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Articles by Sally Breen
How do I get my book published? 5 experts share their top tips
So, you’ve written a book – or you want to write one. How do you take the next step and actually get it published? As a former publisher myself, I’m conscious many people wonder: should I get an agent, or should I approach publishers directly? You can do either, and both options have their advantages: an agent will have existing relationships with publishers and will pitch your book for you (in exchange for a percentage of what you’re eventually paid).
A siren song to the past’ by Sally Breen
The promotional material for The Last Ship, a musical written, composed, and starring global pop music icon Sting, suggests a post-apocalyptic world: Sting’s moody face emerges from a muted blue gloom, a nuclear explosion between a broken ship and some gantry cranes. Sting’s end-of-world version of Noah’s ark, perhaps, and the first glimpse of the set, seem to confirm this. A huge wooden bow looms over the theatre.
Friday essay: I grew up fearing Queensland cops. Then I hung out with 17 Gold Coast detectives
Knowing happened in the inner city, where the cops could throw your mates with mohawks into the back of a paddy wagon just for walking down the street. Knowing happened in heavy-handed drug raids, where their dogs tried to eat your cats, or at the tail end of loose parties, or in desperate domestic violence calls where it was hard to tell if a man or a woman in blue was your saviour or your enemy.
Friday essay: I grew up fearing Queensland cops. Then I hung out with 17 Gold Coast detectives
© 2026 Tolerance.ca ® Inc. All reproduction rights reserved. All information reproduced on the Web pages of www.tolerance.ca (including articles, images, photographs, and logos) is protected by intellectual property rights owned by Tolerance.ca ® Inc. or, in certain cases, by its author. Any reproduction of the information for use other than personal use is prohibited.
Friday essay: I grew up fearing Queensland cops. Then I hung out with 17 Gold Coast detectives
If you grew up in Queensland, Australia, in the late 20th century, you were taught to hate cops. It’s not like they did it in school or there was a standard issue training camp or anything. Knowing happened in things you saw. Sally Breen aged 13, when she started going to Blue Light Discos. Sally Breen I went to the Blue Light Discos in dingy Police Youth Centres that looked different at night with the dance-floor lights spinning.
Would you use AI to break writer’s block? We asked 5 experts
The founder and chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing, responsible for blockbuster romantasy author Sarah J. Maas and literary heavyweights like George Saunders, has suggested AI “will probably help creativity” – including by helping authors defeat writer’s block. “AI gets them going and writes the first paragraph, or first chapter, and gets them back in the zone,” he said.
Best Australian books of the 21st century: as chosen by 50 experts Original
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Like so many avid readers around the world, I was fascinated by the recent New York Times list of the Best Books of the 21st century, as voted by 503 authors, critics and book lovers. But like many Australians, I was disappointed to see no Australian books on the list. Even those authors who’ve made a splash in the US literary scene this century – Helen Garner, Gerald Murnane, Maria Tumarkin – didn’t get a guernsey. That’s where we come in.
By Jo Case Verified, Aidan Coleman, Alexander Cothren, Alexander Howard, Ali Mohammad Alizadeh, Amanda Tink, Astrid Edwards, Brenda Walker, Brian Castro, Brigid Magner, Brigitta Olubas, Briohny Doyle, Camilla Nelson, Carol Lefevre, Clare Wright, Danielle Wood, David McCooey, Debra Adelaide, Edwina Preston, Elfie Shiosaki, Emmett Stinson, Hsu-Ming Teo, Jane Gleeson-White, Jen Webb, Julian Novitz, Julieanne Lamond, Jumana Bayeh, Kevin Brophy, Leah Jing McIntosh, Liz Evans, Lyn McCredden, Lynda Ng, Maggie Nolan, Matthew Lamb, Monique Rooney, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Natalie Kon-yu, Nicholas Jose, Paul Giles, Penni Russon, Ronnie Scott, Sally Breen, Sarah Holland-Batt, Sian Prior, Stephen Romei, Tanya Dalziell, Tom Doig, Tony Hughes-D'Aeth, Vijay Mishra, Yves Rees
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The Conversation
Verified
Miranda July’s maternal midlife novel is like the quirk porn nightmare of an egomaniac. Cathy Sweeney’s is stunningly good
© 2024 Tolerance.ca ® Inc. All reproduction rights reserved. All information reproduced on the Web pages of www.tolerance.ca (including articles, images, photographs, and logos) is protected by intellectual property rights owned by Tolerance.ca ® Inc. or, in certain cases, by its author. Any reproduction of the information for use other than personal use is prohibited.
Miranda July’s maternal midlife novel is like the quirk porn nightmare of an egomaniac. Cathy Sweeney’s is stunningly good Original
Generation X and their little brothers and sisters have hit middle age and it’s not pretty. Turns out not ending up resembling your Boomer parents is harder than you might think. We should have realised mid-life disquiet for Gen X would usher in existential crisis – we’re good at it. Gen X are not the first to get angsty: wrestling with the trials and tribulations of reaching a half century has a long literary history. (Dante’s mid-life crisis gestated the Divine Comedy).
Miranda July’s maternal midlife novel is like the quirk porn nightmare of an egomaniac. Cathy Sweeney’s is stunningly good
Written by Sally Breen, Associate Professor, Griffith University Generation X and their little brothers and sisters have hit middle age and it’s not pretty. Turns out not ending up resembling your Boomer parents is harder than you might think. We should have realised mid-life disquiet for Gen X would usher in existential crisis – we’re good at it. Gen X are not the first to get angsty: wrestling with the trials and tribulations of reaching a half century has a long literary history.
Changeling warrior Robyn Davidson has never been lost. She’s a seeker with the courage to keep looking Original
Most people know Robyn Davidson as the camel lady, a young woman of 27 who walked over 2,700 kilometres across Australian deserts to the sea with four camels and a dog. A journey captured in her 1980 memoir Tracks.
Changeling warrior Robyn Davidson has never been lost. She’s a seeker with the courage to keep looking
© 2024 Tolerance.ca ® Inc. All reproduction rights reserved. All information reproduced on the Web pages of www.tolerance.ca (including articles, images, photographs, and logos) is protected by intellectual property rights owned by Tolerance.ca ® Inc. or, in certain cases, by its author. Any reproduction of the information for use other than personal use is prohibited.
Helter Skelter is the most famous book on the Manson murders. It might not be true.
In 2016, scholars from Lomonosov University in Russia examined The New York Times coverage of Manson, from the time of his arrest to his sentencing. They found: The New York Times journalists depict Charles Manson as a nationwide celebrity and a mystic monster and endow him with supernatural properties and outstanding abilities. Such depiction has a great influence on the audience’s perception of the killer.
'A nightmare B-side to the American dream': Helter Skelter is the bestselling true crime book of all time - but how true is it?
By Sally Breen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University Helter Skelter was the first and most famous book claiming to tell the ‘truth’ about the 1969 Manson murders. Sally Breen explores the myths and conflicting truths that have emerged over nearly 50 years. Read complete article © The Conversation -
‘A nightmare B-side to the American dream’: Helter Skelter is the bestselling true crime book of all time - but how true is it? Original
Approaching midnight on August 8, 1969, an old Ford left Spahn Ranch, an abandoned Western movie set outside Los Angeles. The ramshackle commune housed a group of misfits and renegades who would come to be known globally as the Manson family. There were four people in the car: Charles “Tex” Watson and three women, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle and Linda Kasabian.
Lolita: why this 'vivid, illicit' portrait of a pervert matters at a time of endless commodification of young girls
© 2023 Tolerance.ca ® Inc. All reproduction rights reserved. All information reproduced on the Web pages of www.tolerance.ca (including articles, images, photographs, and logos) is protected by intellectual property rights owned by Tolerance.ca ® Inc. or, in certain cases, by its author. Any reproduction of the information for use other than personal use is prohibited.
why this 'vivid, illicit' portrait of a pervert matters at a time of endless commodification of young girls
This is part of an occasional series, making the case for or against controversial books. In his afterword “On a Book Entitled Lolita”, Vladimir Nabokov never mentions the word paedophile. He never mentions the word rape either. In his mind, Lolita is not about a man sexually and mentally abusing a 12-year-old girl. The novel is about him getting at America. Which is about as damning an assessment of a culture as you’re ever going to get.
why this 'vivid, illicit' portrait of a pervert matters at a time of endless commodification of young girls
This is part of an occasional series, making the case for or against controversial books. In his afterword “On a Book Entitled Lolita”, Vladimir Nabokov never mentions the word paedophile. He never mentions the word rape either. In his mind, Lolita is not about a man sexually and mentally abusing a 12-year-old girl. The novel is about him getting at America. Which is about as damning an assessment of a culture as you’re ever going to get.
Damsels in distress: two new Australian novels fail to achieve their literary ambitions
The covers of two new Australian novels, Hydra and Faithless, play into a current design trend in Australian publishing. Faceless women in various states of melodramatic distress – either flung over furniture, or pictured against blurred or monochromatic backgrounds. Arms, hands or long, dishevelled hair conceal their faces. It’s a trend spurred on, no doubt, by the runaway success of Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss.
How Eve Babitz’s book ‘Sex and Rage’ changed my life
I first read Eve Babitz at the tail end of the 20th century, holed up in the rumpus room of my parent’s house in north suburban Brisbane in exile from my bad behaviour on the Gold Coast. I had found Eve by accident, trawling through all the literature I could find written about Los Angeles. I was doing a PhD, trying to write a book and drawing connections between her dream city and my own California in miniature, the Gold Coast.
The book that changed me: falling for Eve Babitz's Sex and Rage
In this series, writers nominate a book that changed their life - or at least their thinking. I first read Eve Babitz at the tail end of the 20th century, holed up in the rumpus room of my parent's house in north suburban Brisbane in exile from my bad behaviour on the Gold Coast. I'd found Eve by accident, trawling through all the literature I could find written about Los Angeles.
falling for Eve Babitz's Sex and Rage
In this series, writers nominate a book that changed their life – or at least their thinking. I first read Eve Babitz at the tail end of the 20th century, holed up in the rumpus room of my parent’s house in north suburban Brisbane in exile from my bad behaviour on the Gold Coast. I’d found Eve by accident, trawling through all the literature I could find written about Los Angeles.
We Get There in the End: "Return to the Dirt" Pulls Back the Curtain on Life and Death in a Funeral Home
Review: Return to the Dirt, written by Steve Pirie and directed by Lee Lewis, Queensland Theatre I head to the world premiere of Return to the Dirt by Steve Pirie without reading the press materials. I like to go in uninfluenced, and that’s hard these days, to avoid the trickle-down effects of hype even for a play at the Queensland Theatre Company in the Netflix age. I’d gleaned Return to the Dirt was about men and depression and suicide.
We get there in the end: Return to the Dirt pulls back the curtain on life and death in a funeral home
Review: Return to the Dirt, written by Steve Pirie and directed by Lee Lewis, Queensland Theatre I head to the world premiere of Return to the Dirt by Steve Pirie without reading the press materials. I like to go in uninfluenced, and that’s hard these days, to avoid the trickle down effects of hype even for a play at the Queensland Theatre Company in the Netflix age. I’d gleaned Return to the Dirt was about men and depression and suicide.
Why There’s Still Something About Byron Bay, Beyond Insta Influencers and Beige Line
Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University It’s more than good coffee and Instagram, Sure it’s that too. But it’s also more. Photo: Unsplash/Delphine Ducaruge, CC BY When town planners mapped Byron Bay in 1884, they mistakenly believed Captain James Cook had named Cape Byron after the English poet Lord Byron — when in fact it was named after the poet’s grandfather, a navy admiral.
Friday essay: why there's still something about Byron, beyond Insta influencers and beige linen
When town planners mapped Byron Bay in 1884 they mistakenly believed Captain James Cook had named Cape Byron after the English poet Lord Byron — when in fact it was named after the poet’s grandfather, a navy admiral. From that mistaken belief, say local historians, many of Byron’s streets were given the names of famous English poets or literary figures such as Wordsworth, Browning, Milton, Marvel, Jonson, Kingsley, Carlyle Tennyson and Keats.
My favourite detective: In the Cut's Frannie Thorstin and her fatal attractions
Tue Mar 30 Written by Sally Breen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University In this series, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen. Frannie Thorstin, the narrator of Susanna Moore’s neo-noir novel In The Cut (1995) is a collector of urban slang. A divorced English professor living alone, she is writing a book on dialects.
In the Cut's Frannie Thorstin and her fatal attractions
In this series, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen. Frannie Thorstin, the narrator of Susanna Moore’s neo-noir novel In The Cut (1995) is a collector of urban slang. A divorced English professor living alone, she is writing a book on dialects. So, the novel is peppered with eclectic lists of words that connect to the themes of the book — desire, sexual obsession and violence against women.
Meridian: The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology of New Writing
Home | Handpicked | New Arrivals | Support | Our Publishers | About | Contact | On Sale Home > California Studies > Meridian: The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology of New Writing Sally Breen, Ravi Shankar & Tim Tomlinson, Editors Pub Date:12/20/2020 Publisher: Drunken Boat Media Product Number:9780988241633 ISBN978-0-9882416-3-3 SKU #: B04E Binding:PAPERBACK Pages:224 Weight0 lbs.9 oz. Quantity Available: 13 Price: $ 19.95 Description Links & Reviews Author Bio Description Poetry. Fiction.
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MENU☰ Sort By: Products Per Page: 9780988241633 28 Currently In Stock PAPERBACK $19.95 12/20/2020 Meridian: The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology of New Writing Drunken Boat Media By Sally Breen, Ravi Shankar & Tim Tomlinson, Editors Poetry. Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. California Interest. MERIDIAN: THE APWT DRUNKEN BOAT ANTHOLOGY OF NEW WRITING is a rousing collection of 37 voices, both established and emerging, from over 14 countries. This ric... Learn More...
My favourite detective - News, Research and Analysis - The Conversation - page 1
Articles Contributors Links Displaying all articles In the Cut (2003) IMDB March 29, 2021 English professor Frannie Thorstin gets tangled in a sticky web of male attention in the novel and film versions of In the Cut as she tries to sort the bad guys from the good. Portrait of Vasily Mathé by Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927). Later used as cover art for a set of Martin Hewitt detective stories.
Brazen Hussies: a new film captures the heady, turbulent power of Australia's women's liberation movement
Review: Brazen Hussies, directed by Catherine Dwyer, Brisbane International Film Festival. The moment feminist author Kate Jennings took to the microphone at a moratorium on the front lawn of Sydney University in 1970 is presented as a galvanising catalyst of Australia’s women’s liberation movement in Catherine Dwyer’s documentary film Brazen Hussies. We learn it was the first time the paragons of the male left had deigned to allow a woman to speak. And speak back to them she did.
Brazen Hussies: a new film captures the heady, turbulent power of Australia’s women’s liberation movement
The moment feminist author Kate Jennings took to the microphone at a moratorium on the front lawn of Sydney University in 1970 is presented as a galvanising catalyst of Australia’s women’s liberation movement in Catherine Dwyer’s documentary film Brazen Hussies. We learn it was the first time the paragons of the male left had deigned to allow a woman to speak. And speak back to them she did. It suits you to keep women in the kitchen and in underpaid menial jobs.
a new film captures the heady, turbulent power of Australia's women's liberation movement
Review: Brazen Hussies, directed by Catherine Dwyer, Brisbane International Film Festival. The moment feminist author Kate Jennings took to the microphone at a moratorium on the front lawn of Sydney University in 1970 is presented as a galvanising catalyst of Australia’s women’s liberation movement in Catherine Dwyer’s documentary film Brazen Hussies. We learn it was the first time the paragons of the male left had deigned to allow a woman to speak. And speak back to them she did.
Friday essay: why there's still something about Byron, beyond Insta influencers and beige linen
When town planners mapped Byron Bay in 1884 they mistakenly believed Captain James Cook had named Cape Byron after the English poet Lord Byron — when in fact it was named after the poet’s grandfather, a navy admiral. From that mistaken belief, say local historians, many of Byron’s streets were given the names of famous English poets or literary figures such as Wordsworth, Browning, Milton, Marvel, Jonson, Kingsley, Carlyle Tennyson and Keats.
Friday essay: make some noise - the (forbidden) joy of crowds
I live in what was one of the noisiest city precincts, pre-pandemic, in the country — Surfers Paradise — golden lit, white noise jewel of the Gold Coast. The pandemonium vibe both natural and man-made, big waves crashing right up to the edges of the cityscape competing with the clangour of human joy and the human stain.
Friday essay: thrills, booze and athleisure gear - writing on the road
Two of the best known 20th century road stories are arguably On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. In 1959 Kerouac appeared on the Steve Allen show – smouldering, all chiselled jaw and on the good edge of tanked. Kerouac answered Allen’s question about the Beat generation he was supposed to have defined with a resigned air.
Helter Skelter is the bestselling true crime book of all time - but how true is it?
Approaching midnight on August 8, 1969, an old Ford left Spahn Ranch, an abandoned Western movie set outside Los Angeles. The ramshackle commune housed a group of misfits and renegades who would come to be known globally as the Manson family. There were four people in the car: Charles “Tex” Watson and three women, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle and Linda Kasabian.
Friday essay: love hurts - on a life of sports fandom
When you grow up with no books in the house except maybe the full Readers Digest set of Catherine Cooksons and Bert Ryan’s Guide to Fishing you worship other heroes. The great battles in life are not going down in drama theatres, they’re not happening in-between the dusty covers of old books, they’re happening every weekend on sporting fields. I know this because my dad and everyone else in my suburb is into sport, and really, I have no choice. The other thing is – I like it.
The Cure's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
The album is an artistic statement, a swag of songs greater than the sum of its parts. In a new series, our authors nominate their favourites. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, The Cure’s seventh studio album is an 18-track, 70-minute plus extravagance of pure theatre. The album that cracked America and the endlessness of international suburbia. An album that gave us excuses for a thousand hours spent on dizzy edges, beds made of flowers, daylight licking us into shape. 1987.
Friday essay: the 90s - why you had to be there
Van Gogh shot himself in a wheat field. Kurt Cobain in a greenhouse. Van Gogh took two days to die. Cobain’s shot was more effective. On a chilly, wintry morning in Melbourne, there are far more people lining up at the NGV for the Van Gogh exhibition than there ever will be for an exhibition on the 1990s. This is only fitting. A world travelling exhibition – Van Gogh and the Seasons vs the press call for Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990s.
A Rock & Roll Writers Festival brings a much-needed spark to Australia's literary scene
You could be forgiven for thinking that the last thing Australia’s cultural arena needs is another bloody writers festival. Today’s big city festivals and their regional counterparts use the same formats, are expensive, predictable, safe and reek of easy privilege. It’s a space that has required reinvigoration for some time. Enter A Rock & Roll Writers Festival, at The Old Museum in Brisbane on April 1 and 2.
Can an album still define the times? Oh Well. Whatever. Nevermind.
It’s 1991. In the basement nightclub Green on the bottom of the Land’s Office building in Brisbane city I’m late and most of my friends are already inside. I can’t see anyone I know in the smoky haze and the club looks different. Hundreds of posters hang from the ceiling – a baby swimming under water with a hundred dollar note floating in front of its face. Nevermind Nirvana.
Reject 'modernization' of nuclear arsenal that threatens life on Earth - The Portland Press Herald
WINDHAM — William J. Perry, a former U.S. secretary of defense, recently published a book titled “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink.” Perry was also instrumental in producing a 10-week online class through Stanford University called “Living at the Nuclear Brink.” This class takes the student from the development of the first nuclear weapon through today’s world stockpile of 15,375 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia account for 93 percent of them.
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