Israeli attack kills Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Wishah in Gaza Israeli drone strike kills Mohammed Wishah, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher, west of Gaza City.

This is at least the 12th Al-Jazeera journalist assassinated by Israel

@samtwyfordmoore.bsky.social on AI in fiction and Steve Toltz's latest novel, A Rising of Lights. Read more: bit.ly/4dESAyz

Tech’s big threat to the modern man offers few laughs in Steve Toltz’s fourth novel, A Rising of Lights. Read the first review by KYD Critic @samtwyfordmoore.bsky.social in 2026: bit.ly/41t3YpU

Rhoda Roberts, Indigenous broadcaster and cultural powerhouse – obituary Roberts, who introduced the term ‘welcome to country’, held multiple positions across decades in which she promoted Indigenous culture * Rhoda Roberts, Indigenous cultural leader who introduced the term ‘Welcome to Country’, dies aged 66 Spurned by a careers counsellor who advised her that finishing high school would be a waste of time, the Aboriginal storyteller, festival director, curator, actor and writer Rhoda Roberts went on to become one of Australia’s greatest cultural ambassadors. Roberts, a Bundjalung Widjabul Wiyebal elder who has died aged 66, dedicated her life to sharing the stories of her people, preserving and promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture through language, dance and ceremony, and securing pathways for First Nations talent to flourish. Continue reading...

Rhoda Roberts, Indigenous broadcaster and cultural powerhouse – obituary

‘Oh, David!’ | Sydney Review of Books When David Stratton died in 2025, Australian film lost not only a stalwart, but also, as Sam Twyford-Moore writes, one of its most devoted chroniclers. What does Stratton’s vision of the past fifty ye...

I went long on the late, great David Stratton for Sydney Review of Books. Spent the end of last year reading all of his books and thinking about what sort of writer he was and what kind of library he leaves behind. sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/oh-da...

Happy Mardi Gras

Jacob Elordi is James Bond!

Is he being directed by Linklater?

Can someone explain why Malcolm Turnbull has been using this rotoscope filter lately?

A girl with painting nails sucks on her finger. Image comes from the front cover of Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy.

ICMYI: Laura Elizabeth Woollett explores the highly anticipated debut novel by Jennette McCurdy and the evolution of the teacher–student trope in her first review as KYD Critic. Read more: bit.ly/4kjdyo8

The Post's books section was very strong. And for it to be killed off by the founder of Amazon, the company that drove so many book stores to die off, is a level of irony that, if it were in a novel, would come across as contrived.
bsky.app/profile/nycs...

Woollett and Twyford-Moore announced as KYD critics | Books+Publishing Purchase a subscription to view job ads and other premium content on Books+Publishing.

Pumped. www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/202...

Text: Introducing KYD Critics. Left: Sam has short brown hair and wears a white T-shirt under a blue shirt. Right: Laura has long black hair and wears a lilac shirt.

We are delighted to announce Laura Elizabeth Woollett and @samtwyfordmoore.bsky.social as two regular critics for Kill Your Darlings magazine. Laura and Sam will each publish long-form criticism on new release fiction and non-fiction throughout 2026. Find out more: bit.ly/4tbyYHS

Congrats on the program Andrew!

'If it was the board’s decision, why did half its members resign?': Boycotting author reflects on Writers' Week wake - News | InDaily, Inside South Australia Author and InReview editor Walter Marsh tells how Writers' Week furore leaves "our small literary pond feeling just as toxic" as algal bloom.

Some reflections on Adelaide Writers' Week from this Adelaide writer. Deep disappointment all round, and some big questions:

www.indailysa.com.au/news/opinion...

STATEMENT FROM THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE 8 January 2026 Following a statement from the board responsible for the Adelaide Festival organisation and all Adelaide Writers’ Week events, The Australia Institute is withdrawing its support and sponsored events from this year’s literary festival. The Australia Institute has valued being part of discussions at the event, which in the past have promoted bravery, freedom of expression and the exchange of ideas. Censoring or cancelling authors is not in the spirit of an open and free exchange of ideas.

Statement from @australiainstitute.org.au on Adelaide Festival.

Somervillian skeet

Literature, no place for the poor - Overland literary journal That old one — the working class as one dumb mass — is nothing but another bourgeois cliché. We are not simpletons, we’re just exploited.

“That old one — the working class as one dumb mass — is nothing but another bourgeois cliché. We are not simpletons, we’re just exploited.”

From a polemic by Sergio Chesán on literature and class, translated for us by Roy Duffield.

@samtwyfordmoore.bsky.social on Sumner Locke Elliot's late-life coming-out novel, Fairyland. Listen to the podcast: apple.co/4nVRuAW

Loved being a part of this podcast and writing about SLE!

Australian real estate culture is rotten. A take on everything.

Great haircut!

HEADLINE: Deloitte to refund government, admits AI errors in $440k report

Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement. A new version of the report for the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) was quietly uploaded to the department’s website on Friday, ahead of a long weekend across much of Australia. It features more than a dozen deletions of nonexistent references and footnotes, a rewritten reference list, and corrections to multiple typographic errors. (photo of Deloitte Australia HQ) Deloitte Australia has made almost $25 million worth of deals with the Department of Workplace Relations since 2021. Photographer Dion Georgopoulos

The first version of the report, about the IT system used to automate penalties in the welfare system such as pauses on the dole, was published in July. Less than a month later, Deloitte was forced to investigate the report after University of Sydney academic Dr Christopher Rudge highlighted multiple errors in the document. At the time, Rudge speculated that the errors may have been caused by what is known as “hallucinations” by generative AI. This is where the technology responds to user queries by inventing references and quotes. Deloitte declined to comment. The incident is embarrassing for Deloitte as it earns a growing part of its $US70.5 billion ($107 billion) in annual global revenue by providing advice and training clients and executives about AI. The firm also boasts about its widespread use of the technology within its global operations, while emphasising the need to always have humans review any output of AI.

SUBHEADING: Deleted references, footnotes The revised report has deleted a dozen references to two nonexistent reports by Professor Lisa Burton Crawford, a law professor at the University of Sydney, that were included in the first version. Two references to a nonexistent report by Professor Björn Regnell, of Lund University in Sweden, were also deleted in the new report. Also deleted was a made up reference to a court decision in a leading robo-debt case, Deanna Amato v Commonwealth. The new report has also deleted a reference to “Justice Davis” (a misspelling of Justice Jennifer Davies) and the made-up quote from the nonexistent paragraphs 25 and 26 in the judgement: “The burden rests on the decision-maker to be satisfied on the evidence that the debt is owed. A person’s statutory entitlements cannot lawfully be reduced based on an assumption unsupported by evidence.”

#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues.

Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump.

📰 AFR

✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social

✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social

🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social

Bringing Back 'The Book Club' Rewatching ABC’s book show highlights a negligent lack of televised arts criticism.

What can we glean from the last bastion of regular television book coverage? @samtwyfordmoore.bsky.social finds out.

killyourdarlings.com.au/article/brin...

Ex-West Coast defender Brown becomes AFL's first openly bisexual player Former AFL player Mitch Brown creates history by becoming the first person in the league's 129-year history to reveal he is bisexual.

Finally a hot bisexual man. The representation we needed. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

i feel like there's probably a better way to dunk on ai tools than using them extensively so you can post all the poor results that in turn encourages even more people to use them to post their "funny" mistakes. true believers don't care, you're just amplifying its use and feeding it more user data.

I would like to read my very interesting book on the bus but instead I have to listen to your very boring conversation.

Australia’s potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands | Josh Taylor The Productivity Commission appears to have bought into tech companies’ brazen arguments – and caught the Australian government off-guard

“Tech companies have devalued the work of creative industries for years. The latest iteration of this is their insistence the AI models they plan to make lots of money from need the labour of all of human creation for free in perpetuity.”

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Arts and media groups demand Labor take a stand against ‘rampant theft’ of Australian content to train AI Productivity Commission report raises possible exemption for ‘text and data mining’ and expanding fair dealing rules, prompting fierce pushback * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Arts, creative and media groups have demanded the government rule out allowing big tech companies to take Australian content to train their artificial intelligence models, with concerns such a shift would “sell out” Australian workers and lead to “rampant theft” of intellectual property. The Albanese government has said it has no plans to change copyright law, but any changes must consider effects on artists and news media. The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has demanded that copyrighted material must not be used without compensation. Continue reading...

Arts and media groups demand Labor take a stand against ‘rampant theft’ of Australian content to train AI