Woollett and Twyford-Moore announced as KYD critics
Kill Your Darlings (KYD) has announced Laura Elizabeth Woollett and Sam Twyford-Moore as two regular critics for the magazine. During 2026, Woollett and Twyford-Moore will each write and publish long-form criticism on new release fiction and nonfiction.
Born in Perth, Woollett is an author and critic now based in Melbourne. Her writing includes the the 2024 Stella Prize-longlisted novel West Girls (Scribe) and the forthcoming nonfiction book Hell Days (Scribe, September).
Woollett said, “There’s obviously been a huge erosion of critical spaces in the arts in recent years and an encroachment of advertising within these spaces. But I think there’s a growing hunger for honest, long-form, skin-in-the-game criticism, because of this. I hope this series gets more people as excited about criticism as I am and encourages publications to devote more space to it, or for new critical spaces to be established.
“It’s one thing to start a Substack or share opinions about books on Instagram. It’s another thing to be commissioned and edited. That kind of mediation, and the line-by-line scrutiny that comes with it, is important to me.”
Also based in Melbourne, Twyford-Moore is a writer and critic originally from the central coast of NSW. He is the author of The Rapids: Ways of Looking at Mania and Cast Mates: Australian Actors in Hollywood and at Home (both NewSouth).
Twyford-Moore said, “Over the years I’ve been able to write about a diverse range of topics for KYD – Russell Crowe’s midlife fire sale, a Taylor Swift covers record, the demise of ABC’s The Book Club, Australian street photography, river tubing in Laos – so it’s exciting to be back with a singular focus on books. I am looking forward to documenting what is in store for readers this year, how writers are pushing form and challenging themselves, and how their books might speak to larger issues facing us. I think it’s going to be a wild ride.”
KYD publishing director Rebecca Starford said, “A great piece of literary criticism shapes a conversation around a book and its ideas. It encourages deep and critical thinking about a work, a rare privilege for an author in this busy world. It invites us all – readers and writers alike – into different worlds and reflects a landscape full of imaginative possibility back at us.
“KYD believes in the value of literary criticism and its essential role in safeguarding a healthy publishing industry. For this reason, it’s always been my ambition to house regular critics in the magazine, and so I’m thrilled to have Laura and Sam join the team in 2026, two writers I admire and whose criticism never fails to enlighten and entertain.”
More information is available on the KYD website.
Category: Local news
