JM Donellan

Category: Uncategorized

  • The Eternal sneak preview #2

    One of the best things about making art in the 21st century is that distance is no barrier to collaboration. Today Tony Gilfoyle and I have been hard at work on our new project, me tapping away at my keyboard in a little cafe in Brisbane, Tony furiously sketching in the Solomon islands. I am…

  • Heroes.

    My kid brother and I have a tradition of going to see all the superhero movies. We load up on sugary delights and soak up 90 minutes of explosions and musclebound superhumans with our eyes. It’s appropriate that we accompany trashy action films with junk food, because they are essentially junk food for the brain;…

  • Campbell: The Shocking True Story of a ‘Man’ Who Hated The Arts So Much You’d Think An Artist Stabbed His Puppy As Part of an Abstract Performance Piece

    Dear Campbell, Having just read the news that the Queensland Theatre Company censored a joke at your expense due to concerns that it might affect their funding, I thought I’d let you know that I’ve been inspired to write a play about your life. The current working title is Campbell: The Shocking True Story of a…

  • 100 books a year

    For the last three years I’ve set myself a goal of reading 100 books a year. I’m often asked how I ‘manage’ to do this and the answer is simply that people make time for the things they value. Some people lift weights 7-9 hours a week, some people watch entire seasons of a TV…

  • Stories + cushions = best friends having amazing literary pillow fights forever

    Ladies and gentlememes, if you frequent this little corner of the internet on a regular basis then you may have heard that as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival I had a short story, Lenore Meets a Mack Truck, printed on a few cushions scattered around the festival thanks to the good folks at Tiny…

  • Twitter interview (twitterview? Twinterview?)

      I’m going to be doing a twitter interview thing from 9am AEST today. Hit me up with questions about writing, poetry, art, quantum physics, home decorating tips, that weird rash on your elbow etc. https://twitter.com/jmdonellan

  • Look ma! I’ve gone viral!

    Remember when Australia had a Minister for Science? Ah, good times, good times. Well, back in those dizzy halcyon days in the distant past (about a month ago) I wrote an angry little letter to Teresa Gambaro. It was just before the election and I was feeling angry and confused about the state of politics…

  • #BWF13

    Thanks to TIny Owl workshop for organising lots of great stories to be printed on cushions at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Here’s a couple of cuties modelling my story Lenore Meets a Mack Truck. Thank you to everyone who purchased one via donations to the Indigenous Literacy Fund.       

  • Don’t ever contact me again for any reason including the apocalypse.

      Dear Teresa, After receiving personally addressed but entirely unsolicited mail from your office for the third time, I decided I would send you a polite request to never again send me any kind of communication at all, ever. This includes, but is not limited to, letters, phone calls, text messages, morse code, Da Vinci…

  • Tony Abbott’s morning schedule

     6.30 Tony is awakened by the sounds of the dozens of minimum wage employees that he keeps in a cage in his quarters gnashing their teeth and wailing. He throws them a few chunks of bread and a splash of water, chuckling as he tells them that if they’re good, more should ‘trickle down’ later…