JM Donellan

Category: misanthropy

  • THIS IS THE EIGHTH OR NINTH WORST THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY EVER HAPPEN.

      A bad thing happened last week. One of the worst things that can happen, actually. Well, almost. If you wrote a list of the 100 worst things you could possibly imagine occurring with ‘stepping on a thumbtack’ at the bottom and 'nuclear holocaust' or 'waking up next to Kochie'  at the absolute top, then this…

  • Dear Arts council of QLD, I regret to inform you that your rejection of my grant application has not been successful and you will need to provide the requested $5 000 post haste. I hope that your future rejection attempts are more successful. If you would like further advice on how to reject grant applications…

  • TOUR DIARY: KING OF THE PENGUINS & HANGING OUT AT THE ASYLUM

    Well well well, who knew a promo tour could be so much fun huh? I wasn't exactly sure what a writers promo tour would entail, I mean, I assumed that there would be vast quantities of A-grade cocaine, plasma screen TVs thrown out of 5 star hotel windows and fistfights with police, but other than…

  • VAMPIRES, ROCKSTARS, TWITTER AND MY BOOK (WHICH MENTIONS NONE OF THESE).

    My debut novel, A Beginner's Guide to Dying in India, was released in America last week. Although it won't see release here in Australia until next month, I was obviously fairly excited to be a thrilling 683,960th on amazon.com's sales ranking. This means that there are exactly 683 959 books that are better promoted, better…

  • SOUNDS OF SPRING REVIEW (simulcast from 4zzz)

    You’d be forgiven for thinking that 2009’s Sounds of Spring was a government conspiracy to lure all the violent bogans in Brisbane into one concentrated area for scientific observation. Whilst shirtless, ass-grabbing, beer can-hurling jerks are an unfortunate certainty at just about any festival, today it seems like they constitute the vast majority of the…

  • NEW DAN BROWN NOVEL LEAKED ON THE INTERNET!

    With less than one week until the highly anticipated release of Dan Brown’s new ‘novel’, millions of ‘readers’ around the world are bursting with expectation. The novel is a sequel to the Da Vinci code, which has been hailed as a publishing phenomenon and was the bestselling adult hardback of all time. (Editor’s note: this…

  • OPEN LETTER TO THE CREEPY GUY ACROSS THE ROAD

    Hi. How are you? Yeah, listen I know we don’t really speak enough considering you live literally within a Molotov cocktail’s throw of my house but the fact is that you give me both the heebies AND the jeebies. In spades. I know, I know we’re neighbours and all that but really this is the…

  • INAPPROPRIATE SHARE HOUSE BEHAVIOUR

    A brief but essential guide for those making the difficult transition from solitary living to cohabitation. 1 Air guitarring way too enthusiastically. Obviously a small amount of air guitarring is permissible, nay, REQUIRED in good company. However, full on, down on your knees ‘guitar face’ soloing is highly ill advised. This goes double for head…

  • REVIEW OF MY JOB INTERVIEW

     First of all, I didn’t even want the stupid job anyway, okay? And no, I don’t mean that like when a girl says she’d rather have her face pressed into a sandwich grill than go to dinner with me and I say: ‘Fine, I didn’t like you anyway!’ I mean I REALLY didn’t want the…

  • REVIEW OF MY EX-GIRLFRIEND’S WEDDING

    The last time I wore this suit was to a funeral. Yesterday I wore it to a wedding. In many ways it’s difficult to see the difference between the two events, save for the fact that at the former I was mourning the loss of one life, whereas at yesterday’s event I mourned the loss…