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Last Cat On Mars and Jay Present: Handy Quotations From Even Handier Writers – #1 Thea Astley

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Hello friends. An occasional series which fulfills my need to quote quotations and to help my little friend, Dr On Mars, create setups to illustrate them.

One of my favourite (and, arguably, one of Australia’s most underrated and underappreciated writers in a broader, appreciated-by-the-reading-public sense) is Thea Astley (1925-2004) (winner of awards left, right and centre, including four Miles Franklins), so who better than to kick it off.

I had the unique privilege of meeting Thea many years ago at the Queensland Writers Festival – she was an extremely generous and kind person, and also hilarious. And she loved jazz. Mmmm, jazz …

Read Thea’s stuff as soon as you can – don’t leave the Earth without it ringing in your memory. I highly recommend Reaching Tin River, Drylands, The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, Beachmasters, Coda, Vanishing Points, A Kindness Cup – well, really, anything she wrote – just get it and read it. You will have no regrets.

You can buy some of her titles from UQP, Penguin, and Allen & Unwin, and also look for secondhand copies through ebay, or other re-sellers like Fishpond

You can also read a very excellent biography of Thea, Thea Astley – Inventing Her Own Weather, by Karen Lamb, published by one of my publishers, UQP.

Meanwhile, if you’re a writer, or fancy yourself to be so, take notice of the following quotation – live the dream, don’t procrastinate – life is short – how many other cliches can I fit on the head of a pin with all those angels?

Thea Astley quotation: Trying to carve out a good sentence. There's little else to do. I might as well give myself up to that.

 

Want a laugh at the end of a week of wailing in Queensland, and elsewhere?

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Last Cat On Mars – We Cartoon so You Don’t Have To

Then you’ve come to the right place – in a shameless bit of cross promotion, I’m inviting you to check out my friend, Last Cat On Mars, and her website over at Last Cat On Mars – original much?

What’s that I said about Queensland, sunniest state in the world for some of the shadiest people (read more about them in my novel, Spawned Secrets – shameless, shameless self-promotion. Who knew? It’s the political hysteria – it’s getting to all of us).

Look, it’s Friday afternoon,  and Australia’s Prime Minister is going to be punted by his own party sometime in the next week or so (today is Feb 6/15) – I know you’ll forgive me, and if not, then check out this amazingly even-handed, unbiased work of startling cartoonery from my idol First Dog On The Moon, the inspiration behind Last Cat On Mars. Also, here in Election One Day, Premierless The Next Queensland, we’re punchie waiting for all the pre-poll votes to be counted in and out.

Enjoy the weekend, grasshoppers, and let us conjointly pray to the Teapot Goddess for an election result in Queensland that favours integrity, kindness, aid to the most vulnerable, helpless and needy in our society, and respect for each other.