JM Donellan

Recent happenings.

  • Boycott everything for no reason!

    Working in the arts, you have to expect the odd negative review and the conventional wisdom is to just ignore them. However, I honestly never expected that anyone would ever care enough about my work to call for a boycott, and I DEFINITELY did not think that anyone would ever be demented enough to call…

  • Poetry is Dead at Wonderland Festival hooray hurrah *fireworks and guitar solos*!!!

      Dearest humans, It is with great pride and an appropriately stupendous array of confetti canon explosions that we announce that Poetry is Dead will be performing at this year’s Wonderland festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse! This year I’ve performed solo at Sydney Writers’ Festival, Brisbane Writers’ Festival, Noted Literary Festival, Ruckus Slam, The Australian…

  • HBO: why don’t you want my money?

    Dearest HBO, Why don’t you want my money? Is it a moral thing, are you worried that my income is derived from heinously unethical sources like contract killing, drug dealing or writing for Newscorp? Because I can assure you, all of my income is legitimately earned (well, assuming you can call art ‘legitimate’…) Would you like…

  • A Day In The Li(f)e of a New York Limes Best Smelling Author

    Writers are often asked: “What’s your daily process?” I assume this is because many people entertain the outlandish fantasy that most writers wake up late, stare philosophically into the middle distance for an hour or two, do about twenty minutes of actual work and then spend the rest of the day hanging out in opium…

  • The Theory of Everything

    I’m tremendously excited to be have worked on The Theory of Everything as a part of the Brisbane Festival. The director, Thomas Quirk, produced one of my all time favourite theatrical works, The Raven, which was an interactive performance piece about Edgar Allen Poe. It also starred one of my best friends, the supernaturally brilliant…

  • TODAY’S HOROSCOPE: TAURUS

      Your flesh will be devoured by a rare, unpronounceable and utterly incurable disease. You will die poor, alone and in agony. Your funeral will be unattended, dogs will defecate on your grave and you will never again utter the words: ‘horoscope writing? Is that even a real job?’

  • 100 books a year

    For the last five years I’ve read a minimum of 100 books each lap around the sun. Here’s a quick rundown of my most rated, most hated, most celebrated and most complicated from the first half of 2015. Have you ever wished that a renowned author would tackle Arthurian legend in the form of an…

  • Sydney Airport: Please Tell Your Robots To Stop Sexually Harassing Me In The Bathroom

    Dearest Sydney Airport, I like to think we know each other pretty well. You’ve made me remove various items of clothing and screened me for explosives many times. I’ve slept in your chairs, consumed your Krispy Kreme products with jet-lagged jaws and recently you’ve even been kind enough to stock my latest novel in your…

  • Love and Psychopaths

    Oh hey there everyone! In super magic big plus exciting times news: I recently handed in the manuscript for my new novel to Pantera Press! Hopefully they like it, otherwise I’ll just print it out and drive around throwing it onto people’s lawns which will be very expensive and time consuming and also possibly injure…

  • The Eternal Artist Callout

    Look, I’m old school about these things. I know I could go to comic book conventions and try and ‘network’ and all that jazz but it just feels awkward and unnatural. I’d rather spend my time eating all the delicious buffet food that the actors take for granted and try to explain to security guards that…