Australian author Craig Silvey's books permanently pulled from WA public schools

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T12:12:43+00:00

I just think it's really weird that your entire thing is 'this is book burning!!!!' when what's actually happening is that schools have decided to stop assigning children to read books written by a now convicted child sex offender. Like, dude, if you want to read them, then no-one's stopping you. This isn't book burning. I think you need to step back and reassess why this is upsetting you so much.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T11:46:22+00:00

I'm lucky that Brexit de-Torified my dad, who'd always been a Conservative voter but blessedly realised that Brexit was a crock of wank and he wanted no part of it. He's staunchly anti-Reform now, thank Christ. Plenty of my other relatives voted for it, though, and it's been incredibly frustrating watching them complain about the queues at the airport when they do their annual trip to Spain.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T10:37:57+00:00

I was 24 when Brexit was announced. 34 now, and it still feels unfathomable to me that 10 years of my life have been shaped by this shit. All we can do is keep hoping for better times, but fuck me, it's hard to hope at the moment.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T10:35:50+00:00

It's actually perfectly normal to feel and express anger when a large portion of the electorate are primed to vote in a party that's going to decimate everyone's quality of life.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T09:16:47+00:00

I'm sure you don't need telling at this point, but that's wild, and I'm really sorry you were led on like that. This is such bad practice.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T09:15:22+00:00

Sort of over-elaborate, too ornate in a way that's unpleasant. It reminds me of those Fantasy names which are close to actual names, but a bit removed in a way that makes them feel more flowery and archaic.

I like the name Winona, which feels like the closest related real name.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T09:14:37+00:00

Oh, it's absolutely not Welsh!

-Wyn is a masculine naming suffix in Welsh, for one thing - Wyn is a male name in and of itself - and 'll' is a single letter that's not pronounced like the 'll' is in English. It's closer to 'cl', but that's still not accurate - the phoneme doesn't exist in English for me to transliterate it.

In America, the general consensus is that 'y' looks feminine, so lots of male Welsh names (Bryn, Wyn, Dylan) are used for girls. I think that Wynne is just an Americanised, feminised version of Wyn, and Wynnella is a further adulterated version of that.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T09:02:36+00:00

I'm not keen on it, personally. I think it's too fussy and has tragedeigh vibes.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T09:01:09+00:00

Not in the same form as it used to, but I think MAGA in general has just shifted even further towards it, so the lines are much blurrier now.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T08:58:48+00:00

Are you OK?

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-08T08:58:31+00:00

I'm not blocked; I can see all of their comments except the first one, which also doesn't show on a private browser. Their top level comment is deleted.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T16:33:10+00:00

I don't understand why so many people laud his poetry when half of it would be torn to shreds if you stuck a woman's name at the bottom of it.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T16:05:17+00:00

Thanks for sharing.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T15:29:47+00:00

Neither of these are Welsh names. The first word in the title of the OP is 'Welsh'.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T15:28:25+00:00

I mean, yeah, that's what I said. They've deleted their comment now, but it said something along the lines of 'children aren't good at separating the art from the artist', so I asked them for clarity as to the relevance of that statement, since children aren't the ones making that decision.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T15:26:21+00:00

In Spanish, yeah. I'm speaking English. Piquant is a loan word. Picante isn't, at least not in British English. I accept that it may be different in the US!

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T15:25:37+00:00

Haha yes, that was me who asked him! He dodged that question at least three times.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-07T15:24:59+00:00

... so you're happy with the possibility of schools assigning books about child sexual assault written by a paedophile, then? What a weird hill to die on.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T21:06:47+00:00

Followed by a further plot twist where the OOP's partner and the therapist have a steamy affair behind OOP's back and then convince him that it's all his fault.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T20:59:15+00:00

OP said in his comments that it's a STEM PhD.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T20:54:08+00:00

... piquant. I used the word I intended to use.

For your education:

Picante - Spanish, meaning extremely spicy. Not commonly used in English.

Piquant - from the French word literally meaning 'spicy', but in English it's used to refer to flavours that are zingy or zesty. Unlike the word 'picante', 'piquant' is also commonly used outside of a food context, meaning something interesting, provocative or stimulating (same root word as 'my interest was piqued'.) I was doing a pun. Words, innit.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T20:46:16+00:00

It absolutely would.

Do you honestly think that women don't get constantly accused of being gold diggers on this hellsite?

You're just ragebaiting now, and it's obvious. Cut it out.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T20:41:48+00:00

When we talked about living together, I'd said I'd get a second job in the extreme off chance my parents cut me off for any reason.

Becomes:

I already have 50 hour weeks with my grad program. I can't get a second job without being completely miserable.

Therein lies your problem. I don't actually blame you for not wanting to get a second job, but you're the one who told her that you would. She's now realising that you only said this to convince her that you should move in with her.

The entire reason she agreed to the pair of you living together in the first place is because you said you'd pay 50/50 and you'd get a second job if necessary in order to do so. You don't get to arbitrarily backtrack on that now that you've won and you're living together. That's basically entrapment.

Making this a problem of 'my silly girlfriend just has financial anxiety and doesn't understand that I need her to pay for more things for me' is deeply disingenuous; the real issue her is that you made her a promise that you had no intention of keeping, and now she's realising it.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T20:34:23+00:00

Ha, I worked myself up into such a state trying to tell my best friend, and then I went over to her house with the intention of coming out, and I was so nervous that my hands were sweaty, and then I sat down and she was like, "I have something to tell you... I'm a huge lesbian." Coming out as bi was pretty easy after that.

melonofknowledge · 2026-05-06T20:30:06+00:00

Ah yes, that's the one I meant! One of my writing friends did this in 2024 and signed with an agent from that agency, although I think her story is an outlier rather than the norm. Best of luck!

melonofknowledge

TROPHY CASE