Nominated for Community Award at The Stage Awards 2025Five powerful new plays by some of the most exciting artists working in the UK today – created with and for young people. Developed as part of Wonder Fools' international project Positive Stories for Negative Times, which has engaged over 11,000 young people across 24 countries including the UK, South Africa, India, USA, Canada, Italy and Australia. Co-commissioned by Wonder Fools and the Traverse Theat...

My story is about love… No, it's about loss… No, it's about love and loss and pain and loneliness… But it's funny!Calvin is going to completely revolutionise his life. Escape his abusive boyfriend, detonate his inner sex bomb, see (and shag) the world. Yes, he's going to change things, and everything will be wonderful, and he's going to be so happy. Definitely. Finally. Right?Together with Wilf, a rusty Volkswagen Polo which, like Calvin, has seen better days, they...

In 1982, two friends Bob and Sigrid opened their new radical lesbian, gay and feminist bookshop, 'Lavender Menace' on Edinburgh's Forth Street. On the eve of the shop's 5th birthday, sales assistants Paul and David take a look back at its origins, in this funny, moving play.Cast your mind back to 1982 - Margaret Thatcher sends the British Fleet to the Falklands, Channel 4 comes to the living room and Prince William is born. But this play has nothing to do with all that. This play i...

The Critic in the Modern World explores the work of six influential literary critics-Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, Lionel Trilling and James Wood-each of whom occupies a distinct historical moment. It considers how these representative critics have constructed their public personae, the kinds of arguments they have used, and their core principles and philosophies.Spanning three hundred years of cultural history,The Critic in the Modern Wo...

The Sydney Review of Books is Australia's leading space for longform literary criticism. Now celebrating five years online, the SRB has published more than five hundred essays by almost two hundred writers. To mark this occasion, The Australian Face collects some of the best essays published in the SRB on Australian fiction, poetry and non-fiction. The essays in this anthology are contributions to the ongoing argument about the condition and purpose and evolving shape of ...

‘Wonky, idiosyncratic, fragmentary, paradoxical, drunk on words, the essay has … a uniquely human thumbprint.’ —Geordie WilliamsonIn The Best Australian Essays 2015, Geordie Williamson compiles the year’s outstanding short non-fiction. Read Helen Garner on condescension, DBC Pierre on travel, Ceridwen Dovey on autobiography, Tim Winton on injury, Anna Krien on first love, and Nicolas Rothwell on the northern coast. With bracing essays on politics, music, literature, histor...

From the iconic poems of Bonjo Paterson to todays international bestsellers by Peter Carey and Bryce Courtenay, Australian literature has reflected the changes in Australias national development until today it stands proudly on the world stage. At the same time, indigenous writing has come into its own, with authors such as Oodgeroo Noonuccol giving a powerful voice to the Aboriginal experience. AUSTRALIAS WRITERS AND POETS looks at the men and women who have created this rich literary tra...

Some of the most innovative and spell-binding literature has been written for young people, but only recently has academic study embraced its range and complexity. This Companion offers a state-of-the-subject survey of English-language children's literature from the seventeenth century to the present. With discussions ranging from eighteenth-century moral tales to modern fantasies by J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman, the Companion illuminates acknowledged classics and many more neglected w...

Grab the popcorn, sit back and let the story of Australian literature roll ... From Jean-Francois Vernay, "A Brief Take on the Australian Novel" offers a sweeping view of Australian writing since colonialism. Written from an outsider's perspective, this single-authored overview will appeal to readers through its playful, jargon-free and potentially contentious account of the Australian novel. Vernay offers a unique and insightful perspective on Australian literature. Like a film ...

The historical novel is an enduringly popular genre that raises crucial questions about key literary concepts, fact and fiction, identity, history, reading, and writing. In this comprehensive, focused guide, Jerome de Groot offers an accessible introduction to the genre and critical debates that surround it, including:the development of the historical novel from early eighteenth-century works through to postmodern and contemporary historical fictiondiffere...

From the apparently simple adaptation of a text into film, theatre or a new literary work, to the more complex appropriation of style or meaning, it is arguable that all texts are somehow connected to a network of existing texts and art forms. In this new edition Adaptation and Appropriation explores:multiple definitions and practices of adaptation and appropriationthe cultural and aesthetic politics behind the impulse to adaptthe global and local...

Creative writing has become a highly professionalised academic discipline, with popular courses and prestigious degree programmes worldwide. This book is a must for all students and teachers of creative writing, indeed for anyone who aspires to be a published writer. It engages with a complex art in an accessible manner, addressing concepts important to the rapidly growing field of creative writing, while maintaining a strong craft emphasis, analysing exemplary models of writing and provid...