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Auckland Writers Festival special: Dervla McTiernan - The Unquiet Grave extract

Auckland Writers Festival special: Dervla McTiernan - The Unquiet Grave extract

NZ Herald17-05-2025
Irish-born Australian author Dervla McTiernan's new book, The Unquiet Grave, is out now.
To celebrate the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival, we've teamed up with New Zealand publishers to showcase some of the authors who will be on stage over the festival weekend.
This extract is from Irish-born Australian author Dervla McTiernan's new book, 'The Unquiet Grave'.
Cormac and Peter started walking. There
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Let's read about sex: what are the books that do it best?
Let's read about sex: what are the books that do it best?

The Spinoff

time6 hours ago

  • The Spinoff

Let's read about sex: what are the books that do it best?

Writers nominate novels that include what they consider to be well-written sex scenes. Writing sex is difficult: there's quite the spectrum of effects that a writer might be trying to achieve – from sex for sex's sake (spicy romance novels) to attempting to convey the most intimate of character developments from the awkward to the transgressive. Literary sex, in particular, is so notoriously difficult to get right that there is a long-running Bad Sex in Fiction award that has exposed some real clangers (interesting to note that the majority of the offending authors are men) that rubbed the award's judges the wrong way. When I asked a bunch of New Zealand writers to send me their nominations for books with the best-written sex I got a range of responses. You'll see from the recommendations below that well-written sex includes not only sex that reads as authentically hot, but also sex that can read as authentically awkward, difficult and even disturbing. Herewith, a selection of great books with great (at least in the well-written sense) sex: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley The Ministry of Time offers themes of identity, ethical dilemma, polar exploration, climate change and time travel – what more could you want? Great sex scenes, that's what. These are truly the cherry on top of what is already a gripping and bizarre-in-a-good-way story. The Ministry of Time's sex scenes are lightly written but the preceding tensions feel part of the act. These scenes are tender yet steamy and also incredibly banal. They're funny but hot, a perfect combo. At Auckland Writers Festival, author Kaliane Bradley said: 'You're either a spite writer, or a horny writer.' She is most definitely a horny writer. And a great one at that. / Liv Sisson, author of Fungi of Aotearoa A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard A Quiet Kind of Thunder is a YA that perfectly nails the experience of first-time (straight) sex. Two teens in love spend a weekend rendezvous in Glasgow getting frisky – and it's clumsy, it's fumbling, there's sweat and elbows accidentally pulling hair and awkward laughter and it's not romantic but it's safe and it's gentle and it's kind and it's real. Reading it as a young and inexperienced teen, it showed me that my first time wasn't going to be perfect – and that's OK. I think the narrator Steffi sums it up best, once it's all over: 'He's sweaty and hot. I love him, and I'm glad we've shared this intense, sensual thing, but ew. Can I push him off?' / Hannah Marshall, author of It's a Bit More Complicated Than That The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden Everything about this Women's Prize for Fiction-winning book is beautiful, but Chapter 10 shifts the novel from beautiful to steaming hot. Van der Wouden's debut is a triumph in the genre of historical fiction but also in the genre of sex writing. In this story about a highly anxious spinster oddly attached to a house in 1960s Den Haag, desire and sex comes as a surprise to everyone involved. What the sex scenes offer is a spring of hope and resolution to an otherwise desperately sad and traumatic situation: it offers the characters a pathway that involves love and energy and connection. It's also an edifying celebration of queer love in the context of a period of history that attempted to suppress it. / Claire Mabey, author of The Raven's Eye Runaways Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor This novel does astonishing things with language. Its depiction of desire and pursuit and sex and longing is surprising and horny and so attuned to the weirdness and potency of those feelings. It never falls into the trap of trying to make desire either all beautiful or all raunchy. Generally speaking I think most of the best sex scenes I've read are in queer books – thinking also of Mrs S by K Patrick, anything by Carmen Maria Machado, Eileen Myles' Chelsea Girls – maybe because they're all attuned to something other than the hetero power dynamic / the default porn norm? / Maddie Ballard, author of Bound: a memoir of making and remaking All Fours by Miranda July 'The sex scenes in this are like nothing else I can think of – so unashamed of their horniness, so female, so oblivious to taboo. The tampon scene blew my mind.' / Maddie Ballard 'I love July's experimentation. It's such a horny book and fuelled by a fear of 'falling off the cliff' – a last gasp before the menopause effects a steep drop in oestrogen and strangles the libido. Such a hilarious, tender book. I don't really get why women are using it as a catalyst for blowing up their lives (it's fiction!) but I do get why so many readers are clinging onto this expression of desire for dear life.' / Claire Mabey Down from Upland by Murdoch Stephens Murdoch's books are about social relations and also, in particular, power relations, and he treats sex with the same lens. I reckon Lawrence & Gibson (Stephens' publisher) in general treats sex in a specific way that is uncommon in NZ literature. Murdoch's influences are the French and American New Narrative writers who are both frank when it comes to sex, and eschew the abstract or the metaphor. It means the sex scenes can often be excruciating or awkward, but it all comes down to power. / Brannavan Gnanalingam, author of The life and opinions of Kartik Popat Into the River by Ted Dawe I'll nominate Ted Dawe's excellent, award-winning, banned YA novel Into the River. There's a wonderfully subversive and truthful sex scene in it which I have no intention of describing, because a summary will make it sound crass, whereas Ted's rendering is mischievous, startling and liberating. Family First, those self-appointed guardians of Aotearoa/New Zealand's morality, demanded the book be either banned or restricted. And it was in our country for a while. In the meantime, attendant publicity and the book's merit saw it published in multiple overseas countries. Finally, the book was permitted in our own land – and you'll all have noticed the dreadful decline in national decency since that happened?? / David Hill, author of Below Poorhara by Michelle Rahurahu The scene where Erin loses her virginity in Poorhara by Michelle Rahurahu has stuck with me, not because it is sexy, but because it's disturbing, at moments comic but in a heartbreakingly sad way, and because it's multi-layered. We're in close third person so it's intensely psychological. Like Ocean Vuong does in On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Rahurahu describes the physical acts in a gritty, real way but absolutely through Erin's sensibility – ' He kept tracing [the pounamu pendant] over her body, kissing the places it went …. Each patch of saliva he left on her dissolved the cells so that her body was slowly breaking down, softening into fleshy, brown strands of wet seaweed.' On another level, we're seeing the sexual interaction as a continuation of communication or in this case miscommunication between the characters. 'He shoved his tongue down her throat again. The kissing was nice, but she was worried about where it was going. – I'm a virgin, she said hoarsely. He laughed – Oh that's fine. You don't have to be self-conscious.' Sally Rooney is such a master of this, too, capturing in exquisite detail both the awkward and transcendent moments in the sexual relationships of her characters. / Claire Baylis, author of Dice CRASH by JG Ballard Far be it from me to likely be the only male in this selection of writers on good writing about sex and to wind up pointing to a writer whose publisher said, 'The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help' – but here it is. JG Ballard's CRASH was published in 1974 and remains as vivid and transgressive today. But possibly way more comprehensible, more funny, more sad. CRASH uses preternaturally lucid, sane, and formal English prose to explore the possibility of the intersection of sex and the car crash to heal the trauma of a sanctuary – the dull car – becoming a sudden violent nest of knives. It's an incredible act of avant garde-ism that effectively uses a classic signifier of class – fine, stylised, controlled English – to investigate the utterly outré – uber-explicit sexuality teamed with violent physical trauma, the long after-effects and how they might be healed. Ballard leans in all the way and articulates the concept with what Amis – perfectly – called 'glazed and creamy precision'. The perfectly structured result is mostly sex but utterly unsexy and utterly compulsive. The vocabulary completely non-metaphorical (globes of semen and instrument binnacles), it becomes a kind of abstract instruction manual for a post-Christian, post-humanist sexual healing – access to the sacred – however you can get it and wherever you can find it. It is the pinnacle of Ballard's work after the outrageous death of his young wife meant all other forms of writing were rendered inadequate, sentimental and bankrupt. It's almost impossible to articulate its power and effect; even the closed book hums on the shelf. I re-read it in Japan, aged 24, in mourning combined with a different form of culture shock on top and can confirm – in a state of outraged disturb – only the outrageously disturbing is comfort. In 1992 Suede sang, 'What does it take to turn you on? Now he has gone?' CRASH is a kind of an answer where 'he' could be whatever unbearable thing you've lost or that's happened to you, and the answer to that question could be: whatever it takes. / Carl Shuker, author of The Royal Free

'We don't need that': Kanye West denied entry to Australia
'We don't need that': Kanye West denied entry to Australia

Otago Daily Times

timea day ago

  • Otago Daily Times

'We don't need that': Kanye West denied entry to Australia

Kanye West. File photo: Reuters Kanye West, also known as Ye, has had his Australian visa cancelled after he released 'Heil Hitler', a song promoting Nazism, the country's home affairs minister says. The US rapper released the song that praised the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler across social media and music streaming platforms in May this year. The song came a few months after West made a string of antisemitic posts on X, which included comments such as "I love Hitler" and "I'm a Nazi". Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said that while previous offensive comments made by West had not affected his visa status, officials 'looked at it again' after the song's release. 'It was a lower level (visa) and the officials still looked at the law and said you're going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don't need that in Australia," he told national broadcaster ABC on Wednesday. "We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry." Burke added that West had family in Australia and had been a longtime visitor prior to the visa cancellation. The singer married his wife Bianca Censori, an Australian architect, in December 2022. Burke's office declined to comment on the exact date of the visa cancellation. West's management did not respond immediately to a request for comment outside US business hours. In October 2024, US conservative influencer Candace Owens was also barred from entry into Australia. Burke said 'Australia's national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else'.

WILSN Brings The Sass On 'Keep Walkin''
WILSN Brings The Sass On 'Keep Walkin''

Scoop

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  • Scoop

WILSN Brings The Sass On 'Keep Walkin''

[Wednesday 2 July, 2025] Melbourne/ Naarm-based soul powerhouse WILSN (aka Shannon Busch) today unveils a sassy, smokin'-hot, break-up anthem with her new single ' Keep Walkin ''. Following on from her previous release, irresistible bop ' The Way ', WILSN continues to cement herself as one of the most essential voices in a new generation of Australian soul singers. 'Keep Walkin'' arrives off the back of two packed-out shows last month in Melbourne and Sydney, and finds WILSN in a defiant mood - her stunning vocals taking centre stage like the soul queens of days gone by, shining over classy, timeless production. Written with long-time collaborator and producer Stephen Mowat (Tyne James-Organ, Jessica Mauboy, Matt Corby) 'Keep Walkin'' draws inspiration from the sounds of yesteryear. As with previous single 'The Way', Busch headed to NYC to help her capture a timeless sound. Enlisting an ensemble of legendary musicians from the NYC soul scene, including members of Sharon Jones and the DapKings, Thee Sacred Souls, Charles Bradley and Jalen Ngonda's bands, 'Keep Walkin'' was tracked at Hive Mind Recording in Brooklyn - a studio that specialises in the use of analogue equipment and capturing a classic soul sound. Co-produced byStephen Mowat and Billy Aukstik, the band took an old-school approach to recording, with everyone playing live in the same room, feeding off each other's energy and vibe. Originally hailing from Geelong in Victoria,WILSN moved to Melbourne to study jazz at the Victorian College of the Arts. She signed a deal with US publisher Pulse, prompting a move to America, where she spent two years working with Grammy-Award winning songwriters honing her craft, before being asked to join The Teskey Brothers on their 2020 tour of Europe and the UK, playing to sold-out crowds across the continent. Since thereleaseof her debut album, Those Days Are Over, in 2023 - a record bursting with jaw-dropping vocal performances and fusing modern soul, pop, jazz and Motown – it's been a big couple of years forWILSN. Her debut album won the AIR Award for Best Independent Soul/RnB Album or EP and was also nominated for the Australian Music Prize, she's sung alongside Jimmy Barnes and Budjerah and shared the stage with contemporary heroes like Allen Stone, she's played at Bluesfest two years in a row, and once again supported The Teskey Brothers on an extensive Australian tour. Alongside her success asWILSN, she's also been amassing praise as a songwriter, winning the 2025 Vanda and Young Global Song Competition with 'Give You Love', a song she co-wrote for Jessica Mauboy and Jason Derulo. Her most recent release, 'The Way' which marks the start of a refreshing new chapter, received support from triple j, double j and community radio locally, along with spins from BBC Radio 2 and 6Music, and playlist adds to Apple Music's Soul Revival, New In Indie and Spotify's Soul 'n' the City, Dinner Chill Music and more. If you are lucky enough to be attending RockWiz Live - Live at the Gardens in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens, WILSN will be opening the night with her nine piece band - tickets HERE. A slice of soul-pop perfection, 'Keep Walkin'' carries on from the momentum of 'The Way' – it's bold yet melodic, empowering but vulnerable, classic and somehow still refreshingly of the moment.

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