Sloan is the alter-ego of James Alfred Podhorodecki. For some reason there is a separation, although its not clear why this feels necessary. There is barely any telling them apart, though this may depend on who you speak to, or who you are. Sloan comes to light throughout all of James' written works, his poetry, short stories, and long-form writing.
James Podhorodecki is a philosopher, musician, author, and hypnotherapist. He has a BA in creative and professional writing, double majoring with philosophy at Deakin University (2015). He continued philosophy academically, seeing no benefit to do the same with writing itself, completing an Honours at Monash University (2018), then a research MA with Deakin (2024). In the same year he completed diplomas in clinical hypnotherapy and NLP with the Anglo European College of Therapeutic Hypnosis. In 2021 he published his first peer-reviewed journal article - Self-Certainty and Nothingness: Differences of Situation in Hegel and Sartre, in Philosophia (Springer). His studies, whether in clinical hypnotherapy, sociology, ontology, literature, aesthetics or more broadly arts and philosophy all revolve around existentialism and authenticity.
Between James' studies he has written prolifically, starting a life-long project with friend, mentor, confidant, and accomplice - Kial Menadue in 2016, they've detailed as a Stayin' Alive Odyssey. Though uncertain and only just at its genesis, it's clear their paths intertwine artistically, philosophically, and spiritually. Their first published projects are with Heavy Collective (2018) and Smith Journal (Issue 32, 2019), where they immerse themselves into the Speedway racing community in Daylesford - a side-project that sprang forth from that formative year of 2016. The larger work is still to come, it takes the shape of the whole year itself. It just needs a few more years of reflection, and maybe another Odyssey or two in between.
James' published short stories All The Hip Kids are Writing about Deleuze (2022), 16mm Situated (2023), and [x[x>x]x] (2023), Without Baggage, are written in typical Sloan form and published with Soyos Books, an indie Melbourne/Berlin publisher he met through Melbourne, and now ACTs infamous Bookrunner.
James' debut novel, although it wouldn't be untrue to claim it as jointly Kial and James' debut novel, Stayin’ Alive in Channel Country was published in mid 2024. Kial's unifying photo-book was released in late 2025.
James has numerous musical works released, starting in 2007 with Dirty F featuring Darren Keane on Drums, Julian Medor (Long Hours) on guitar, and Tom Abraham (editor of Stayin' Alive in Channel Country) on bass. Their EP Washed Up (2008) and their album Pressed (2012) were performed throughout Melbourne and Victoria.
Out of the time spent forming what would become A Stayin' Alive Odyssey with Kial in Daylesford, a friendship and musical bond formed between with Beaumaris artist, painter, and musician Chris Rigney (type-setter and designer of Stayin' Alive in Channel Country) Amateur Songs for Friends and Lovers was born hosting mixed-musicianship from the three and input from close friends and lovers. The outfit released EP - Twelve Step Program (2019) and What I Do For Love (2020) before dropping the 'Amateur' and becoming Friends and Lovers for the album How To Start A Cult (2023). In between James released To Wake Up Unsore (2022) - a solo organ instrumental track recorded in Blyth street, Brunswick, home to Chris, James and their partners, who lived together from 2019 - 2022. During this time Stayin' Alive in Channel Country was written in five days - 3 in the lounge-room next to Chris as he painted, and two a few months later. In 2025, single I Am Winter was released featuring a collaboration between past and present band members, with Darren Keane, Tom Abraham, Kial Menadue, and Chris Rigney. It was recorded where Kial made his home after 2016, in Daylesford, the Central Highlands of Victoria.
James is currently writing The Liquor Store Diaries, there being no end in sight to the over 777k word project. His Instagram page is mostly dedicated to Sloan style poetry and photographs of ashtrays. His first poetry publication Frog with a Petal on Its Head, is in collaboration with Chris Rigney. He is a clinical hypnotherapist practicing out of Bundoora and his home in North Carlton which doubles as his partners painting studio and mouse cemetery for his black cat, Bagheera. He still works in a liquor store.
You can purchase James' written publications here, and Kial's too.
Alter-ego Sloan James and photographer Kial James Menadue set out to pursue their dreams of being a writer/photographer troupe in this beat-paced, spontaneous-prose-driven, dark-comedy, adventure novel.
Stayin' Alive in Channel Country - Special edition photo-book 100 signed and stamped
Stayin' Alive in Channel Country - Limited first edition
– Richard (Goodreads)
“Very good book, definitely one of my favourite reads in recent memory. Entertaining, engaging, thought-provoking, and also genuinely funny, in an absurdist "did he really just say that" type of way. Simply loved it.”
- Georgia (Goodreads)
“Like Kerouac's On The Road but better”
– @Soyosbooks (Instagram)
“I was lucky enough to read an early draft of this book. Podhorodecki’s prose is ruthless. He drives a knife into the bloated corpse of white-Australia’s sunburned ‘cultchya’. Not always pretty, but those interested in hedonistic gonzo should not skip!”
- @glue.boy_ (Instagram)
“Such a good book. It’ll be the read I foie gras to everyone for the next while.”
- @jaidynpoetry (Instagram)
“I gotta say it. This looks like it could be one of the greatest Australian novels of the decade. Bloody BEAUTIFUL book. Gonzo Existentialism. Truly had me gripped the entire time with its rawness about being a writer chasing down stories, that gold-in-grime honesty. You KNOW I relate to this one. Bit gonzo myself, maybe. This is my kind of book. The book I could look for in twenty bookstores and never find.”
– Alex Sutcliffe
“I read Stayin' Alive in Channel Country. I was wondering how you were going to sustain the energy I'd seen in your shorter pieces in a longer work, but it works even better because it has time to build and change and also because you're in pursuit of a great white whale: meaning. The near relentless negativity and cynicism of the narrator is also great. I wasn't sold on his/your worldview at first, but as it goes on it really convinced me that his/your approach (a stubborn refusal to meet anyone half way, which would just be half way into hell) is authentic and honest. Also I don't think I've read anyone writing interestingly about masculinity, definitely not in this way, in ages.”
– @iainwilsonart (Instagram)
“Great book… very funny, thought provoking and engaging. I highly recommend.”
– @bookrunner_au (Instagram)
“@wordsofsloan gave me a proof of this a long time ago and I can safely say that this collaboration between @cigi.butt.sloan and @kialmenadue deserves your patronage and curiosity.”
– @blakehohenhaus (Instagram)
“hey mate! we met at your book launch back in June, and i finished it last weekend. just wanted to say thanks for the chats and everything at the launch, and that i really loved the book! your words really flew off the page, and i blitzed through it. even though “nothing” happened, everything did. the narrative you constructed out of a bizarre sequence of less-than-‘successful’ events was really powerful. i loved your observational prose, i found it utterly compelling and frankly inspiring. you wrote with a frankness that made me trust you as a narrator, even when you were forthcoming in your acknowledgment of your subjectivity. Having toured out in regional/rural QLD for work and seen glimpses of this world you paint such a vivid picture of, i really loved your frank “city-slicker in a strange land” portrait you painted of an almost other-worldly environment. I also just adored the way your wrote about Kial, there is a powerful friendship there, and i am always so happy to find male friendships depicted in a really loving, honest way. can’t wait to see more of his pictures from the trip. I would read countless more accounts of your “stayin alive” adventures. I really hope there is more to come. There is a really special tone here, a writing about Australia that seems at once frank and romantic and unromantic and real and mystical and grotesque and meaningful and meaningless. Channel Country is a special book. congratulations! i hope you feel great about it. i feel really lucky that i landed a random instagram ad, thought “fuck it” and went along to meet both of you and cop a copy.
– @liam_oliver1 (Instagram)
“Mate this book is fucking flawless in the most flawed way. Well fucking done I'm sitting in a busy Cafe laughing my head off.”