Spring Season '25
Welcome to the Spring Season of News & Reviews. Beginning Tuesday 21 October and running for eight weeks, this is the trial run of our new format: a seasonal online readers and writers festival.
All livestreams begin at 6.30pm Sydney time and are free to watch live. Paying annual members are able to ‘catch up’ later, listening to recordings as podcasts or watching videos here on Substack.
Spring Season Program
TUESDAY 21 OCTOBER - Touch Some Grass with Antonia Pont - Every season we’ll begin with titles that teach us how to live better, this time we’re discussing: Plain Life by Antonia Pont and How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell.
TUESDAY 28 OCTOBER - Big Book Club 1/3 - The Reddit thread participants have chosen The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft.
TUESDAY 4 NOVEMBER - The News in Literature with Amani Haydar - A celebration and honouring of recent Palestinian literature, discussing: Cactus Pear For My Beloved by Samah Sabawi; Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah; One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar el Akkad; and The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience by Plestia Alaqad.
TUESDAY 11 NOVEMBER - Genre Report with Olivia O’Flynn and Anthea Bariamis - A regular segment to take the juicy stuff seriously, discussing: Ever Blessed by Olivia O’Flynn; Katabasis and Babel by RF Kuang; Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Scwab; and Alchemised by SenLinYu.
TUESDAY 18 NOVEMBER - Big Book Club 2/3
MONDAY 24 NOVEMBER - Ocean Vuong Deep Dive with Jaclyn Crupi - Discussing Vuong’s fiction titles: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Empire of Gladness.
WEDNESDAY 3 DECEMBER - Ocean Vuong Deep Dive with Shastra Deo Shastra is going to teach us how to read a poem, then how to specifically read Vuong’s poems: Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time is a Mother.
TUESDAY 9 DECEMBER - Big Book Club #3 and Summer Reading Guide - finishing The Books of Jacob and finishing the year together by making a collective reading guide.
Please allow me to introduce the guest authors and publisher’s you’ll be hearing from.
Antonia Pont is a writer, thinker and yogi. Her latest book is Plain Life: On thinking, feeling and deciding. Working between philosophy and the body, she investigates how we might live with less suffering to cultivate intelligent and creative ways to care for each other and our world. She is also Associate Professor Writing, Literature & Culture at Deakin University.
Amani Haydar is an artist, lawyer, mum and advocate for women’s health and safety based in Western Sydney. She is the author of the award-winning memoir, The Mother Wound.
Olivia O’Flynn is an award-winning writer whose work has been long-listed for the 2022 Richell Prize, and won silver at the 2024 Anthem Awards. Her debut novel Ever Blessed, is a fantasy-romance that weaves together love, magic and mythology. She is currently working on the second installment of the Tides of Ever series.
Anthea Bariamis is a publisher at Simon & Schuster Australia, where she has worked since 2018. She was shortlisted for the ABIA Commissioning Editor/Publisher of the Year in 2024 and 2025. In 2025, Anthea launched Atria Books Australia, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Australia.
Shastra Deo is the author of two poetry collections, The Agonist and The Exclusion Zone.
Jaclyn Crupi is a long-time friend of N&R. Jaclyn is a book editor, event moderator, awards judge, and bookseller. She is passionate about connecting books and readers. Her latest books include Planting for Native Birds, Bees and Butterflies: How to create a garden that attracts Australian wildlife, and Pasta Love: How to make, eat and celebrate pasta like an Italian.
All of these guest authors are getting paid. They’re getting paid a very measly honorarium, but it’s something. I’d like to pay them more. Please consider becoming a paying subscriber.
Rich Aunty Reachout
Five Star Nerd Penelope asked if there was a way she could gift a broke stranger a subscription—someone who wants to be a member, to take part in the chats in the livestreams and be able to catch up on the Spring Season episodes when they go up as podcasts, but who can’t afford it. (Thank you, Penelope!)
So, I’ve created a page at the end of the Five Star Noodle Exchange and it’s called Rich Aunty Reachout.
If you can’t afford an annual subscription, drop your Substack username and a little about yourself in the spreadsheet, and cross your fingers for a Rich Aunty to swoop in with the N&R equivalent of a pineapple in a birthday card.
And to all the Rich Aunties: if you already know the email address of the person you’d like to give a gift subscription to, just head over here and fill out the form!
How to Catch Up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Thanks to Producer Sam, here are simple steps to link your accounts and listen on your favourite app. :)
Spotify
First go to the News & Reviews Substack homepage
Click on the “Podcast” tab
Click on the podcast episode you would like to listen to
Make sure you have logged into your Spotify account before going to the next step
On the right-hand side under where it says “Listen on” click Spotify
It may then ask you to link your Substack and Spotify accounts. This is so it can read if you are a paying subscriber or not
After you link the accounts, you should be able to listen to the Spring Season of News & Reviews (and our old episodes) on Spotify!
Apple (Forewarning, we have had quite a few issues with Apple podcasts, and it may be a bit more difficult to listen on than Spotify.)
You will need to Add the private Apple Podcast RSS feed into your Apple podcasts app (either on your phone or desktop)
Please ensure you are logged into both Substack and Apple podcasts before taking these steps
Open the Apple Podcast app and go to the Library Tab
Tap on the 3 dots icon
Select “Follow a Show by URL”
Paste the RSS feed URL into the provided field: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/423190/s/256370.rss
Then tap “follow” to subscribe to the private podcast
You can also (apparently) do it from within the Substack app (see photo):
