About

My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a Walkley-award winning arts journalist, editor, music critic and travel writer. I contribute to the Guardian Australia, T Australia: New York Times Style Magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Wire (UK), ABC Arts,  The Saturday Paper, The Quietus (UK), The Australian Book Review, The Lifted Brow, Noisey/Vice, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and more.

I speak at festivals, on radio, television and on panels.

I developed a full-day course called ‘How To Be A Music Journalist’, now offered in a freelance capacity. I am an Australian Music Prize judge and a member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers.

My travel writing is also published in the Guardian UK, Wellbeing Magazine, Get Lost Magazine, AWOL, CEO Magazine, Adventure.com and more. Travel writing has taken me to Russia, Africa, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, the Solomon Islands, Europe and remote First Nations communities in Australia. Many published samples are here.

So, why The Smallest Room?

“Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe ihre Kritik vor mir. Im nachsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein.”

This is German musician Max Reger, a notorious grump, addressing the author of an unflattering review of his music* in 1906. In English: “I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.”

I like this quote a lot. In 2012, I received my first hate mail. Two rounds, in fact, personal and lengthy. The experience in part inspired the name of this website as I wished the author had been so wryly dismissive in his address to me. For both our sakes.

In so few words, Reger acknowledged his hurt at the critic’s words but also his opinion those words were worthy only of being used as toilet paper. Or did he plan on eating the review and excreting it? Either way, a bluff, but a dignified and impressively succinct one. I’d like to think if my words wound someone in the future, they’ll feel as Reger did… then move on.

The Smallest Room is also a hat tip to Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own because music criticism is a male-dominated affair. It is also a reference to my mind: the smallest room indeed.

Find me at contact@thesmallestroom.com.au