Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

New Limited Podcast Series - Exploring Australia’s Queer Canon

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 5h

For a long time, I felt like the books I consumed needed to be worthy, writes Sam Van Zweden. Seeking pleasure instead has reminded me why I fell in love with words in the first place.

bit.ly/47fqEh4

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 6h

Secrets, longing and unexplained voices from beyond the grave — this week Dženana Vucic @dzenanabanana.bsky.social joins @rebeccastarford.bsky.social to talk about recently re-released gothic masterpiece, Elizabeth Jolley’s The Well.

Listen now: apple.co/4mY0JiG

Ep. 3: Elizabeth Jolley's The Well with Dženana Vucic

apple.co

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 1d

💪 *New* 30 Day Writing Boot Camp with @rebeccastarford.bsky.social

Gain immediate access to daily lessons, prompts, motivational tools and writing exercises designed to strengthen your craft, boost creativity and build a foundation for future writing projects.

Sign up: bit.ly/475C5XI

On Motherhood and the Creative Life

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 3d

'I have never had so little time to write and so much to write about.'

Megan Cheong explores the relationship between creativity and mothering.

In the tedium and euphoria of parenting, I have never had so much to write about.

A Five-Letter Word for Loss

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 5d

'Once you learn to follow the logic, the solution comes into focus. A tiny intersection of poetry and mathematics.'

Lily Bryant on how cryptic crosswords helped in grieving her grandfather.

Cryptic crosswords became a ritual to process my grief.

Announcing the winner of the KYD School Writing Prize 2025

1 8

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 6d

We’re thrilled to announce Valerie Yu from Brisbane Girls Grammar School as the winner of this year’s KYD School Writing Prize! Read the judge’s report and story in the magazine.

bit.ly/42VWZab

4

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 6d

Read the companion essay to our latest Queer Critics podcast. @samhellkin.bsky.social discusses Danielle Laidley’s uneasy path from football legend to trans icon.

Read more: bit.ly/4nVJsr8

1 4

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 6d

Ping! @samhellkin.bsky.social 💛

Reposted by Kill Your Darlings

Damon Young @damonyoung.com.au · 7d

Hello, yes, I’m the author or editor of fourteen books, some of them prize-winning and some of them bestselling.

I’ve written nonfiction and children’s picture books.

And I can *mentor you* as part of @kydmagazine.bsky.social program.

You have until October 12th to apply.

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 7d

🔔 Deadline Extended!🔔 Applications for the KYD Mentors Program now close 12 October.

Apply now for the chance to participate in a structured editorial mentorship designed to support early-career writers in the development of a long-form work of fiction or non-fiction.

🔗 bit.ly/3V6fh4q

8 9

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 7d

🔔 Deadline Extended!🔔 Applications for the KYD Mentors Program now close 12 October.

Apply now for the chance to participate in a structured editorial mentorship designed to support early-career writers in the development of a long-form work of fiction or non-fiction.

🔗 bit.ly/3V6fh4q

What I Wish I’d Known About Newsletters

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 7d

To Substack, or not to Substack? We asked some well-versed writers what they've discovered in using the burgeoning platform.

Writers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about newsletter publishing platforms like Substack.

www.killyourdarlings.com.au

2 7

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 7d

What does it take to be the first, to walk the path untrodden?

In the second episode of KYD’s new limited podcast series, author, critic and radio maker Sam Elkin discusses Danielle Laidley’s Don't Look Away, a groundbreaking memoir about trans awakening and life in the AFL.

This Secret Valley: Danielle Laidley’s Don’t Look Away — Kill Your Darlings

Listen to our new Queer Critics limited podcast series

Read an extract from Ruins by Amy Taylor, a gritty and compelling 90s story about first love and its power to shape our lives.

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 9d

Read an extract from Ruins, a new novel from Amy Taylor—a past graduate of KYD's Mentors Program!

Ruins: An Extract

Heartbreak, Obsession, Rejection: Beverly Farmer’s lesbian cult classic Alone

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 10d

Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/02qlRLE...

open.spotify.com

2

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 10d

What was queer heartbreak like in 1950s Melbourne?

In episode one of KYD’s new limited podcast series, @madeleinegray.bsky.social discusses Beverley Farmer’s cult classic ‘Alone’. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!

Apple:
podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

The Kill Your Darlings Podcast

Books Podcast · Interviews, readings and discussions about books, culture and the arts in Australia and beyond, brought to you by Kill Your Darlings magazine.

podcasts.apple.com

1 2 3

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 12d

'You’re increasingly the odd person out if you aren’t queer and ethically non-monogamous.'

Mx Sly on the sexual politics of Melbourne’s queer dating scene.

Polyamory Purgatory

Mx Sly: In Melbourne’s queer dating scene, I face the pitfalls of trying to integrate all of one’s sexual connections into a cohesive social experience.

Introducing: Queer Critics Series

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 13d

Some beings are made for magic. Read more in this new story by Elizabeth Tan, author of the Stella-longlisted short fiction collection Smart Ovens for Lonely People.

‘Tricksters, playmates, guardians, wives; harbingers of a pestilence warded away by amulets and rituals. Good fairy, bad fairy. Benevolent, malevolent. Which mould has made you.’

3

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 13d

Thanks @agnesfm.bsky.social! We're also available on spotify: open.spotify.com/show/02qlRLE...

open.spotify.com

The Kill Your Darlings Podcast

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 13d

🌈📚 Introducing our new limited series podcast: Queer Critics Series 🎙️
Launching Monday 29 September — listen to the trailer and subscribe now!

Books Podcast · Interviews, readings and discussions about books, culture and the arts in Australia and beyond, brought to you by Kill Your Darlings magazine.

apple.co

1 3 7

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 14d

⏰ Submissions close Sunday 28/9 for KYD's Creative Non-Fiction Essay Prize! ⏰
We’re seeking creative non-fiction essays between 2500 and 3500 words, on any subject and in any style. First prize is $2500, with two runner-up prizes of $1000 each.
🔗 To submit:

Kill Your Darlings Submission Manager

Kill Your Darlings magazine regularly publishes short fiction alongside commentary, essays, memoir, reviews, profiles and interviews that examine books and ideas, creative practice and the publishing…

Do away with blurbs? I don’t think so.

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 14d

Are blurbs and endorsements on book covers pointless? Author @damonyoung.com.au digs into whether the industry should do away with the puff.

To Puff or Not to Puff

www.killyourdarlings.com.au

4 5

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 15d

Em Meller on the peculiar vulnerability of writing fiction.

Read more: bit.ly/4gD9SM4

I am not so good at separating
the writing from the being read,
or letting my shame dissipate. Maybe I like the risk, subconsciously yearn for consequences. Fiction and shame: the way they twist around each other, pulsating and glowing and procreating, more shame and more fiction, more and more and more.’

3

Kill Your Darlings @kydmagazine.bsky.social · 15d

‘Maybe shame is good, maybe it is useful. Maybe a certain kind of writer needs to feel more ashamed.’ Read this essay by Em Meller, whose novel manuscript was shortlisted for the 2024 Vogel Award, on the peculiar vulnerability of writing fiction.

The Humiliation of Writing Fiction by Em Meller

Maybe shame is good, maybe it is useful. Maybe a certain kind of writer needs to feel more ashamed.