Sian Cain
@siancain
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Deputy culture editor @guardianaus , formerly @guardian in London. Only keeping this account to like your silly tweets and to stop freaks pretending to be me
Melbourne
Joined November 2010
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A little exclusive: Priscilla has been found! It has survived bushfires and floods and years out in the open after being abandoned - it's a heck of a story and I loved writing this
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I'm returning to Australia in three years time because I can no longer afford my visa. Since 2013, it has gone from £500 to £4,158. Indefinite Leave to Remain is £2,389. Citizenship is an extra £1,330. Money is what determines who gets to come to the UK, not skill.
We’re ending free movement to open Britain up to the world.
It will ensure people can come to our country based on what they have to offer, not where they come from.
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Golly this bit in the Caroline Calloway interview really made me honk laugh
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Guardian newspaper circulation around 120k a day. Yesterday the website got 45.8m page views, on a bank hol. Six years into this job, why am I still getting book PRs actively stopping online-only pieces or telling me they're 'disappointed' when something doesn't make print?
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This unexpectedly took off. All I will say is: if your conclusion is ‘she’s a Guardian journalist so who cares’, my Aussie partner is a scientist working in immunology, the definition of a key worker, and his last visa was £2,700, £2,000 of which was the NHS surcharge 🤷♀️
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And if your response is 'other countries are expensive too', a government proclaiming that 'skill' is the biggest factor in one's eligibility to live anywhere is lying to you. You can be skilled AND earning peanuts. You can be skilled AND your employer won't pay for your visa.
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If you are watching what is happening in Afghanistan with horror, a small but important thing you can do is donate to
@RukhshanaMedia
. It’s a journalism group staffed by extremely brave Afghan women who are doing amazing reporting. Link at the bottom
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OKAY I have to return to work, but thank you to everyone who has been extremely kind/shared their own stories/both. It is all balls and hopefully talking about these things can make us all feel a tiny bit better.
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Now this is being advertised, I guess I can say: I am leaving
@guardianbooks
! I'm joining the new
@guardian
Saturday magazine as Culture commissioning editor. I did this job for six years and I have loved all of it. Young'uns, I got this job and you can too. Everyone apply!
The Guardian is looking for an experienced books news journalist to join the team. If you have great contacts in the industry, brilliant ideas and a passion for books news, apply for the Commissioning Editor, Books News here:
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This piece was so interesting to write. I spoke to probably the largest number of people I’ve ever spoken to for one piece. There were so many people I couldn’t fit in or just wanted to speak off record. Thank you to everyone who gave me their time.
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I got the phrase "Martin Amis's fantastic arse" into the Guardian, so I think I get the rest of the week off now*
(*They might ask me to stop coming in)
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A bit of (big!) news: after eight years in the UK and seven with
@guardian
, I am moving back to Australia in mid-December. Happily, I have landed the Deputy Culture editor job at
@GuardianAus
so I'll still be at the G, just dangling upside down with the fantastic
@stephharmon
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This is a COOL thing: we're launching a monthly paperbacks column for online on
@GuardianBooks
, collating things we loved and things we missed in
@guardianreview
. We're going to aim for around 15 each month!
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I do find it a bit weird* that everyone read the nanny's account about Olivia Wilde/Jason Sudeikis, in which Wilde tells him he's scaring her and he LAYS DOWN BEHIND HER CAR TO STOP HER LEAVING, and we're getting funny internet pieces on the salad dressing.
(*fucking gross)
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Here we go! First Saturday magazine out tomorrow. I think I speak for many on the team when I say I feel proud, extremely tired, a tad peckish
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There is a lot to say about this case, but I think it has genuinely scary implications for nonfiction publishing, particularly investigative works, in the UK.
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(Yes, I do find it pretty disrespectful when we do a lot of work, either as writers or editors, only to have a publicist sniff at our website like it is a forgotten MySpace blog! And yes, I know publishing does for the most part treat the internet like a newfangled doohickey!)
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Soooo. I have written this week's cover story for
@guardianreview
. It is about a topic that is very important to me. It is about the decision whether or not to have children, particularly in this current moment, when the birth rate is plummeting around the world ...
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I spoke to
@chelseabwrites
about her sad book signing and the wonderful response she has had from bestselling authors – including the lovely
@DavidNWriter
's story when "the bookshop staff kindly pretended to be customers so I wouldn’t feel too bad" 🥹
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Anyway, good luck fighting for page space in those publications that you won't spend money to advertise in loooool👏PRIORITIES
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The story in this about a person who reported a flasher to the police, found out the man had a long history of harassing women, only for the police to say it was too hard to find him, so they went to the park and found him in 10 minutes - is astonishing
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I recently mentioned on my private social media that I had an announcement coming, and the number of women (all know me personally and my decision to not have children) who assumed I had 'changed my mind' is remarkable. I was announcing a professional achievement.
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I interviewed the wonderful artist and author
@simonstalenhag
about Tales from the Loop, and why young people should call out previous generations for their mistakes, and why he's determined to keep his art apolitical
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A plea to freelance writers pitching me pieces: I'd always love more reported features and more news-oriented stories. I'm receiving a lot of pitches along the lines of 'Hey I read this old book recently' and ... that's it. We are a literary section, but we are also a newspaper.
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This story is horrendous and really quite baffling. Thank you to everyone who helped with research.
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It’s official now* baybeee (*it better be, I got on a plane and everything)
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My neighbours threw a full birthday party last night. Guests turning up in ubers in heels. Knocked on the door to ask them to wind it up around 2am. Neighbour yelled at me “So what, am I not supposed to have a life now?” And I was like “??? Yes??? Like the rest of us, all year?”
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I've officially started commissioning for culture on the Guardian's upcoming Saturday magazine - so if you are looking after film, music, comedy, theatre, dance, streaming, podcasting - do get in touch! (Books still in v capable hands of
@liesespencer
and
@charnorth
)
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@juliesmith472
I'm not saying it is worse. I'm saying it is expensive. I'm going back to Australia because I am citizen, not because it is cheaper.
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In my last year of uni (journalism/international relations), I attended a panel on finding a job after graduation and an old newspaper editor ranted at us for having gone to uni when we should have done an apprenticeship like him. His paper only accepted interns with degrees.
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If you are a freelancer with ideas across arts in Australia - film, TV, music, books, visual arts, stage, games - please do pitch to me and
@stephharmon
. Emails are firstname.lastname
@theguardian
.com if you would like to pitch.
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Only took a year into lockdown but I finally did it. Buzzing your head is exactly as satisfying as you think it’ll be 🐝
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I'm so furious that people are taking this out of context. If you think Lucy Ellmann hates mothers, you haven't read her. Here is the full answer she gave. Read it all.
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Yaa Gyasi: ‘When an interviewer asks me what it’s like to see Homegoing on bestseller lists again, I say something short like “it’s bittersweet”, because the idea of elaborating exhausts and offends me. What I should say is: why are we back here?’
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This is my interview. I asked Lucy to detail her thoughts on motherhood because I once told her that I will not have children for the climate impact and she thanked me for my decision. As she is a mother and author of a 1,000 page book about motherhood ...
I quite want to read Ducks, Newburyport and I’ve been interested by some of the interviews with the author, but I don’t see how any woman can claim to be feminist while saying stuff like this.
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I got mad about James Frey's shitty book, guys
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I interviewed the remarkable
@JasonReynolds83
, about being aware of one's legacy and trying to serve children while dealing with angry cops and racist parents. In
@guardianreview
tomorrow
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I can attest that authors who were rude, who moved their books around the store, or ordered multiple copies of their own book then cancelled it so we’d have to stock them, were remembered and shelved in obscure corners.
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An update to
#DisneyMustPay
and Alan Dean Foster's fight for his royalties: several writers groups are coming together to ask authors of Buffy/Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Spider-Man/more works to report all missing payments, with hope for strength in numbers
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Here is a cool thing: I am will be chatting with
@PhilipPullman
on 10 December for 25 years of Northern Lights + his new Lyra story Serpentine. It'll be super fun. It is online, so everyone can watch from home 👩🐻❄️🧭✨ through
@blackwellbooks
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@rhiannonlucyc
Thanks Rhiannon <3 I have been anticipating it for a while. As soon as the NHS surcharge for migrants hit £400 a year, I knew that was it for me being able to afford it. And it is now going up to £625 a year, so who knows how much it will be in three years!
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Every time I read a tweet that someone has received the vaccine, or their loved ones have, I feel completely overjoyed. What a wonderful human achievement.
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I just had a week off and spent all of it with books in various London parks. Counterintuitively, I do think my job does sometimes ruin reading for me - being able to read free from deadlines was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had in a while.
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I love reading features like this where the writer and the star go for dinner and drinks and hang out over several days, and while I read them I think about all the times I've begged some fucking PR person for 30 minutes on the phone, goddamn
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Maybe if you didn’t treat reviews as advertising and paid for some actual ads every once in a while, there would be more pages? SORRY I mean yes, it’s the pandemic’s fault.
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Oh hey! So I wrote a thing about the good news that bookshops look like they’re having a really good year and what happened in
@FountainBkstore
last weekend and how the response shows bookshops are actually really valued by people
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Whenever I need cheering up, I just listen to this clip of
@chrisfairbanks
confusing Bret Easton Ellis for someone called Bready Stanellis and laugh at how mad that would make BEE.
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I served Penny Wong in a bookshop about 10 year ago and I was so excited to see her that I gasped and then choked on my own breath, that is precisely the impact you want your prime minister to have
PUT PENNY WONG IN CHARGE SHE WOULD END SCOTT MORRISON
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If you're looking for a little bit of magic, this was such a lovely event -
@neilhimself
, Elise Hurst and I talk about The Ocean at the End of the Lane 🌩️🍃 Includes an extremely atmospheric illustrated reading!
LIVE! Join us tonight as Neil Gaiman, Elise Hurst and Sian Cain discuss the new edition of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
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I wrote this thing about 'showrooming' for G2. Print deadline meant I couldn't include the response I got from Kelly at
@FountainBkstore
but reading her email last night made me feel unexpectedly emotional about bookshops.
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How is it unimaginable that a mother can love mothers, respect them for all the work they do, and also be critical of the cost of that work?
She’s not saying mothers don’t have the capacity for intellectual and emotional stimulation. She’s saying they don’t get the time.
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I'm writing a feature on celebrity children's authors and their impact on children's publishing. I'm looking to speak to authors, publishing staff, booksellers and librarians. I'm speaking to people already but send me a DM if you are interested in speaking to me.
#journorequest
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Guys, you’re freaking out my mum in Australia.
(Heh. Thanks for the love. I am optimistic. The Guardian loves books. I have no idea what the future holds but I know
@GuardianBooks
will survive. Review may go, but the new Sat mag will hopefully be packed with books too.)
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I interviewed
@HallieRubenhold
about her cracking book The Five, about the lives of Jack the Ripper's victims. It is a real wake up call for how we talk about victims of crime
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AUTHORS, WRITERS (blows into the conch shell)
What are the best books onwriting you've read? Or the books that have not been about writing, but have been useful to you as an author? Thanking yee.
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I've written about why we haven't seen Australian writers nominated for the Booker for a while (six years since the last, Coetzee) which involved talking a LOT to publishing people about 'Commonwealth territory' and them saying 'It makes no sense!' a lot
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... I was interested in these two positions.
Motherhood can be wonderful and it is also hard as hell. You can defend something AND critique the cost, the unbalanced burden it can be for women in a patriarchal world.
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It’s such a complicated topic. Some of celebrity books are great. Some of them are really loved by kids. But there are bigger questions around the conduct of publishers, and children’s access to choice, that are really uncomfortable and in some cases, really shocking.
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Two top blokes on a good thing:
@neilhimself
and
@chrisriddell50
on our collective duty to save libraries
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In this week's
@guardianreview
-the first, world exclusive extract of The Mirror & The Light, Hilary Mantel's final Cromwell novel. Plus an interview with Mantel, and authors including
@MargaretAtwood
and Colm Toibin share their favourite Mantel books.
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@mark_oc
@floschechter
Australia's migration system being expensive and hostile with does not change a thing about the UK's migration system being expensive and hostile. It's not a competition. We're in the same boat.
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Margaret Atwood told me she liked my tattoos, while walking past me in the toilets at the Booker prize ceremony. A colleague and I did a silent scream at each other after.
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I have woken up to an email from a woman who is EXTREMELY PISSED that I’ve used hyphens when writing “Winnie-the-Pooh” and wants to know why I would inflict such terror on the world (but not enough to Google it, apparently)
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I'm not mad at all. It is just pretty amazing that they'd think I'd change my mind about something I've thought over so much, rather than having something else to be proud about. And especially after having written this
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Booker prize has been moved from 17 November to 19 November, to avoid Barack Obama's new memoir. Am I alone in thinking that is quite strange...?
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My sexuality is ominous staring
25 year anniversary of the media panic over The Bisexuals.
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We had about 350 submissions for this and it was such a joy to go through them! I really want to visit Topping and Company in Ely and Cofion in Tenby.
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And here we have a woman who has had children, who also respected the decision so many women are making now. I wanted to hear more simply for its nuance, in a world where conversations about women's bodies and their decisions are so lacking in that.
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And if you can afford to do so, consider setting up a monthly donation rather than a one off - a steady flow of donations will be crucial over the next few months and years.
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I really like my method of receiving football scores: having a window open and hearing cheers across the block. It’s genuinely uplifting.
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This story is really infuriating and sad: two Haitian artists, who had got three visas simply to fly to Australia for Rising festival in Melbourne, were stopped because they needed a fourth, just to pass through London airport.
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My new job will involve working with the books team to make the new magazine’s culture section as great as it can be. So I’m not completely leaving the world of books - but I will miss being able to talk and write about them all day, every day. What a job!
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This is quite sage advice and something I think a lot of people need to be reminded of sometimes (myself included).
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Toni Morrison: "[They say]: You write well enough; you could come on into the center if you wanted to. You don’t have to stay out there on the margins. And I’m saying, Yeah, well, I’m gonna stay out here on the margin, and let the center look for me."
“It’s very important to me that my work be African American; if it assimilates into a different or larger pool, so much the better. But I shouldn’t be asked to do that. Joyce is not asked to do that. Tolstoy is not.” —Toni Morrison
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I've seen some people tweeting the Guardian's Not the Booker prize this year - and as someone who helps put it together each year (with the wonderful
@samjordison
) I thought I'd clear some things up ahead of the first three books (of six) being announced today.
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I read some Seamus Heaney this morning and I spent much of the day floating around the house. Which writers have a restorative effect on you these days? (If any.)
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@elle_hunt
‘I’m going to fuck you to the death’ is definitely something I’ve written while drunk and horny, I didn’t know it was poetry
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If there is a POC in publishing who wants to write about the industry's glass elevator for white guys like Dan Mallory, do get in touch.
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Getting blackout drunk at the Walkleys because I lost to Toto Albanese
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I was in such a glum mood all day today and then at 4pm I decided to put Sense & Sensibility on while I work and I haven’t stopped smiling. The moment Colonel Brandon shows up; oh! My heart
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👏 Bhanu Kapil has won the TS Eliot. How to Wash a Heart is extremely good
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An Australian prime minister who opens with a commitment to the Uluru statement of the heart, who talks about kindness, who talks about climate change and renewables, and talks about respect for others. Fucking hell!
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Toni Morrison died a year ago today. I’m still so pleased she got the front page, she deserved all the front pages.
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@elias_greig
I knew someone who nannied for a very rich family in Adelaide and she was regularly given vegetables from their beautiful veg garden because the mother of the home didn’t like that they were dirty. She would only eat veg bought (for her) from the supermarket
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Point is: a) We all have the right to ask for better. Always. b) We all have capacity to care about multiple things at once. (Mindblowing.) c) A lot of you are extremely generous, kind people, and many of you have been through so much. d) Racists can fuck right off. Peace out.
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If any Australian critics, authors or publishers are interested in speaking to me about critical culture in this country, particularly the potential repercussions of writing an honest review that isn't a glowing ravefest - get in touch. sian.cain
@theguardian
.com
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Sathnam Sanghera has been receiving 'vicious' abuse ever since Empireland was published. In contrast, William Dalrymple - historian who also writes about the British Empire - has had none. Guess what the difference is? It's an easy one.
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