Catriona Menzies-Pike
@catrionamp.bsky.social
Editor and critic at large. SYD →YVR. I write a newsletter about literature and the internet called Infra Dig.
https://infra-dig.ghost.io
https://infra-dig.ghost.io
If only it were possible to wrest the microphone on Australian republicanism from the easy does it yacht club crowd at the ARM. The ARM promise that nothing would change in an Australian republic is yet another example of small target politics making itself irrelevant.
BREAKING NEWS: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, reports say.
Former Prince Andrew arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office: reports
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, reports say.
n.pr
February 19, 2026 at 8:46 PM
If only it were possible to wrest the microphone on Australian republicanism from the easy does it yacht club crowd at the ARM. The ARM promise that nothing would change in an Australian republic is yet another example of small target politics making itself irrelevant.
I’ve been out of action for a few weeks and not able to read much. My main response to the AWW debacle, now that I’m catching up properly, is, is this shit for real? I wrote a newsletter about risk, cancel culture and concussion. infra-dig.ghost.io/hard-surfaces/
Hard surfaces
Cancel culture strikes again? Adelaide Writers' Week, risk management, and our de facto national cultural policy settings
infra-dig.ghost.io
February 3, 2026 at 12:32 AM
I’ve been out of action for a few weeks and not able to read much. My main response to the AWW debacle, now that I’m catching up properly, is, is this shit for real? I wrote a newsletter about risk, cancel culture and concussion. infra-dig.ghost.io/hard-surfaces/
Reader, I wept.
Please don't ask me why my brain works like this, because I don't have an answer
January 17, 2026 at 4:13 AM
Reader, I wept.
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
Knut Hamsun gave his Nobel medal to Joseph Goebbels in 1943, if anyone is looking for a precedent.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
María Corina Machado says she presented Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal
The Venezuelan opposition leader did not confirm whether the US president accepted the award
www.theguardian.com
January 16, 2026 at 2:45 AM
Knut Hamsun gave his Nobel medal to Joseph Goebbels in 1943, if anyone is looking for a precedent.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
This is an excellent question. Not so long ago I would’ve expected Tony Burke - or any arts minister in an Albanese government - to defend vigorously artistic freedom in general and the artistic freedom of minorities in particular. Gutting to have been proved so wrong, so often.
Where’s Tony Burke?
It’s times like these you realise that arts ministers have no interest in defending the arts, and that govts are willing to burn millions of $ for political reasons.
Adelaide’s board has just squandered millions of $ and months of work and countless opportunities for writers…
It’s times like these you realise that arts ministers have no interest in defending the arts, and that govts are willing to burn millions of $ for political reasons.
Adelaide’s board has just squandered millions of $ and months of work and countless opportunities for writers…
January 9, 2026 at 4:05 AM
This is an excellent question. Not so long ago I would’ve expected Tony Burke - or any arts minister in an Albanese government - to defend vigorously artistic freedom in general and the artistic freedom of minorities in particular. Gutting to have been proved so wrong, so often.
Looks like National Treasure Trent Dalton is still in.
So far 42 writers have withdrawn from the Adelaide Writers Week, and I think this understates the number because they don't for eg have Peter Fitzsimons on the list, and he is definitely out. ✊
www.artshub.com.au/news/news/ad...
www.artshub.com.au/news/news/ad...
Adelaide Writers Week in disarray as more than 40 writers boycott over Board’s ‘censorship’ of Randa Abdel-Fattah
Helen Garner, Melissa Lucashenko and Zadie Smith are among the more than 40 writers to have withdrawn from Adelaide Writers Week in the last 24 hours.
www.artshub.com.au
January 9, 2026 at 2:48 AM
Looks like National Treasure Trent Dalton is still in.
Imagine being a board member of a major arts organisation, one with a long and storied history as the Adelaide Festival does, one that has flourished in spite of a federal funding and policy environment, and being willing to scupper it on such specious, racist grounds.
First withdrawal from the Adelaide Festival proper, DJ Haram www.indailysa.com.au/citymag/cult...
Writers’ Week controversy contagion spreads as music program headliner drops out - CityMag | InDaily, Inside South Australia
A major headliner of Adelaide Festival’s music program has withdrawn in the wake of the festival board’s decision to axe a Palestinian author from Writers’ Week.
www.indailysa.com.au
January 9, 2026 at 2:29 AM
Imagine being a board member of a major arts organisation, one with a long and storied history as the Adelaide Festival does, one that has flourished in spite of a federal funding and policy environment, and being willing to scupper it on such specious, racist grounds.
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
Statement from @australiainstitute.org.au on Adelaide Festival.
January 8, 2026 at 5:07 AM
Statement from @australiainstitute.org.au on Adelaide Festival.
I am stunned and saddened by this announcement. Adelaide Writers Week has been an important platform for Arab and Palestinian voices these past few years. I greatly admire director Louise Adler and her fearless advocacy for freedom of speech. There will be more to come on this story, I’m sure.
Announcement by Adelaide Writers Festival cancelling invitation to Randa Abdel-
Fattah
Fattah
Adelaide Festival Board Statement
www.adelaidefestival.com.au
January 8, 2026 at 1:55 AM
I am stunned and saddened by this announcement. Adelaide Writers Week has been an important platform for Arab and Palestinian voices these past few years. I greatly admire director Louise Adler and her fearless advocacy for freedom of speech. There will be more to come on this story, I’m sure.
An amazing set of essays to close the year, curated by my friends at the Sydney Review of Books: brilliant critics, a roving set of questions. And congratulations to Eda Gunaydin, the new Parramatta Laureate, following in the mighty footsteps of Yumna Kassab.
mailchi.mp/sydneyreview...
mailchi.mp/sydneyreview...
Our Final 2025 Update: A new Parramatta Laureate + essays to tide you over the summer
mailchi.mp
December 19, 2025 at 10:49 PM
An amazing set of essays to close the year, curated by my friends at the Sydney Review of Books: brilliant critics, a roving set of questions. And congratulations to Eda Gunaydin, the new Parramatta Laureate, following in the mighty footsteps of Yumna Kassab.
mailchi.mp/sydneyreview...
mailchi.mp/sydneyreview...
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
"Book polls are bunk but this one did make me wonder whether there is any audience left for Australian literature, good, great or middling" @catrionamp.bsky.social infra-dig.ghost.io/books-in-cri...
Books in Crisis
On the books we don't need about Bondi
infra-dig.ghost.io
December 19, 2025 at 9:29 AM
"Book polls are bunk but this one did make me wonder whether there is any audience left for Australian literature, good, great or middling" @catrionamp.bsky.social infra-dig.ghost.io/books-in-cri...
In my last newsletter of the year, I let off steam about Trent Dalton, The Mushroom Tapes, Australian publishing and the books I hope - likely in vain - will not be commissioned in the aftermath of the Bondi tragedy. infra-dig.ghost.io/books-in-cri...
Books in Crisis
On the books we don't need about Bondi
infra-dig.ghost.io
December 19, 2025 at 7:21 PM
In my last newsletter of the year, I let off steam about Trent Dalton, The Mushroom Tapes, Australian publishing and the books I hope - likely in vain - will not be commissioned in the aftermath of the Bondi tragedy. infra-dig.ghost.io/books-in-cri...
Hoo boy!
‘Dalton demonstrates over and over again that he is incapable of presenting his declared themes with any nuance or gravitas or pathos, or even credibility.’
Maybe - just maybe - Trent Dalton is not a national treasure?
‘Dalton demonstrates over and over again that he is incapable of presenting his declared themes with any nuance or gravitas or pathos, or even credibility.’
Maybe - just maybe - Trent Dalton is not a national treasure?
December 1, 2025 at 4:39 AM
Hoo boy!
‘Dalton demonstrates over and over again that he is incapable of presenting his declared themes with any nuance or gravitas or pathos, or even credibility.’
Maybe - just maybe - Trent Dalton is not a national treasure?
‘Dalton demonstrates over and over again that he is incapable of presenting his declared themes with any nuance or gravitas or pathos, or even credibility.’
Maybe - just maybe - Trent Dalton is not a national treasure?
Who else remembers Pyne’s extemporising on Australian history when he was education minister? Absolute rubbish appointment
What a brain-dead dumb, completely shite appointment. @tonyburkemp.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 3:59 AM
Who else remembers Pyne’s extemporising on Australian history when he was education minister? Absolute rubbish appointment
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
Catriona Menzies-Pike on ‘critical provincialism’: ‘I’d advocate for a set of reading practices that stay close to the contours of place and culture, that let themselves be informed by topography and history’. Yes!
I wrote a long piece for the SRB on Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, international literary success, and the heightened tension between universalising and provincial readings when Australian novels go global.
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
The Monastery and the Monaro | Sydney Review of Books
How do Australian writers find an overseas readership? Reviewing the highly acclaimed Stone Yard Devotional, Catriona Menzies-Pike surveys the critical oversights and abstractions that allow stories f...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Catriona Menzies-Pike on ‘critical provincialism’: ‘I’d advocate for a set of reading practices that stay close to the contours of place and culture, that let themselves be informed by topography and history’. Yes!
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
I wrote a long piece for the SRB on Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, international literary success, and the heightened tension between universalising and provincial readings when Australian novels go global.
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
The Monastery and the Monaro | Sydney Review of Books
How do Australian writers find an overseas readership? Reviewing the highly acclaimed Stone Yard Devotional, Catriona Menzies-Pike surveys the critical oversights and abstractions that allow stories f...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:38 AM
I wrote a long piece for the SRB on Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, international literary success, and the heightened tension between universalising and provincial readings when Australian novels go global.
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
If, when I wrote this piece in 2022, you’d asked me whether Boy Swallows Universe would’ve been judged best book of the century so far in a poll of 288K readers, I think I would’ve said, yeah naaaaah. But here we are.
Re-reading @catrionamp.bsky.social's review of ABC Radio National listeners' dismal pick for best novel of the 21st century to calm myself down. sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/crit...
Critic Swallows Book | Sydney Review of Books
To call into question the literary value of Dalton’s fiction is not to disqualify the pleasure and imaginative release that hundreds of thousands of readers have found in his novels, especially Boy Sw...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:52 PM
If, when I wrote this piece in 2022, you’d asked me whether Boy Swallows Universe would’ve been judged best book of the century so far in a poll of 288K readers, I think I would’ve said, yeah naaaaah. But here we are.
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
@secondmentions.bsky.social 'the polarizing spread'
A man in Australia is challenging a state's ban on Vegemite in prisons, claiming that denying him the polarizing spread violates his human rights.
Murderer sues for right to eat Vegemite in prison
A convicted murderer in Australia is challenging a state's ban on Vegemite in prisons, claiming that denying him the polarizing spread violates his human rights.
bit.ly
November 18, 2025 at 1:16 PM
@secondmentions.bsky.social 'the polarizing spread'
I wrote a long piece for the SRB on Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, international literary success, and the heightened tension between universalising and provincial readings when Australian novels go global.
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
The Monastery and the Monaro | Sydney Review of Books
How do Australian writers find an overseas readership? Reviewing the highly acclaimed Stone Yard Devotional, Catriona Menzies-Pike surveys the critical oversights and abstractions that allow stories f...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:38 AM
I wrote a long piece for the SRB on Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, international literary success, and the heightened tension between universalising and provincial readings when Australian novels go global.
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
I signed off on my review of The Mushroom Tapes before the book got the gold plate publicity treatment over the weekend. When I write that it’s hard to differentiate this book from the torrents of chatter about the case, it’s not a positive evaluation.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
The Mushroom Tapes review – Erin Patterson through the eyes of Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein
This account of what the three authors observed during Patterson’s triple murder trial does resemble a podcast transcript at times, but it is extremely readable
www.theguardian.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:59 PM
I signed off on my review of The Mushroom Tapes before the book got the gold plate publicity treatment over the weekend. When I write that it’s hard to differentiate this book from the torrents of chatter about the case, it’s not a positive evaluation.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
I signed off on my review of The Mushroom Tapes before the book got the gold plate publicity treatment over the weekend. When I write that it’s hard to differentiate this book from the torrents of chatter about the case, it’s not a positive evaluation.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
The Mushroom Tapes review – Erin Patterson through the eyes of Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein
This account of what the three authors observed during Patterson’s triple murder trial does resemble a podcast transcript at times, but it is extremely readable
www.theguardian.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:59 PM
I signed off on my review of The Mushroom Tapes before the book got the gold plate publicity treatment over the weekend. When I write that it’s hard to differentiate this book from the torrents of chatter about the case, it’s not a positive evaluation.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
The defenestration of Andrew is a good start. But why stop there? www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...
October 30, 2025 at 11:20 PM
The defenestration of Andrew is a good start. But why stop there? www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...
I suppose not taking a massive step backwards counts as a win. I wrote for Crikey about copyright, AI, Anthropic and the TDM exemption that the Albanese government has finally ruled out.
If the Productivity Commission had any credibility to provide advice on either copyright or cultural policy in the first place, it has squandered it.
Sure, tech giants can't train AI on copyright content for now, but the battle isn't over
www.crikey.com.au
October 30, 2025 at 11:11 PM
I suppose not taking a massive step backwards counts as a win. I wrote for Crikey about copyright, AI, Anthropic and the TDM exemption that the Albanese government has finally ruled out.
Some personal news: I’m a baseball fan now. 🤷♀️
Rufus Wainwright sings O Canada in English and French at World Series — and changes lyrics to “only *us* command.”
That’s some #Montréal spirit, là!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYA4...
That’s some #Montréal spirit, là!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYA4...
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: O CANADA: MLB WORLD SERIES 2O25 GAME 5: TORONTO BLUE JAYS VS. LOS ANGELES DODGERS
YouTube video by SPORTS VIDEO CHANNEL
www.youtube.com
October 30, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Some personal news: I’m a baseball fan now. 🤷♀️
Reposted by Catriona Menzies-Pike
Canada will remember.
October 29, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Canada will remember.
