Laura’s Reviews > The Best Australian Essays 2017 > Status Update

"Bad Writer" by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Go read it. Find it somewhere. Pay this guy more money. He's amazing at what he does. Go now and learn some amazing things!!!

"Fifty Shades of Grey is KFC and The Susan Book is the vegetables you grow in your backyard." I'm not even finished this essay yet and I love the criticism of bad writers! It's something people need to read nowadays, aspiring authors and published ones too.

"The Art of Dependency" by Micheline Lee. This story was firstly eye opening. It gave me a feel of the life of this wonderful woman who lives with a disability. She then tells you about the Australian Government and the system they've implemented to "aid" non-abled people. It's horrific, and I'm disgruntled I never knew about it previously.

An essay on Facebook. Totally worthwhile and important in this day and age. (It does talk about Australian politics, and social media as a whole, which I guess are all connected really.) Basically the Trump campaign might have been smart, but we still hate him.

So the essays are becoming longer and much more political. Just read Bonfire of the Narratives by Richard Cooke, which was about the Trump and Clinton election. Discussed a lot about who voted for Trump, and what they were like... kinda interesting, still don't forgive those people for ruining the U.S.

"Commonplace" by John Clarke: I have to say this goes against everything I've ever learnt about essays. Perhaps it's supposed to. In 4-5 pages, it discussed endangered migratory birds, a nice florist, his job delivering groceries, Oscar Wilde's sons, and two painters in Australia. What can even be said about this?! (Interesting...)

Imagine finding out for a creative writing topic, you had to read an entire book full of essays. Why not short stories? Why not something less... agonising? Well, here I am now, on the fourth essay and I have to say I am so please I was introduced to this anthology.