After you’ve done all the lobbying, it seems what you have to do in Australia to achieve LGBTIQ equality, is wait. MARRIAGE Equality will be legislated in Australia no sooner than 2019. I know many will fly into a rage about that assertion, but let’s get real for a few moments: the current Coalition will never independently instigate […]
I am my first book: @burgewords reports from #bwf16
September 10, 2016
We were inside the building. We belonged, inasmuch as new students belong in new classrooms when they change schools UNDER the general theme of ‘belonging’, the 2016 Brisbane Writer’s Festival (BWF) set itself up with few boundaries, and writers have been rushing to traverse the intentionally unfenced territory across the city. As an independently published author, I […]
Divorced from reality: @burgewords comments on the Coalition’s #MarriageEquality problem
July 22, 2016
The Coalition will just have to take care of itself, because the political wedge has finally hit its target. AFTER the Coalition’s narrow win, the plebiscite on Marriage Equality should be getting ready to kick off, yet the same election promise has been blamed for the major swing against Malcolm Turnbull. And the paradox has […]
Better ban the Bard if #SafeSchools scares you: @burgewords comments on Australia’s #NeoPuritans
March 18, 2016
Hated by the Puritans, the complete works of William Shakespeare was firmly entrenched in the Australian school syllabus decades ago. WESTERNERS have lived through many periods in which extreme Christians distributed anti-gay propaganda and thereby got the ear of authorities, and this month’s spat from Australia’s hard, religious right shows not much has changed in four hundred years. […]
LGBTI versus Christians, an unnecessary war: @burgewords comments on #SafeSchools
February 26, 2016
This is not a suffering competition for martyrs, it’s a legislative process taking place in a secular nation. THE Turnbull government has no firm plans for a public vote on marriage equality. We only know it’ll be ‘after the election’, an Abbott three-word slogan for ‘on the never-never’; and that it will be a non-binding, […]
#Homophobia for the holidays: @burgewords on creating #LGBT characters
December 21, 2015
It would surprise most people to see what a strong thread of prejudice runs through families. Spending time with family over Christmas and New Year can be a challenge for anyone, but journalist and author Michael Burge explains how his first collection of short stories grew in the fertile ground of familial homophobia. WHEN I began […]
#QuestionableDeeds in action: @burgewords in conversation with @margokingston1
September 26, 2015
WHEN I asked Margo to help me launch my non-fiction debut Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love and my first collection of short stories Closet His, Closet Hers, Tony Abbott was still Prime Minister and marriage equality remained on the never never. When we met this week at Avid Reader bookshop in West End, Brisbane, […]
