Sharona writes about everything, especially music, culture and the world.

She founded and edited Australian culture website Pop Culture-y and wrote extensively about comedy, television, film, games and theatre, before it was sold and rebranded as Independent Arts Journal.

Sharona has written about music for Tone Deaf, The Music, Junkee, GOAT, The RiotACT and BMA Magazine (where she was also the food columnist, and did a stint as their sub-editor). She has interviewed acts like Glass Animals, Rick Astley, fun., Ball Park Music and Kwame.

She has written about Australian gothic television, toxic fandom in Star Wars, hitchhiking around New Zealand, and the false promise of multiculturalism in Australia. She has written about history for children’s magazine Historicool, about writing for Writers Bloc, and about the notion of authentic food for SBS.

She worked in community radio and television for four years, and has shared her music writing knowledge through workshops for Girls Write Up and CBR DIG. She enjoys outdoor adventures, eating, reading, and performing in live, improv, comedy roleplaying show Roll for Intelligence.

Culture

‘Star Wars’ Doesn’t Belong To You: A Message To The Men Harassing Kelly Marie Tran | Junkee

So when sci-fi films imagine all the possibilities of a futuristic world — with robots and spaceships and aliens — but stop short of imagining people of colour, it says that the people who make and consume this media don’t see people like me in the future. It says that people can suspend their disbelief for space battles and laser swords, but not for more than one person of colour.

Glitch Is The Terrifying Aussie Genre Hit You’ve Been Waiting For | Junkee

Glitch draws on the symbolic and physical power of the Australian landscape, a show very much a product of where it is set. But that’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. In doing so, the audience can see their own country, in all its beauty and danger, anew. And Australians can start to imagine science fiction or fantasy, not just in America or in the distant future, but in our backyards.

Review: FAG/STAG | Pop Culture-y

As Jimmy, Fowler runs the emotional gamut from cheery to blasé to his absolute lowest point: his monologue at that point is heartbreakingly honest. Isaacs as Corgan also seems to excel in those quiet, internal moments of contemplation and despair, but has some big, loud scenes which are difficult but equally truthful.

 

Also:

Travel and lifestyle

I Hate Hiking And I’m Tired Of Pretending I Don’t | We Are Explorers

I love the outdoors. I love majestic mountain ranges and silent forests. I love campfires and beaches and lakes. I love climbing things and I love to explore. However, it turns out that I hate hiking. (We Are Explorers’ best performing piece of the month.)

Should I give up trying to save the planet? | Refinery29 Australia

Individual sustainability efforts aren’t a silver bullet for the climate, no matter what fossil fuel companies say. But it’s also not inconsequential, and it’s something we can actually do, right now.

Don’t talk to me about ‘authentic’ food | SBS Voices

Give me cheeseburger spring rolls and deep-fried ice cream drizzled in Nutella. Give me burgers with bao for buns and fries loaded with roast duck and plum sauce.

How (And Why) I Hitchhiked In New Zealand | AWOL

The first time I attempted to hitchhike in New Zealand, I was nervous as hell. I stood by a road leading out of Picton and stuck my thumb out awkwardly, sure that the people walking by were secretly laughing at my clear lack of nous. Every time a car drove past, I thought about giving up and renting a car.

Food Junky’s Pizza in Canberra | BMA Magazine

When I moved out of home and next to Lygon Street in Melbourne, famed for its abundance of Italian food, my appreciation of pizza was sharpened again – despite my Milanese housemates telling me that it wasn’t “real” Italian (because “real” Italian was Milanese, not Sicilian).

Music

Glass Animals on the Dangers of Adopting a Persona | Junkee

When Glass Animals burst onto the scene with debut album Zaba, it felt like the album had sprung into existence fully-formed, in all its psychedelic glory.

To say it was an overnight success would be misrepresenting facts — years of work had preceded the album. Still, much of the critical conversation around Zaba centred on how confident and assured together the record was, how comfortable Glass Animals were in their sound.

2020 will be the year of Kwame | Tone Deaf

You probably know Kwame is doing big things. Maybe you’ve caught one of his fire sets at Splendour in the Grass or Spilt Milk or his sold out tour, or maybe you’ve heard his huge new tune ‘STOP KNOCKIN’ @ MY DOOR’, from his upcoming 2020 EP, which has hit the internet and our eardrums like Miley Cyrus’ proverbial wrecking ball.

Kwame is proud as hell of it. “When I first made it I was like, I know this is huge,” he says. “Like this is on some like, international, world-respected, hip hop-type track, and I just wanted to sort of come out with something super different.”

José González, The Scientist | BMA Magazine

In another life, JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ might have been a scientist.

It seems like a world away from where he is today, but before the release of his first album, Veneer, González was on his way to a PhD in Biochemistry. “It was very serious,” he says to me, over the phone. “I did my Masters and went into a research group that was studying the copying of viruses.” After his music career took off, he left it all behind, but he admits that he still thinks about research – science is still part of his life. “I think that was a really close call.”

Why You Should Pay Attention To Canberra’s Hip Hop Scene| Cool Accidents

For Citizen Kay, it’s all gravy. “As long as that we keep going down this road like we’re gonna, no doubt in my mind, be a hub. People from LA will be like, going to Canberra for six months, gonna be working with this person…like that’s like my vision for Canberra.”

Kirklandd laughs. “Well I’m fired up. I’m ready to go, man!”

 

Also:

Interviews with Thandi Phoenix, Vallis Alps, Rick Astley, Wheatus, fun., Kingswood, Azim Zain

Gig reviews: BENEE, Jake Bugg, Marianas Trench, Alpine 

Personal essay

Will I ever be Australian enough? | SBS Voices

And that was that. I grew up, watched Home and Away and the Australian Open, sang in the school choir, worked at McDonalds after school, went to uni, and got a job.

I signed up for my childhood nightmare of playing team sports | SBS Voices

I agreed to play, and spent most of the match trying to be helpful but not so helpful that I might actually get my hands on the ball and need to actually do anything. We didn’t win.

Why I decided to buck safety warnings and hitchhike on my own | SBS Voices

I’ve always wanted to travel by myself. It took me 24 years to finally get around to it, and when I finally did, I decided to not just travel solo, but hitchhike. My best friend says it’s typical of me. I mention wanting to do something offhand—starting a Masters, getting a dog, hitchhiking across another country—and the next minute, I’m doing it.