Intermezzo and Rapture and You and Me

It's our first SPOILER ALERT livestream night!

Dear Readers,

Tonight I’m driving over to Everybody’s Favourite Producer Sam’s studio to do our first ever Spoiler Alert livestream and I’m so excited. This is actually the most excited I’ve ever been about News & Reviews evolving. Over the years we’ve had a great time on the various iterations of guest posts and News & Reviews Magazine editions, and that is a glorious and beautiful archive of writing. But I miss Cool Story. Obviously nothing compares to Bridie Jabour. Spoiler Alert isn’t meant to replicate that.

Cool Story was Bridie and I talking to each other. Spoiler Alert is going to be you and I talking to each other.

With Spoiler Alert being a) behind a paywall and b) not written down, I can be way more open and honest and immediate. We’ll discuss the books we’ve set for the month, but any decent discussion about literature inevitably means a discussion about writing and life in general. I’m looking forward to talking to other readers—not just readers of my work but readers in general—as in, the kind of people who read a lot.

Any Certified Legends who’ve been with me at a workshop or on a trip know how special and excellent the vibe is. For so long I have been waiting to make some kind of internet equivalent, not knowing how to get that vibe going online. But I see now that I was putting things the wrong way around: I will start it today, yes, but actually we will make this thing together. Every month Sam and I will see what worked and what didn’t, what you liked and responded to, and as we go along Spoiler Alert will adapt to our wants and needs. It’s going to be delightfully responsive and porous.

I got a bit emotional this morning when I listened to the voice memos people had sent in for this first episode because they were just so fucking thoughtful. One made me laugh out loud! Another posed an extremely interesting question about writing that I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into! Thank you to the Five Star Nerds who sent those through. It’s great to know that Speak Pipe works so easily. I also have two recorded answers from Emily Maguire to play for you all about the ending of Rapture.

We’ll finish tonight with five or ten minutes of totally open forum, free discussion, ask-me-anything time. Who knows, maybe this becomes an agony aunt talkback show? Lol. We’re on the journey together.

For those of you who can’t make the livestream, Sam is going to package it up and make it available here to listen back to. Might take a couple of days, just stay tuned.

The next livestream is going to happen on Wednesday 18 December. Put the date in your diary now. It’s a touch later because Helen Garner’s new book, The Season, isn’t published until the very end of November. Consider this GarnerRama Round III!

I’ve chosen Theory & Practice because, as I mentioned the other week, the first forty pages have hooked me. This is what De Kretser’s publicist just emailed me though: ‘Have you finished it? I don’t want to give away any spoilers. But OMG she completely tricked me.’ Perfect material for a discussion on Spoiler Alert where we can actually discuss endings! The other great thing about this book is that it is seriously short. Pretty much a novella. I reckon most of you could finish it in one or two sittings.

Okay, enough from me for now. I’ll see you at 6.30pm. Zoom link and giveaways just here under the paywall. And also in the ‘LIVESTREAMS’ chat here.

Best wishes and happy reading,

Bri