Who the heck is Jonathan Sriranganathan?

Hi! I’m a writer, musician, performance poet and community events organiser based in so-called Brisbane. My partner and I currently live on a small houseboat in the waterways of Maiwar.

For seven years I worked as a city councillor on Brisbane City Council, representing the 40 000+ residents of the Gabba Ward on the city’s inner-south side, and in 2024 I ran for mayor with the Greens (unsurprisingly, the Greens didn’t win control of the city, but we did get a very healthy swing).

I hold a dual Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and Bachelor of Arts (majoring in Journalism & Mass Communication and in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies) from the University of Queensland, and I've also completed a Graduate Certificate in Writing, Editing and Publishing (mostly just for the fun of it). Among other things, I currently rap and play clarinet/sax with my hip-hop band Rivermouth as well as other creative projects like Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra.

This website/newsletter is going to focus on whatever my subscribers tell me you’re most interested in (flick me an email if there’s something you think I should cover)…

In addition to a bit of poetry/fictional prose, I’m hoping to focus on writing longer-form non-fiction about the future of our city, including news and analysis of what Brisbane City Council is up to.

I also plan on producing more general commentary on activism and electoral politics with an emphasis on green politics, anarchism/communalism/municipalism, and anti-racist/anti-colonial struggles.

There’ll also be a few reflections and insights about living on a houseboat for those who are interested in how we manage without connections to the water/electricity/sewage grids, and the abundance of wildlife inhabiting the waterways we live on.

Why subscribe?

Please subscribe to get full access to the newsletter/publication archive and to support the work I do. Unlike some blog subscriptions, you won’t get an email every single time I post an article — I’m aiming to send out an email newsletter roughly once a month with links to what I’ve written/recorded and updates on important local events/projects/actions.

Paid subscriptions will help me find more time for in-depth investigative writing, as well as organising free gigs, radical community events and activist projects. Thanks in advance for supporting and taking an interest in my work!

I can be contacted via emailing office@jonathansri.com, but I don’t check my inbox daily, so if you want to reach me at short notice, it’s probably best to find someone who has my mobile number and just give me a call.