Swift Parrot x Dark Mofo - by Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn
Nonfiction Zowie Douglas‐Kinghorn Nonfiction Zowie Douglas‐Kinghorn

Swift Parrot x Dark Mofo - by Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn

Sex and death on the eve of the winter solstice? I gulp as the ogoh-ogoh looms over me, ready to prey on my fears. The usually diminutive swift parrot (or Lathamus discolor) is rendered in behemoth glory as a papier-mâché Balinese sculpture. Beneath the parrot’s clawed foot is a small parcel made of palm leaf: a canang sari …

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The Intimacy of Daily Life: The News is the Weather - by Rosie Flanagan and Miriam McGarry
Arts Features Rosie Flanagan and Miriam McGarry Arts Features Rosie Flanagan and Miriam McGarry

The Intimacy of Daily Life: The News is the Weather - by Rosie Flanagan and Miriam McGarry

Tasmania and Iceland sit at almost opposite ends of the world; remote islands of disparate wilderness that are as distant as the 17,000 kilometres that separate them. The premise behind our application for the publishing residency there was simple: islands, as books, have delineated boundaries – and yet, the identities of both are formed through interactions and exchanges that extend beyond the lines of a map or the borders of a page. We wrote to Skaftfell, who run the Printing Matter program, and told them that we intended to publish an island …

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Selling the Farm - by Nicole Gill
Nonfiction Nicole Gill Nonfiction Nicole Gill

Selling the Farm - by Nicole Gill

Nicole Gill on holding on, and letting go:
They’re selling our family farm. And I don’t think that I can stop it. I find out second-hand, from my brother. My mind skips over emotions like a stone across water – denial, anger, straight over bargaining, and into depression. How can this be? The Van Diemonian squattocracy ain’t what it used to be …

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For Sale - by Ruth Quibell
Nonfiction Ruth Quibell Nonfiction Ruth Quibell

For Sale - by Ruth Quibell

Ruth Quibell on homesickness and the fading of the great Australian dream:
Like most Australians, I once aspired to own a home of my own, but as I get older, and property prices further part ways with median incomes, I know it is unlikely. I’m far from an outlier … Whatever my other achievements at work, or in my personal relationships, I am left with an unresolved longing for a permanent home …

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Sisters Akousmatica: Herstory of Radio
Arts Features Sisters Akousmatica Arts Features Sisters Akousmatica

Sisters Akousmatica: Herstory of Radio

[Voix Fantôme] The act of simply being women in public space, in radio/broadcast space, in performance space, in the world, can be a radical one – but we do not wish to leave it at that.
[Transmitter 1] How? How to begin to unpick a thousand years of cultural status quo?

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Double Yolker - by Mish Meijers
Arts Features Mish Meijers Arts Features Mish Meijers

Double Yolker - by Mish Meijers

These are not things you will ever see. Meijers is constructing images and objects that merge politics with theatre (as if that needs to be consciously done). She is allowing us an audience with everything that exists behind closed doors, and she is putting a spotlight on it, and as it stands, sweaty and blinking out at the darkness and forgetting its lines, she is sticking the knife in, and playing for the dramatic finale …

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hope thicks the air - by Viv Cutbush
Nonfiction Viv Cutbush Nonfiction Viv Cutbush

hope thicks the air - by Viv Cutbush

… It’s about the movement of water. Clay, silt, sand and gravel. The skin of a mountain ash tree. It’s about Joan of Arc and hope in the dark. It’s about the futility of words, except without words all we are left with is what goes unsaid …

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The Teeth and the Curl: A Note to a Cousin - by Robbie Arnott
Fiction Robbie Arnott Fiction Robbie Arnott

The Teeth and the Curl: A Note to a Cousin - by Robbie Arnott

… You find no cowries by rushing. She told us that, once. Many times. The coarse beach climbing beneath our nails as she spoke. Harsh rocks stubbing our toes into jammy mash when we ignored her and sprinted into the shallows. Oyster shells blading through the skin of our fingers as she said slow down, slow down. You have a whole life …

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Stepping Back from The Edge: Re-imagining Queenstown - by Cameron Hindrum
Nonfiction, Arts Features Cameron Hindrum Nonfiction, Arts Features Cameron Hindrum

Stepping Back from The Edge: Re-imagining Queenstown - by Cameron Hindrum

… one might wonder exactly where the future lies. It might be too bold to imagine that it lies in the arts. However, there are many examples of arts festivals driving regional renewal, establishing new parameters of community engagement in areas that might otherwise have been written off, if not actually abandoned …

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Okay is a Verb - by Erin Hortle
Fiction Erin Hortle Fiction Erin Hortle

Okay is a Verb - by Erin Hortle

Cece wiggles her toes up and down, and then wiggles her hips, swivelling herself this way, then that. She sinks further into the aerated sand of the tideline. She bends down and picks up a small rock from beneath the lap of the shallows …

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Apple Suite - by Danielle Wood
Fiction Danielle Wood Fiction Danielle Wood

Apple Suite - by Danielle Wood

Glen Huon, Tasmania
”You’ll see pickers and picnickers, returned servicemen and brides, young buildings all raw-planked and surrounded by saplings, hay carts piled high, blossom-filled vistas – a hundred thin slices of once-upon-a-time light displayed in deliberately mismatched frames …”

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Boom and Bust in the Gaiety - by Gabrielle Lis
Nonfiction Gabrielle Lis Nonfiction Gabrielle Lis

Boom and Bust in the Gaiety - by Gabrielle Lis

Zeehan, Tasmania
On Main Street stands the Gaiety Theatre, a grand old building painted in ice-cream parlour pastels: mint green, vanilla cream, pale strawberry, frosted boysenberry. Locals will tell you Houdini performed there, walked a tightrope from the roof across to a nearby hotel …

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Foundations - by Michael Blake
Fiction Michael Blake Fiction Michael Blake

Foundations - by Michael Blake

Scottsdale, Tasmania
There used to be trees here, and there will be trees here again.
 But for now there is a paddock, desiccated foot-high grass spitting pollen, seed-heads nodding in the peak-summer breeze...

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