Yes I am aware I am not a young person and that patronising pontificating about young people by middle-aged white ladies is not the finest tradition, but I’m coming at this one with empathy, I promise!
Test that theory here.
Fitzroy Diaries peeps…
I get asked a lot whether The Fitzroy Diaries is going to have another season. I wish I could say yes, but the fact is, my partner in crime, Sophie Townsend, is busy with her own projects, and I’m busy with a bunch of other things too. Meanwhile, do go and have a listen to me reading my audiobook. There’s even an extract or two from Fitzroy Diaries in there.
If you haven’t heard the Fitzroy Diaries, you can listen to it wherever you find your podcasts. Written and narrated by yours truly and produced by ABC Radio National by the incredible Sophie Townsend.
2025 Literary Awards
2025 Premier’s Literary Award winners with Minister Brooks.
2025 saw a new category in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards; the John Clarke prize for humour writing. When he moved to Australia from New Zealand in 1977, my father, satirist John Clarke decided to learn to write. The Clarke family is deeply grateful to the State government of Victoria, especially The Hon. Colin Brooks MP, for backing the $25,000 prize. In the process of this coming together, I learned a lot about how to get a literary prize to happen and quite frankly there should be a TV show about it. Thank you to the absolutely terrifying Kay Setches AM, to previous Minister Danny Pearson, to Andrew Kenyon, to Jonathan Pickering, and to arts hero Claire Febey. And of course congratulations to the many excellent writers whose work we read for the prize, and to the inaugural winner, Robert Skinner.
Congratulations, too, to Lech Blaine for winning The Age Book Of The Year non-fiction book (another award I sat on the jduging panel for). This was another list of brilliant books and the short list is just hit after hit. Lech’s book is funny and touching and thought-provoking and unique. Have a read why don’t you.
