The water’s edge – by Craig White
Nonfiction Craig White Nonfiction Craig White

The water’s edge – by Craig White

Last summer, at Cooee Beach in Tasmania’s north-west, a father drowned while swimming with his children. At Johnson Rock near Currie on King Island, a 43-year-old male tourist drowned while diving with friends when he ‘encountered difficulties in the water’. At White Beach on the Tasman Peninsula, a 36-year-old man drowned while diving for scallops with his mates despite ‘extensive CPR by first responders’.

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Brackish tongue – by Roanna McClelland
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Brackish tongue – by Roanna McClelland

I write the first line of a poem: ‘I thought the river might heal me, but she is brackish on my tongue’.

And I wonder what story I am trying to tell when I use rivers in my work. A wonderful academic tells me water is my ‘medium’ and even as I am flattered, part of me squirms. To what end? What am I trying to express when I speak with and through rivers and nature? Do I really think I can bend and shape something as slippery as water to tell my stories?

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The only fish – by Ben Walter
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The only fish – by Ben Walter

The first fish I catch as a child is a flathead. I’m leaning over the side of the boat with my red toy fishing rod, mind drifting wherever a tiny mind does, when I notice a fish at the end of the white string line. Confused, I turn to my dad. ‘Is that … the bait?’ I ask, before seeing that it is a real, actual flathead, and I have somehow caught it.

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The ballet school – by Helena Gjone
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The ballet school – by Helena Gjone

After the longest hour of my life, Galina, our classical teacher, bursts through the door clutching a sheet of paper. Everyone sits up a little straighter. The room goes silent with anticipation, the wall clock ticking. My Australian dance teachers would have taken this moment to remind us ‘how much progress we’ve made this year,’ and ‘how proud I am to be your teacher’. Results would be handed out individually. But Galina doesn’t waste time with politeness or sentimental speeches, simply unfolding the paper and reading marks aloud for the entire class to hear.

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Great flying soar and in command – by Lily Chan
Nonfiction Lily Chan Nonfiction Lily Chan

Great flying soar and in command – by Lily Chan

My brother’s name is Haoren. It means great flying, soar, esteem, in command. His name is Bob when he orders takeaway. Nobody mishears Bob. Nobody checks Bob’s ID. Bob has no history and is taken at face value. He has the cheekbones of a deathless vampire from a K-pop band, honed from evening climbs of Jacob’s Ladder, 242 unbroken concrete steps showing a panoramic view of King’s Park in Perth.

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Dhanggal Bawagal: Mussel Sisters – by Michelle Vlatkovic
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Dhanggal Bawagal: Mussel Sisters – by Michelle Vlatkovic

Long before Jesus, my family always travelled from Biridja when it was warm but not hot. When the chill had begun to melt away from the days and the mornings had no frost, Yulawirri’s family walked from Weetalabah Creek. We all camped with other clans by the Baawan at Burriiwarranha. My mother prepared fish our way, pulling out the guts and covering the outside with mud. Yulawirri’s mother worked her flour into damper with water. Ready for the fire, they dug a hole then buried the food in hot coals. We ate as the sun went down.

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The libraries we must enter, the songs we will sing – by Jamil Badi
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The libraries we must enter, the songs we will sing – by Jamil Badi

Since the 14th century, the griots have been the human archives of many West African communities. The responsibilities of the griot are rooted in the importance of oral storytelling as a way of preserving and passing on history. Like the saying suggests, griots would collect and memorise the history of their communities, sharing the collective past through poetry, music, and performance. Before history was written and typed, it was spoken and sung in the form of stories.

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Girl/Monster – by Simmone Howell
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Girl/Monster – by Simmone Howell

Once, after I’d grown pubic hair, I slathered Mum’s Nair all over it. This was in the early 1980s. I don’t know how it is now, but back then Nair smelled like nothing else. The results were unsatisfactory: only some of the hair came off and what was left looked like splinters. Looking down at the mess, I can remember feeling estranged from my body. I wanted to go back to a time when I wasn’t so obviously disgusting, but of course this was impossible.

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Words inside words – by Ouyang Yu
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Words inside words – by Ouyang Yu

It’s 7.30am. Dark, becoming light. Lighter. Had a dream last night. Several. Only one that I can remember. Driving a vehicle several storeys high. Through the city. Lost on the way. For years, I have been living like a shadow. A shadow critic. A shadow novelist. A shadow poet. Living like a word inside a word. A shadow word. I once did a translation for a client and delivered it in my usual fast and efficient manner. But she refused to pay, suggesting that my work could have easily been done by Google Translate. Instead of asking for money, I got a debt collector to act on my behalf without first prompting her. Soon enough, I got my money back, minus the collector’s commission.

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Snakes in the valleys, in their hair – by Ben Walter
Nonfiction Ben Walter Nonfiction Ben Walter

Snakes in the valleys, in their hair – by Ben Walter

Once, I was walking on a ridge and lightning was sparkling peaks to the east and the west, while a white spear of cloud hurtled straight for us. We found the top of the mountain, felt its texture through our boots, stared at the views, then turned and ran through an explosion of rain that was dark in the fury of its clouds, that swapped the sweat from our faces with its own jealous wet. Going was the only thing to do, but it still felt a terrible idea, because we’d have to leave the top of the mountain. There were still views. We could still see.

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Wave and blue – by Beth Kearney
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Wave and blue – by Beth Kearney

On the side of a road, beneath a crown of trees, the woman in the photograph is waving. She’s an old woman, but strong and upright, her long legs supporting a proud stance. Her arm is high in the air, higher than most old ladies tend to raise their arms, and she smiles at the camera. But her eyes appear unfocused, directed somewhere above the frame of the image. It’s as though she can’t see the person taking the photo, but it’s clear that she feels warmly towards them. Her smile seems to say, ‘I’ll see you next time, and it won’t be long. In the meantime, take care’.

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Conversation IV: Permission to witness – by Libby King
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Conversation IV: Permission to witness – by Libby King

1. When I felt she was open enough to hear, I told her everything. They are obsessed with olive oil and soap and oranges, I wrote. Coffee rituals / Tea rituals / Niche cheeses from specific villages / Old walls / Ancient wells / Markets. Oh friend, I wrote. The markets! / Farmers, I said. / And artisans / They are obsessed with spices.

2. I didn’t mention the little herbal hole in the wall in the Old Market in Nablus on the West Bank where a man with grey stubble and a balding head cheekily reassured my father that if impotency was an issue he had a herbal mixture to deal with that.

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Rain Rain – by Indigo Bailey
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Rain Rain – by Indigo Bailey

Taps trickle without flooding the bathroom. The washing machine, a whirring ouroboros, persists on an endless cycle. Outside is a thunderstorm without lightning – just a rumbling that seems to deepen but never will. You layer 3D Rain with Rain on a Tent in an attempt to reveal a fourth dimension of sound, a place to sleep where you won’t be woken by your heartbeat. Curating Earth’s sounds makes you feel at once small – a tiny, submerged animal – and omnipotent. The app is called ‘Rain Rain’ and this name captures its greatest strength: repetition. Or: incantation.

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Clothing the whiteness – by Isabella Wang
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Clothing the whiteness – by Isabella Wang

For my mother and so many new migrants looking to make it in Australia, fashion was a tool for surviving, a means of asserting oneself in a society that systemically deemed them inferior. My mother would find race in every interaction. She’d find it when someone cut in front of her at the grocery store, when another driver would signal angrily at her before honking, and when she was short-shifted once more at work. Being young, I did not understand it. I’d feel the flushing heat of embarrassment thinking she’d overreacted, then beg her to stop. But she lived her life with nervousness and agitation, knowing she was constantly judged by her face and accent.

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The other hand – by Carly Stone
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The other hand – by Carly Stone

The gold parts. Bright blue day in Central Park with T. We stop at the dog statue, take off our gloves, and pat the front paws. The dog is a dull bronze, but the paws have been rubbed gold, as have the nose and ears and tail, and these parts feel warmer, as though the paws have held the heat of every hand that touched them.

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Collection of collections – by Meredith Jelbart
Nonfiction Meredith Jelbart Nonfiction Meredith Jelbart

Collection of collections – by Meredith Jelbart

The lady’s hand muff in the folk museum is made of fruit bats. The fur is sleek and glittering jet black. Each body is arranged beside the next, head to toe, toe to head, so that the tiny faces form a decorative scallop at either edge of the thing, a little like crochet. Beside the glass case with the fruit bats is a dressmaker’s dummy displaying a long white dress of simple cotton, trimmed with blue ribbon. A handwritten card pinned to the bodice explains that this dress was worn by Miss Dianne Collins to the Wentworth debutant ball in 1936.

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We Were Here – by Sarah Firth
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We Were Here – by Sarah Firth

I’m in Canberra, on Ngunnawal country, at my childhood home helping to sort through stuff accumulated over a lifetime. My parents have sold the house after 45 years to move into a smaller townhouse with room for a carer when needed. It’s the end of an era. There is so much to process. And I’m trying to get some sort of closure.

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Thrift – by Catherine Zhou
Nonfiction Catherine Zhou Nonfiction Catherine Zhou

Thrift – by Catherine Zhou

Departing, I lug a chair across a highway and the volunteer thanks me for my donation. I choose not to tell them about the missing screw. We’ll just take this into the back, they say. The curtains close and the thing is no more. Arriving, there are no walls. Baroque lanterns hang from metal frames. We’ve received a lot of guitars recently, he says. Do you play? The guitars are black and electric. A bookshelf curves around a field of children’s toys. It’s important to have no expectations here or you’ll be let down, so scour the spines. Find a book in Italian. Think, I could learn Italian if I tried.

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Bog bodies: Iron Age dreamland – by Lucinda Lagos
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Bog bodies: Iron Age dreamland – by Lucinda Lagos

I would like to share a recurring dream. I am wandering through a picturesque northern European marshland when I stop and drop to the ground with an overwhelming sense of purpose. I begin digging with vigour, the way you do in dreams, knowing that your actions are essential. Dream knowledge is its own canon; the implicit information I possess in a dream is unquestionable even upon waking. I find that every time I re-enter this familiar yet extraordinary dreamland, I am unphased by any strangeness, the dream and I being old acquaintances. In fact, I find the irresistible urge to dig comforting.

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Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me – by Xiaole Zhan
Nonfiction Xiaole Zhan Nonfiction Xiaole Zhan

Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me – by Xiaole Zhan

I’ve had a recurring scene scorched in my mind since mid-winter 2020. I’m unsure whether the image emerged from a dream or if it grew from someplace in the dark wet of my brain like a tumour. The scene is of two people, each wearing a surgical mask. They have some kind of intimate relationship that cannot be entirely discerned, only there is a power imbalance – this is for sure – and while they attempt to speak to one another through their masks, the figure with less power suffers a nosebleed which slowly seeps through the blue cloth like a Rorschach moth.

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