This week on The ABR Podcast we feature a short story from the ABR archive. The story, ‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’ by S.J. Finn, was commended in the 2018 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story prize. (The 2025 Jolley Short Story Prize is now open!) S.J. Finn is an Australian writer based in Melbourne. Listen to ‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’, first published in ABR in 2018 and now part of ABR’s extensive digital archive going back to 1978.

This week on The ABR Podcast we feature a short story from the ABR archive. The story, &lsquo;Joan Mercer&rsquo;s Fertile Head&rsquo; by S.J. Finn, was commended in the 2018 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story prize. (The 2025 Jolley Short Story Prize is now open!) S.J. Finn is an Australian writer based in Melbourne. Listen to &lsquo;<a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/component/k2/169-abr-fiction/5255-joan-mercer-s-fertile-head-a-new-story-by-s-j-finn">Joan Mercer&rsquo;s Fertile Head</a>&rsquo;, first published in ABR in 2018 and now part of ABR&rsquo;s extensive digital archive going back to 1978.

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

For more information about ABR, visit our website, www.australianbookreview.com.au

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.
For more information about&nbsp;ABR, visit our website, <a href="http://www.australianbookreview.com.au">www.australianbookreview.com.au</a>

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

The ABR Podcast

ABR is delighted to introduce its brand-new podcast, The ABR Podcast.

Released fortnightly every Wednesday, The ABR Podcast will feature a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on the iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

ABR&nbsp;is delighted to introduce its brand-new podcast,&nbsp;The ABR Podcast.
Released fortnightly every Wednesday,&nbsp;The ABR Podcast&nbsp;will feature a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on the iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

 ‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’, a short story by S.J. Finn

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Mindy Gill reviews Dead and Alive, Zadie Smith’s latest essay collection. For Gill, Smith’s essays ‘have an uncanny habit of arriving precisely when the culture shifts’. Dead and Alive ranges across technology and digital surveillance, authorship and literature, and the erosion of public space, among other urgent concerns. Considered together, ‘these essays reveal continuities otherwise invisible when read in isolation: a set of preoccupations that cut across ostensibly tangential subjects’.

Mindy Gill was ABR’s 2021 Rising Star. A poet, critic, and former editor-in-chief of Peril magazine, Gill is an Associate Lecturer of Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology. She has won the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award and the Tom Collins Poetry Prize. Her collection of poems, August Burns the Sky, was shortlisted for the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize. Here is Mindy Gill with ‘Thought’s tempo: Essays that imagine otherwise’, published in the January-February issue of ABR.

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Mindy Gill reviews Dead and Alive, Zadie Smith&rsquo;s latest essay collection. For Gill, Smith&rsquo;s essays &lsquo;have an uncanny habit of arriving precisely when the culture shifts&rsquo;. Dead and Alive ranges across technology and digital surveillance, authorship and literature, and the erosion of public space, among other urgent concerns. Considered together, &lsquo;these essays reveal continuities otherwise invisible when read in isolation: a set of preoccupations that cut across ostensibly tangential subjects&rsquo;.
Mindy Gill was ABR&rsquo;s 2021 Rising Star. A poet, critic, and former editor-in-chief of&nbsp;Peril&nbsp;magazine, Gill is an Associate Lecturer of Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology. She has won the Queensland Premier&rsquo;s Young Publishers and Writers Award and the Tom Collins Poetry Prize. Her collection of poems,&nbsp;August Burns the Sky, was shortlisted for the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize. Here is Mindy Gill with &lsquo;Thought&rsquo;s tempo: Essays that imagine otherwise&rsquo;, published in the January-February issue of ABR.

‘Thought’s tempo: Essays that imagine otherwise’ by Mindy Gill

This week on The ABR Podcast, Sara Webb investigates the heated debates and mind bending science of quantum physics. As Webb writes, the ‘universe exists on an unimaginable scale’, its physics strange but wondrous.

Sara Webb is the inaugural ABR Science Fellow and an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology. She is the author of The Little Book of Cosmic Catastrophes (2024), was made a Superstar of STEM in 2022, and was chosen as a Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 in Science & Healthcare in 2025. She specialises in AI-driven transient astronomy, applying machine learning to large-scale survey data to uncover fast cosmic events. Here is Sara Webb with ‘A truly probabilistic universe: One hundred years of heated debate and mind-bending physics’, published in the December 2025 issue of ABR.

This week on The ABR Podcast, Sara Webb investigates the heated debates and mind bending science of quantum physics. As Webb writes, the &lsquo;universe exists on an unimaginable scale&rsquo;, its physics strange but wondrous.
Sara Webb is the inaugural ABR Science Fellow and an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology. She is the author of The Little Book of Cosmic Catastrophes (2024), was made a Superstar of STEM in 2022, and was chosen as a Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 in Science &amp; Healthcare in 2025. She specialises in AI-driven transient astronomy, applying machine learning to large-scale survey data to uncover fast cosmic events. Here is Sara Webb with &lsquo;A truly probabilistic universe: One hundred years of heated debate and mind-bending physics&rsquo;, published in the December 2025 issue of&nbsp;ABR.

‘A truly probabilistic universe: One hundred years of heated debate and mind-bending physics’ by Sara Webb

This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by Stuart Kells, titled ‘Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World’. Kells discusses the thorny question of the authorship of the First Folio. While some devoted Shakespeareans insist that the First Folio was authored by Shakespeare, Kells points to compelling evidence that Shakespeare was instead a ‘middle stage in a multi-step dramaturgical production process’. ‘Shakespeare is not a hoax,’ Kells observes, ‘but he is hoaxy.’

Stuart Kells is Enterprise Fellow at the Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Professor at La Trobe University’s College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce. He is the author of many books, including Shakespeare’s Library: Unlocking the greatest mystery in literature. Here is Stuart Kells with ‘Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World’, published in the December issue of ABR.

This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by Stuart Kells, titled &lsquo;Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World&rsquo;. Kells discusses the thorny question of the authorship of the First Folio. While some devoted Shakespeareans insist that the First Folio was authored by Shakespeare, Kells points to compelling evidence that Shakespeare was instead a &lsquo;middle stage in a multi-step dramaturgical production process&rsquo;. &lsquo;Shakespeare is not a hoax,&rsquo; Kells observes, &lsquo;but he is hoaxy.&rsquo;
Stuart Kells is Enterprise Fellow at the Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Professor at La Trobe University&rsquo;s College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce. He is the author of many books, including Shakespeare&rsquo;s Library: Unlocking the greatest mystery in literature. Here is Stuart Kells with &lsquo;Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World&rsquo;, published in the December issue of ABR.

This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by Stuart Kells, titled ‘Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World’. Kells discusses the thorny question of the authorship of the First Folio. While some devoted Shakespeareans insist that the First Folio was authored by Shakespeare, Kells points to compelling evidence that Shakespeare was instead a ‘middle stage in a multi-step dramaturgical production process’. ‘Shakespeare is not a hoax,’ Kells observes, ‘but he is hoaxy.’  Stuart Kells is Enterprise Fellow at the Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Professor at La Trobe University’s College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce. He is the author of many books, including Shakespeare’s Library: Unlocking the greatest mystery in literature. Here is Stuart Kells with ‘Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World’, published in the December issue of ABR.

‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’, a short story by S.J. Finn

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