31.5°S, 159°E - by Keely Jobe
Nonfiction Keely Jobe Nonfiction Keely Jobe

31.5°S, 159°E - by Keely Jobe

In the centre of the bird, a message.
Bottle top golf tee balloon clip tube cap cable tie nurdle pen top strapping tape twist top lollipop bread tag glow stick …

I see Jenn standing with a group of bird carcasses. Her back is to the ocean, the shearwaters are fanned out in front. There’s something ceremonial about the image – the bodies are laid with care – but there’s no avoiding the violence. The birds are knocked over like bowling pins. It’s a strike …

Read More
Three Fragments - by Cameron Hindrum
Fiction Cameron Hindrum Fiction Cameron Hindrum

Three Fragments - by Cameron Hindrum

Three delicate, beautiful, devastating vignettes from a versatile Tasmanian writer.
… I start the car and the old man listens and my great-grandmother is sitting next to me, holding flowers in her papery hands …
… Can’t describe the sound. Tyres locked up, a squeal harsh in the darkness, a soft crump, metal hitting metal like a full stop at the end of the squealing and glass breaking …

Read More
In My Father’s House - by Suneeta Peres da Costa 
Poetry Suneeta Peres da Costa Poetry Suneeta Peres da Costa

In My Father’s House - by Suneeta Peres da Costa 

We are / on land but the water is rising. Baby frogs, escaped / from the long-unused well, are found, delicate as / foreskins, among the Macau china …

This is part of our new 5-piece suite from South-Asian Australian writers inspired by the COVID situation in India and the Australian response

Read More
Athai - by Lakshmi Narayanan
Nonfiction Lakshmi Narayanan Nonfiction Lakshmi Narayanan

Athai - by Lakshmi Narayanan

Athai ruthlessly elbowed them and pulled me to the front, so I could get an unrestricted view. This was no joke. We were in a mosh pit now and Lord Shiva was Kurt Cobain …

This is a love song to an aunt on the other side of the world - written as part of our new 5-piece suite from South-Asian Australian writers inspired by the COVID situation in India and the Australian response

Read More
King of Sweets - by Atul Joshi
Fiction Atul Joshi Fiction Atul Joshi

King of Sweets - by Atul Joshi

Baba believed in kismet and Yaseen believed in Baba. He had come here, started uni, then went into lockdown …
It’s time to go home, the Prime Minister said on TV. If you can’t support yourself, there’s an alternative. Return to your home country.

A short story set in Western Sydney - as part of our new 5-piece suite from South-Asian Australian writers inspired by the COVID situation in India and the Australian response

Read More
Reality Check - by Jocelyn Prasad
Nonfiction Jocelyn Prasad Nonfiction Jocelyn Prasad

Reality Check - by Jocelyn Prasad

I was more at home among backpackers and their well-thumbed copies of Lonely Planet. The real Indians were out of my reach. They were so self-assured in their Indianness that I felt like a fraud, like someone who arrived late to a party and couldn’t find her way in …

A moment of memoir - as part of our new 5-piece suite from South-Asian Australian writers inspired by the COVID situation in India and the Australian response

Read More
Agency - by Tasnim Hossain
Fiction Tasnim Hossain Fiction Tasnim Hossain

Agency - by Tasnim Hossain

‘Well, they shouldn’t have gone back in the first place, not during a pandemic,’ said Denny … ‘They all live on top of each other, so what do you expect? Diseases just waiting to spread.’

A short story - as part of our new 5-piece suite from South-Asian Australian writers inspired by the COVID situation in India and the Australian response

Read More
Principles of Permaculture - by Sam George-Allen
Nonfiction Sam George-Allen Nonfiction Sam George-Allen

Principles of Permaculture - by Sam George-Allen

… Now, alone and an adult, I am having a renaissance with the ground. I am changing; I am getting lower down. Mole-like, I want to go beneath the grass, I want to swim in the earth. I imagine seeds and the root-hairs they send down into the soil. I want to silence the bell even further with the press of earth, with the silent growing living things down there that go on living while the world above them falls to bits …

Read More
Fury - by Andrew Harper, on Lucienne Rickard’s ‘Extinction Studies’
Nonfiction, Arts Features Andrew Harper Nonfiction, Arts Features Andrew Harper

Fury - by Andrew Harper, on Lucienne Rickard’s ‘Extinction Studies’

Lucienne Rickard is doing something extraordinary … She is doing the same thing, over and over again, and she has been doing it since September 2019, before the fires on mainland Australia drew the attention of the world and filled us with a long dread about what is to come and what is here already …

Read More
How Do You Make Them Let You Belong? - by Erin Hortle
Nonfiction Erin Hortle Nonfiction Erin Hortle

How Do You Make Them Let You Belong? - by Erin Hortle

Through the casual sexism inherent in Australian surfing culture, Erin Hortle reflects on identity and inclusion
I want to begin by telling you about this time a guy was a dick wielding a phallus. A film of cloud sheened the sun’s light silver. There was no wind. The bush, sprawled beyond the sand dunes, was still and quiet. The ocean was glossy, and heavy lines of swell rolled sluggishly across its expanse. Quicksilver, silverquick …

Read More
Julie Gough: Tense Past
Arts Features Mary Knights Arts Features Mary Knights

Julie Gough: Tense Past

On the Queen’s Domain in the middle of a Hobart winter, people silently wander along a narrow track through a dark grove of she-oaks, eucalyptus and acacia trees. As night falls, long shadows cross the path …

Read More
Housing Climate: From Plastic to Concrete - by Miriam McGarry
Nonfiction Miriam McGarry Nonfiction Miriam McGarry

Housing Climate: From Plastic to Concrete - by Miriam McGarry

From Tasmanian fires to Queensland floods, Miriam McGarry wonders how we will find home in an age of climate instability:
… I was reclaiming a pair of jeans I had loaned her, collateral from the era we had share-housed, when Jack shouted from the bathroom, ‘Look at this sky!’ It appeared as if the entire mountain was on fire. ‘Hobart blue’ was replaced by a brutal and swelling terracotta. A closing barricade. A shroud …

Read More
Go Get Boy – by Alison Flett
Fiction Alison Flett Fiction Alison Flett

Go Get Boy – by Alison Flett

WINNER, OLGA MASTERS SHORT STORY AWARD 2020

I’m The Fetcher, Go Get Boy, barrelling along in the back of Darren’s ute, riding high on the highest pile of drydry firewood, gunna burn so good. I’m one of three, that’s me, that’s who I am, and the three of us are building one good fire. Others are building their own fires but ours’ll be biggest, ours’ll be best, ours’ll burnburnburn forever. No-one’ll forget us when they see our blaze …

Read More
Tiefenzeit - by Tricky Walsh
Arts Features, Fiction Tricky Walsh Arts Features, Fiction Tricky Walsh

Tiefenzeit - by Tricky Walsh

They never told us not to look at the sun, so I had not known what to expect when that second fiery ball made its unplanned descent. I can still note the smell of my borrowed skin as the hot air turned it to dust. It took some time to reconstruct this visage afterward …

Read More
Thirst - by Rick Morton
Nonfiction Rick Morton Nonfiction Rick Morton

Thirst - by Rick Morton

By the end of 2004, when I was graduating from my regional state high school, a person could almost walk clear across the dam that supplied our entire region with water … In many ways, I was a child of drought …

Read More
The Lever, the Pulley and the Screw - by Andrew Roff
Fiction Andrew Roff Fiction Andrew Roff

The Lever, the Pulley and the Screw - by Andrew Roff

Leon: is a betting man. And he bets they will never build this tunnel. Glances again at the crease-worn spreadsheet, traces the critical path with his finger, swearing fuck fuck fuck.
Scott: could really use a fuck. But not Paula; you don’t shit where you eat …

Read More
The Voices of the Magpies - by Laura McPhee-Browne
Fiction Laura McPhee-Browne Fiction Laura McPhee-Browne

The Voices of the Magpies - by Laura McPhee-Browne

For Elizabeth Jolley; in response to ‘A New World’
I am in the sick bed four days before a visitor. There have been trips to the toilet, and watery meals eaten whilst a tiny television sounds in the far corner of the room, dangling as if a puppet. But no one has come to see if I have settled in …

Read More
Archive