posts by Jennifer Mills

jennifer mills (www.jenjen.com.au) is the author of the novel The Diamond Anchor (UQP 2009), and a chapbook of poems, Treading Earth (Press press 2009). Her award-winning short stories, poetry and essays have been widely published. She lives in Alice Springs.

Subscriberthon: Occupy the story

jenjeninchinaWhen I ran away from activism to be a writer about ten years ago, I did so with a degree of guilt. I was in need of consolation, and the imagination has always been my strongest fortress, my best escape. I felt exhausted by the anti-globalisation and squatting movements I was intensely involved in, bruised by the mode of pressing bodies against barricades, fighting for inches of territory.

My focus as an activist was not just physical space; I was interested in making imaginative spaces, social and democratic spaces where grassroots democracy might flourish. I was a facilitator as well as a breaker-and-enterer. The huge groundswell of anti-capitalist protest that surged forth in the late 1990s, in answer to movements which began in the global south, following the lead of the poor, was a romantic time, but it was also serious. I was passionate about a movement which held itself accountable, which sought to find better decision-making structures than had got us into this global mess. ... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 8-11-2011, 2 user comments

These are Fighting Words

Last week the London chapter of the international writing-school revolution began with the opening of the Ministry of Stories. A few months ago, I went to Dublin and paid a visit to the Irish centre, Fighting Words. Set up by author Roddy Doyle and former director of Amnesty International Ireland, Sean Love, the centre had been open for eighteen months. Unlike the Ministry or the original at 826 Valencia, Fighting Words doesn’t run a pirate or a monster shop. Which is not to say they haven’t been focused on bringing kids into a magical world.

Sean Love’s smile is infectious. The grin spreads as he introduces me to the inner entrances of Fighting Words: two bookshelves which rotate to reveal secret doors, one adult, one child-sized. ‘It’s very Man from UNCLE’ he says, with obvious delight. ... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 25-11-2010, 1 user comment

Thanks, newmatilda

Tragedy strikes Australian independent media: newmatilda will cease to publish in a month. As the editorial states, the reasons are financial. Advertising has not risen to meet the losses from subscriptions.

The publication has gone from strength to strength in every other way, with readership doubling every year for the last three years. NM has consistently tackled the issues that are being overlooked, and rapidly become one of the few outlets for investigative journalism in a changing media climate.

I started writing for NM in its early days around 2005, and have always felt very loyal to the site. Not only because the editor, Marni Cordell, is a friend, but because the editorial vision, genuine support for media diversity and quality journalism, and humour have been such a wonderful staple in my media diet. I have also appreciated the fearlessness and willingness to take risks – with content, structure, and delivery. Plus they paid me. Which is important as hell. ... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 27-05-2010, 1 user comment

How about radical success?

Interesting piece by US academic and poet Joshua Corey (spotted via Currajah) on poetry, institutional support, gatekeepers, and the relationship between what we make and how we make it. It has given me a lot to think about in terms of the ongoing strategies of radical writer-reader relationships.

If you can synergize with institutions, do so, but don't sit around waiting for them to recognize or rescue you: they can offer you everything but initiative. This is the best path I've found for resisting the otherwise inevitable alienation from one's own creative labor that comes from permitting oneself and one's work to be processed by workshops and editors and tenure committees.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 26-02-2010, 3 user comments

I’m not buying it

I miss John Howard on Australia Day. That's what I thought this afternoon when I walked out of Eastside shops to see several teenage girls draped in Australian flags, off to some underage-drinking barbeque. Is that nationalism, kids? Do you seriously feel like part of a collective democratic project worth wearing around your neck? Or does it just go with the outfit?

At the risk of sounding like Grandma Marx, by crikey, why don't the young people rebel?

Because there's nothing to argue with when Australia and the flag have become brands. Rebelling against brands is a pointless exercise. Most brands targeted at the young already associate themselves with rebellion. To rebel, all you can do is associate yourself with a different brand - one of the wet-blanket, non-rebellious ones. But then you just look weak. If there is another option (like DIY? Find your new punk look in K-mart) it would take a strong teenager to go there. ... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 26-01-2010, 10 user comments

zines zines zines

not one but two articles up on new matilda about them. one is by me and t'other by the lovely vanessa berry.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 29-12-2009, 2 user comments

goolwa or bust

The Australian Poetry Centre has a callout up for proposals for the Salt on the Tongue festival in Goolwa in April 2010. I heard great things about their 2008 festival in Castlemaine, so i'm definitely programming myself in for this one. Get your ideas in ASAP!

Lurking philanthropists, take note: there's also a polite request for donations. the 2009 festival had to be cancelled because feddo funding fell through, so the APC relies on you to make this happen.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 14-12-2009, 1 user comment

Steve Fielding is confused

no news there, but this is hilarious:Fielding likens same sex marriage to incest

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 27-11-2009, 5 user comments

Archive closures – letter to Senator Ludwig

Dear Senator, I am very disappointed to hear that the National Archives will be closing their offices in Darwin, Adelaide, and Hobart over the next two years due to budget cuts. As an author I find this objectionable. The planned closures will make it harder for regional authors to research primary material. Will we have to fly to Canberra to conduct research? Because the NT was administered by the Commonwealth between 1910-1978 I understand the NAA also holds the records relating to the Stolen Generations. As well, the Adelaide office of NAA holds significant records relating to child migrants from the 1940s to 1960s – part of the ‘Remembered Children’ to whom the PM apologised recently (and promised to he

Written by Jennifer Mills on 19-11-2009, 1 user comment

critical gratitude

i have just posted my piece from the EWF reader over at walking and falling for your edification and amusement.

received said reader in the mail yesterday and have already laughed out loud, nodded serious assent, shaken my fist, copied a quote into my notebook, and read a paragraph aloud to the other person in the room. it's that sort of book.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 28-10-2009, No comments

postcard party

bethsometimes I have plugged this over at my blog already, but here's a reminder to Melbourne people to get down to Sticky tomorrow between 12-4pm for the launch of from sometimes love beth: an adventure in postcards, published by Affirm Press. There will be a mass postcard-sending, so take your address book! more info here.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 9-10-2009, 1 user comment

double-duh

just listening to the book show on RN - on the poetics of hiphop.

i love it when the academics catch on. 'wait up, you guys! i'm coming too, i just have to get my pencil case!'

what do people think of the rhyming=populist theory?

... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 6-10-2009, 10 user comments

i’m sorry to interrupt…

...the whirlwind of poetry joy, but i just had to crosspost this item.

in the murder capital of australia, it's still safe to be a racist:

NATIONAL, September 10, 2009: An Alice Springs resident has responded to the alleged bashing death of an Aboriginal man by five young white men by selling “Alice Springs White Power” t-shirts and caps from his car.

And it's all happening outside the Alice Springs Town Council offices, with local police and council officials refusing at least two requests by local residents to shut the man down.

The t-shirts and caps were yesterday on display in the passenger side window of a 4WD ute parked directly across the road from the council chambers. The number plates on the vehicle read 'GANGSTA', and a hand-written sign was taped to the back passenger window advertising the shirts and caps.

The sign included pricing - $25 for a shirt, $25 for a cap or to [sic] for $35. The shirt includes a Nazi swastika symbol, and the sign includes a mobile number, 0410 366 701.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 11-09-2009, 8 user comments

knit poem

i want one.

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Written by Jennifer Mills on 20-08-2009, 1 user comment

A quick word on the Alice Springs town camps

before i rush headlong back into my friday afternoon pile o' deadlines.

Macklin's office sent out a gleeful announcement of ALP success on Wednesday, saying they had agreement from 16 town camps to the houses-for-rights swap. The "win" was reported enthusiastically in the oz (sorry, that's 'the squalid, violent, overcrowded newspaper The Australian') and elsewhere. Hmm, seems to be premature, since there is a court injunction out against the deal.

"It emerged yesterday that the leases had not yet been signed." Emerged from no less a source than careful reading of the original press release. And they say journalism is dead. ... read more

Written by Jennifer Mills on 31-07-2009, No comments