Laura Curtis Friday 6 April 2012 8:05am

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Happy Friday and welcome back to Best and Worst – your chance to get together with the rest of the Mamamia community and talk about the highs and the lows of your week, as well as anything else that’s on your mind.

Don’t forget – if you want a chance to host, email info@mamamia.com.au with your full name, headshot and a short bio (include any links to your blog/Twitter etc), and we’ll take it from there.

Introducing Laura. She writes:

Best: – A “magazine and wine” party with my two best friends (inspired by Bridesmaids, of course).
- Finally watching the season five premiere of Mad Men. Zou bisou bisou…
- Experiencing Mood Theatre’s performance of Sarah Kane’s play Psychosis 4.48 at Subiaco Arts Centre. Perth people: it is wonderful. (Disturbing, but wonderful.) Please buy tickets.
- Reading this Jimmy Little interview with Benjamin Law, a beautiful tribute to an incredible life: “You have to know yourself, trust yourself, and even love yourself to a point. Be yourself and keep trudging on down that path, because we’re all here in life for a reason.” – Jimmy Little

Worst: I was so disappointed to hear the news that Campbell Newman has axed the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Whether he is fulfilling his economic mandate or rejecting the creative culture cultivated by his predecessors (maybe both), his decision implies that he and his government do not appreciate the value of celebrating and rewarding contemporary Australian literature.

I am not a Queenslander, nor a published author, so this does not affect me directly. Yet I feel compelled to speak out. Reading opens our eyes, minds and hearts. It invites both introspection and connectedness; making all of us – adults, teenagers and children alike – feel less alone, with a better understanding of the world around us. What’s more, literature preserves, for our future generations, our legacy: how we live our lives, the layers of our society, the issues we grapple with, our ways of seeing the world. We must cherish our writers – even those whose work we don’t particularly like – if only to ensure that, through them, our stories are woven into the tapestry of our culture and history, and that literature continues to enrich us, as individuals and as a society.

Of course, Australian writing will survive, with or without this award. But I think this decision is a step backwards.

Laura Curtis studies law, works as a makeup artist, tweets incessantly (@laura_valerie) and writes at her blogs One April Morning and Egg Cup (a book club). She is fond of bookstores, poems by Charles Bukowski, tea, Obama and pretty things (especially shoes and Ryan Gosling).

What was your best and worst of the week?