Kevin – by Sarah Langfield
Fiction Sarah Langfield Fiction Sarah Langfield

Kevin – by Sarah Langfield

Eulogies are exceptionally difficult to write.

They aren’t like narratives, with fanciful characters that only exist in Times New Roman (sometimes Calibri, never Courier). Stories are easier. So, when tasked with writing a eulogy, I wrote a story instead.

This one.

It isn’t very good.

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Laptop death – by David Thomas Henry Wright
Nonfiction David Thomas Henry Wright Nonfiction David Thomas Henry Wright

Laptop death – by David Thomas Henry Wright

I carry the silver block tenderly, like a sick infant. I carry it onto the bus, onto the subway, across town, to the imposing glass temple. It is a characteristic of major cities of the 21st century. If your city has one, your city matters; if it doesn’t, you don’t. I am talking, of course, about the Apple Store.

Upon entering I am greeted with warmth. I inform, ‘Yesterday, my computer crashed. I can restart it, but I can’t log in. It just freezes.’ My host realises I will not be buying anything today. Warmth swiftly turns to disappointment masquerading as concern. He informs, ‘We are at capacity. Would you like to book a time for another day?’ I plead, pray, beg that I be seen today. It is a matter of utmost importance. ‘No, it is not possible,’ my host replies. The Apple Store, it seems, has no emergency room.

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Start where you are – by Jenny Sinclair
Fiction Jenny Sinclair Fiction Jenny Sinclair

Start where you are – by Jenny Sinclair

Start where you are, Uncle Vance says. Said.

The which I never, you know, got before, even though I’d heard it seven thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two times.

Start where you are, he said, when I had to change schools that time because of nothing I did wrong. It was Luke and his fighting, but Mum couldn’t do two schools in opposite directions, could she? So I started – all over again.

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The goose of granite islands – by Suyanti Winoto-Lewin
Nonfiction Suyanti Winoto-Lewin Nonfiction Suyanti Winoto-Lewin

The goose of granite islands – by Suyanti Winoto-Lewin

Forty million years ago a great rift was opening across the remains of the supercontinent Gondwana. Australia and Antarctica had snuggled together for more than a billion years, but now they slowly cleaved apart. Ocean rushed in to sizzle over the hot, fresh scars, but the break was not clean. One band of granite, old and insistent, stretched between the parting continents. As Australia drifted north, the granite arm held fast to a corner of Antarctica, pulling a piece free and dragging it behind.

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Light hazard – by Sophie Overett
Fiction Sophie Overett Fiction Sophie Overett

Light hazard – by Sophie Overett

When he asks Miss Pris what it’s like, she tells him it’s strange. Like someone’s pulled the back of her head off and is messing about with her wiring, trying to fix a computer that was never broken in the first place. An itch turned a discomfort turned a sharp, relentless pain. A cable grabbed, yanked, and finally pulled loose – its casing peeled off to leave the tender thing inside exposed. ‘Gnarly,’ Matt replies, because it is. He dumps a bundle of weeds – nutgrass and lamb’s tongue – into one of the tubs Kevin had put out, and Miss Pris laughs. It makes the crow’s feet by her eyes stark, like corvid talons kneading in the softer flesh of her.

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If Movement Were a Language: Triptych – by Svetlana Sterlin
Poetry Svetlana Sterlin Poetry Svetlana Sterlin

If Movement Were a Language: Triptych – by Svetlana Sterlin

no one would be as fluent as us / swimmers. gliding through what we know as air

density augmented. our shoulders feel / brunt of gym tiles Dad and i flipped /

onto faded patchwork carpet. i still remember / miniature brick pattern of black

and grey. now hidden beneath those tiles / does our presence haunt them, woven

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In Quarantine – by Megan Clement
Nonfiction Megan Clement Nonfiction Megan Clement

In Quarantine – by Megan Clement

WINNER , ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2021

… The neon green BP sign across the road means the opposite of what it used to. It means I am stuck in this liminal space, with a guard at my door 24/7, squirrelled away to protect the health of Australians everywhere. This would be fine except for the fact that I’m here for 14 days and my father is dying and I don’t know if he has 14 days left …

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This Moon – by Megan Coupland
Nonfiction Megan Coupland Nonfiction Megan Coupland

This Moon – by Megan Coupland

It’s the tail end of 1873, November, and a clergyman is rugged up against a sluggish dusk. Along a Newfoundland coastline, Reverend Moses Harvey makes his way towards a fishing boat on the shore; he’s approaching the knot of fishermen who summoned him. The men, just in from the sea, are clustered around the carcass they’ve surfaced, a creature dredged inadvertently from the depths of Logy Bay, tangled in their herring nets. Harvey’s not there on church business. Instead, he’s made a name for himself locally as a collector of curiosities and the fishermen have offered him their haul: a giant squid, dead on arrival …

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23 vignettes on the rental crisis – by Anna Jacobson
Poetry Anna Jacobson Poetry Anna Jacobson

23 vignettes on the rental crisis – by Anna Jacobson

1. When I move in, the manager stands in my room. He says it’s important for me to be quiet. His gaze fixes on the wall, trying to appease whoever is on the other side.

2. Someone told me that people go missing here – that my street is the Bermuda Triangle of Brisbane. Today was the first day my lips started tasting like metal. I think it’s stress.

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Stanzas – by Jo Gardiner
Poetry Jo Gardiner Poetry Jo Gardiner

Stanzas – by Jo Gardiner

If you talk about tomorrow, they say,

the rats in the ceiling will laugh, so speak

only of this one day when morning drops

its bright curtain across the window

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Parturition Chairs I-V – by Isabella G Mead
Poetry Isabella G Mead Poetry Isabella G Mead

Parturition Chairs I-V – by Isabella G Mead

How can a chair look like a scream? 

And why do its arms recoil? 

A cry trapped in polished walnut 

curves and re-curves. No frills in a shout.

Sit here only if you want to feel six-legged.

Where is the voice that birthed its legs?

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Friendly fire – by Tricia Dearborn
Poetry Tricia Dearborn Poetry Tricia Dearborn

Friendly fire – by Tricia Dearborn

the reassuring foof as it ignites      

flickering blue under a small saucepan

coaxing the milk to warmth for cocoa

puffing up the dumplings, alchemising

sugar and butter and golden syrup

to sumptuous stickiness

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Ghost streets – by Alexandra Sangster
Nonfiction Alexandra Sangster Nonfiction Alexandra Sangster

Ghost streets – by Alexandra Sangster

I have lived here long enough to know where the people who are not living anymore live.

Well not them exactly, but their ghosts.

All of the streets speak.

There is a build-up

of bones

(not the literal kind, not like in Paris with the catacombs or in Scotland with the pits of plague dead under your feet)

but bones none the less.

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Magic – by Maria Takolander and David McCooey
Fiction Maria Takolander & David McCooey Fiction Maria Takolander & David McCooey

Magic – by Maria Takolander and David McCooey

I can do magic. That’s what she told me when we met. We had found ourselves walking side-by-side among a small group of strangers on a tour of the local gardens. She told me her name and then came out with the confession. It hung between us, like a rabbit, pale and trembling, pulled out of an invisible hat. I had no idea what she was talking about. I wondered: why had she hand-picked me? I was becoming paranoid: what was I unknowingly giving away about myself? After that, even the grass seemed vaguely treacherous, but then I’ve never been an outdoors person.

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A thousand gifts – by Maki Morita
Nonfiction Maki Morita Nonfiction Maki Morita

A thousand gifts – by Maki Morita

this story about food starts in a gym, but I’m talking free-to-air TV not protein bars — running on a treadmill to the white noise of Border Security could be the crème de la crème of suburban pastimes — did you know quarantine law makes good primetime drama? — we pant we glance we witness a family unravel souvenirs with which to adorn their kitchen — this is a tune to hum along to and I take another sip of water

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The Budgie - by Jing Cramb
Fiction Jing Cramb Fiction Jing Cramb

The Budgie - by Jing Cramb

My son couldn’t even say the word ‘dog’ back then; he called it a ‘dug’. It was cute but I was not moved by his cuteness nor any puppy’s cuteness – I was in the middle of a divorce. Not to mention that I was bitten on the leg by a stray village dog when I was young. Over the years, the reasons for not getting a dog evolved into three questions: Who is going to walk the dog every day? Who will be responsible for collecting the poo? How much will it cost to own a dog? My son and I both knew it was the answer to the last question that left us dogless, but we never admitted it, as if keeping the same secret from each other and assuming the other person did not know.

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Day 210 – by Brigid Coleridge
Poetry Brigid Coleridge Poetry Brigid Coleridge

Day 210 – by Brigid Coleridge

WINNER OF THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2023

‘Russia–Ukraine War Latest: What We Know On Day 210 Of The Invasion’
The Guardian, 21 September 2022

We meet because someone told us to.
You will enjoy each other he says, but
it is the wrong word. When I see you,
you are deep in Cubism – guitars
in shards, your back a pointed stroke.

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