Articles by W H Chong

At some point towards dessert, the Book Show’s Ramona Koval offered W H Chong the recipe for her Bubba’s Birthday Sponge. Bubba being Yiddish for grandma, that’s really birthday cake for the littlies.

To lose one editor is a misfortune; to lose two or three, damned careless. So said Jim Davidson, a former Meanjin editor, who had some pointed words for the current management. W.H. Chong was there.

The Dame Joan effect — a voice that sounded like a throat crammed with 20 nightingales all trilling at once.

It looks like crime, and sounds like crime, and sells like crime, but — it’s Literature!

Maybe it’s schadenfreude but it’s better fun following other Anglophone elections, says W H Chong, as he talks the UK debate, David Cameron’s tie and Gordon Brown’s theme song as sung by Amy Winehouse.

It’s a challenge to sketch such fugitive subjects like kookaburras and cockatoos but the point is to observe, explains W H Chong, as he shares his drawings of a kookaburra in progress. Tip: start with the head.

W H Chong examines the wisdom from writers, designers and other arty types on how to balance the creative juices with actually getting some work done. Like, don’t allow yourself a cuppa.

Cover designer of the 50th anniversary edition of Robin Boyd’s The Australian Ugliness W H Chong meets with the original cover designer to compare their coincidently startling similar covers.

W H Chong shows just how Earth Hour should be: beeswax candles, a different look at a dimmed Sydney skyline and a convivial dinner party including portraits of interesting guests.

The Archibald Prize is Australia’s most popular art prize. But why is it important, why isn’t it and why is everyone obsessed with it? W H Chong offers both a long and a short art history lesson.

Apparently young folk don’t use the word “gay” anymore — it’s “same sex attracted males” and “same sex attracted females”. Should we now saw SSAM and SSAF? asks W.H. Chong. And will they have ssaf sex?

A remarkable photo essay by AP photojournalist David Guttenfelder on the lives of American troops in Afghanistan gives a small insight into the fear and horror of the work, says W H Chong.

Only nine months into President Obama’s term and the enthusiasm gap has gone the wrong way on the Democrats. Thank goodness one other American measure of public feeling is going his way.

Culture Mulcher reviews new film The September Issue a documentary about Vogue magazine and its notoriously icy editor, Anna Wintour.

Will Amazon’s Kindle — and other e-readers of its ilk — spell the death of books and newspapers? WH Chong weighs in.

The Productivity Commission’s “jihad on books” continues, says W. H. Chong, with a roundup of the news from the week just past.