I recently went to the launch of Us Karen – it was huge. There were over 300 people there and around 300 books were sold. Wow. And I realised that the secret to its success was largely down to the subject matter. The author, Richard Dove, had chosen to write about an oppressed ethnic minority – the Karen people of Burma. So I’ve done the same thing, only I’ve written about New Zealanders, a people forced to leave their homeland to come to Australia and live on the dole.
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Sad Jokes
Have you ever noticed that jokes are always funny? Well, they’re meant to be. Why don’t we have sad jokes? I’m serious. There’s a standard format for all jokes: there’s a set-up – or story – then there’s the punch line – which is funny. Why don’t we have punch lines which are profound, poignant and a little sad?
Like, there’s an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman go into a bar and the barman says, ‘My father used to beat me. But abusive childhoods are quite common in the hospitality industry.’
It’s just an idea.
The human heart is like a water pump.
It looks fine; it sounds fine. But if you don’t look after it, if you’re always running hot, or your system’s full of shit, your impeller blades wear down, your bushes go, your gaskets start to leak. But it still looks and sounds fine, till suddenly one day you find yourself stopped at the roadside, boiling over. You open your bonnet and you say, shit, my water pump’s fucked.
Look after your heart.
Shortlisted for Ada Cambridge Award
Jonathan has been short listed for the Ada Cambridge Award, as part of the Williamstown Literary Festival. Winners to be announced in May.
Printing as we speak: The Bits That Didn’t Fit
Coming Soon
The Bits that didn’t Fit is a collection of stories inhabited by the loose nuts, bolts and washers of society. Tales told by the queer, the quirky and the downright demented.
The misfits of society. The sad, the sick, the funny and the tragic. The bits that don’t fit.
My father used to tell me stories, when I was young, about the men he worked with on ships and at power stations. He worked in a very male world, a world where men did crazy things. His tales were always funny and frequently tragic. [Read more…] about Printing as we speak: The Bits That Didn’t Fit