The one-woman play Blonde Poison explores beauty, treachery and the high price of survival, Do Good Be Good asks the question 'can art change the world'?, Zunar is a Malaysian political cartoonist whose work is banned in his own country, and Canadian writer Avi Sirlin has written a novel about the British scientist Alfred Russell Wallace, who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin.

The Literati . Cindy Sherman at GOMA. Top Shelf: Lally Katz. The Vinyl Frontier: Repetition.

The visual arts sector in Australia has been hit hard by funding cuts, Paul Capsis invokes Quentin Crisp in the play Resident Alien, The National Art School celebrates its' alumni from the 1950s and 60s, and Book to Film discusses the new Kiwi film Hunt for the Willderpeople, which is based on the 1986 novel Wild Pork and Watercress by New Zealand writer Barry Crump.

A new play where young refugees share their personal stories of horror and joy, laughter and pain; a newly-discovered diary sheds fresh light on the visit of the Confederate Steam Ship Shenandoah to Melbourne in 1865, and British poet, playwright and rapper Kate Tempest on her debut novel, The Bricks that Built the Houses.

The play Tribes explores the politics of deafness, the rise and rise of art Biennales and Triennials, Denmark's Festival of the Voice, and the late Australian writer Gillian Mears.

In the African Book Club for the month of May, we are discussing Teju Cole's novel Everyday is for the Thief. It's a complex portrait of Nigeria, of return, of reading, class and belonging.

Sydney's Vivid festival marks the anniversary of the 1967 Indigenous referendum using the Sydney Opera House as a canvas ,actor Sam Neil discusses the joys of the new Kiwi film The Hunt for the Wilderpeople;

Storyteller Arnold Zable has written a memoir called The Fighter, , and writers Karen Foxlee - on her favourite works of art - and Teju Cole on history, race and politics.

The Convict's Daughter: The Scandal that Shocked A Colony . Illness, politics and fundamentalism: why Angels in America is still relevant in 2016. Angela Flournoy's The Turner House. Top Shelf: Gillian Mears.

Polyglot Theatre had their funding cut five years ago but have bounced back; the town of Denmark in WA is about to host a big festival devoted to the voice; Bri Lee gave up her law career to become a writer, and Australian writer and arts patron Barbara Blackman has a new collection of essays out which celebrate a life surrounded by art and good friends.

In Tribes by Nina Raine, love gets complicated by the politics of hearing and deafness; American author Justin Cronin on The City of Mirrors, the highly anticipated final book in his literary vampire series; and a history of the contemporary art biennale.