The Rats Move In – by Karen A Johnson
Nonfiction Karen A Johnson Nonfiction Karen A Johnson

The Rats Move In – by Karen A Johnson

… Death and disease have hijacked the world’s narrative, at least until the sheer enormity becomes too overwhelming, and it becomes impossible to concentrate on anything outside of the inside. We beat hasty retreats to our homes and hide away until the next news broadcast. The news has replaced the novel in my world.

This is the time for explorative, dangerous fiction. Apocalyptic fiction. But I’m living in a fiction I can’t find a way to write. Nothing rivals the terror of nonfiction. I go online. I could order a gun, a knife. I don’t. I order a plant. A life …

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Fire There Is – by Searlait O’Neill
Nonfiction Searlait O'Neill Nonfiction Searlait O'Neill

Fire There Is – by Searlait O’Neill

My younger brother said that it looked as though all the feathers had been pulled from the skin of a bird, leaving nothing but demarcated veins. He went on to say, ‘That’s not exactly how it looked. I can’t say, really, how it looked.’ At the time we spoke about this, I was trying out images. I thought I’d stumble across something that could capture it. Asking him to recount the experience of seeing our brother, J, and the fire, I was looking to capture a feeling more than anything. The feeling of seeing your brother’s arms burn, of seeing his clothes dropping away like singed leaves …

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Riverine – by Kavita Bedford
Nonfiction Kavita Bedford Nonfiction Kavita Bedford

Riverine – by Kavita Bedford

… Then, it was as if the river was remembered. In the first month of the pandemic, the golden hour hit the river at six each evening. The skies were honey drenched … As the pandemic stretched over months, time ran tandem to the river. My days were linked to other city dwellers, whose sense of time, once ruled by workplaces, was now punctuated only by river walks. On certain days, the river was like glass, reflecting the sky back to itself. One day, I watched a silver heron perched on a dead tree, bark and bird merging into one bar of light as the sun went down …

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How to Be a Better Mother – by Lisa Kenway
Nonfiction Lisa Kenway Nonfiction Lisa Kenway

How to Be a Better Mother – by Lisa Kenway

Don’t wait too long to start a family, but before trying to conceive, make sure you’re ready to support a child, financially and emotionally. Be prepared to put someone else’s needs ahead of your own. Write a birth plan. Exercise regularly. Don’t smoke or inhale second-hand smoke. Don’t eat raw fish or soft cheese. Cut out caffeine and alcohol. Religiously consume prenatal vitamins, but think twice about taking any other medication, even a headache tablet, during the pregnancy …

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Celebrity – by Chris McTrustry
Fiction Chris McTrustry Fiction Chris McTrustry

Celebrity – by Chris McTrustry

… “Well, yeah, acting. What’s that all about? Remember a few lines and don’t walk into the props.” … John Markham is a children's literature veteran with more than fifty titles to his name. He’s recently embarked on a soap opera acting career at the age of fifty-seven. “Yeah, it’s a bit of fun. You rock up, knock off a couple of scenes and hit somewhere trendy for a long lunch. Nothing to it.” …

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The Funeral [Farewell Kenny-G] – by W<J>P Newnham
Nonfiction W P Newnham Nonfiction W P Newnham

The Funeral [Farewell Kenny-G] – by W<J>P Newnham

I had not seen Kenny in years; not up the shops nor hooning past in stolen drift cars with hot dogged exhausts; not on the nightly news. None of the usual sightings. Once, I had seen him looking the part, the weasel-faced crim on Crime Watch; I knew it was him, that Glock held sideways like an OG, that Schnozzle that even a balaclava couldn’t cover. He had been a one-man crime wave / Ice cold and running crack-pipe-hot …

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Fisher Girls – by Barry Lee Thompson
Fiction Barry Lee Thompson Fiction Barry Lee Thompson

Fisher Girls – by Barry Lee Thompson

Over time we’ve come to call them the fisher girls. There were three of them that day, whip-thin and dressed head to toe in black, with jet-black hair scraped off their faces and secured into tails at their necks. Long, those tails, swinging this way and that as the girls walked in measured steps to the river’s edge.

We watched as they unzipped their narrow bags and deftly assembled short, sturdy rods. I thought they must have come to the river to fish, and how unlike the usual fishermen they were. But when it looked as if they might be about to cast, they turned their backs on the water and stood still and silent in a line, facing us. Expressions impassive, rods held steady …

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6 Years, 6 Months and 24 Days Apart – by Saanjana Kapoor
Nonfiction Saanjana Kapoor Nonfiction Saanjana Kapoor

6 Years, 6 Months and 24 Days Apart – by Saanjana Kapoor

… I lead, and she follows close behind. I wonder if she has it easier, given she can watch and learn from my mistakes. Is that what a younger sister is, a better version of the older one? Doesn’t that make me the understudy? Born to prepare her for the role I have rehearsed my entire life; it will never be mine when she can play it better …

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Cake Flat - by Marion May Campbell
Fiction Marion May Campbell Fiction Marion May Campbell

Cake Flat - by Marion May Campbell

Cake Flat. The finality of the spondee – stressed syllable plus stressed syllable. Flat-footed, no pretence. With her low salary and her boy to support she heads for Cake Flat, the dormitory suburb on the coastal plain where she, as they say, can get a foot in the door, a state-subsidised mortgage deposit. Then the interest rates shoot up. Real cake is spongey moist succour and chocolate-dark. Not Cake Flat …

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Good For It - by Lillian Telford
Nonfiction Lillian Telford Nonfiction Lillian Telford

Good For It - by Lillian Telford

Content warning: this essay discusses rape and trauma.

2021: Whenever it happens, the tweets and subtweets say similar things. I join in the shared rage, retweeting heavy words of condemnation. Our stories of trauma are sent into the ether, where screams and cries become whispers against the backdrop of coding and HTML.

In the Twittersphere, someone asks how we can be mad at Morrison’s comments when an old white man will speak like an old white man. After all, boys will be boys …

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An Encounter - by Katerina Gibson
Fiction Katerina Gibson Fiction Katerina Gibson

An Encounter - by Katerina Gibson

One day in a foreign country in a district you did not know existed until the year previous, you will run into someone you know, or used to know, from your childhood. Seeing you first, they will be so shocked as to stop short, which, when the moment of recognition hits — after the mental arithmetic required to identify a face you know in a place you don’t and age it, applying wrinkles, receding hairlines — you do also …

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Peace Body Pain Body - by Jarad Bruinstroop
Nonfiction Jarad Bruinstroop Nonfiction Jarad Bruinstroop

Peace Body Pain Body - by Jarad Bruinstroop

… At the hospital, they call chronic pain ‘persistent pain’. ‘Persistent’ has a more positive connotation, but it also suggests the pain has agency. The pain does not persist. I persist.

The head of the spinal clinic tells me there’s no point in more physiotherapy, since I reported no benefit from it. I ask him what he would do if he were me. He says, I would try to learn to live with the pain. We are talking on the phone, so I can’t see his face. And he can’t see the expression on mine …

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Captain Boner - by Alex Cothren
Fiction Alex Cothren Fiction Alex Cothren

Captain Boner - by Alex Cothren

Captain Honor: Brooklyn-based superhero who is capable of flight and superhuman strength. Known as the ‘Guardian of the Bridge’ due to the high number of suicide attempts he has prevented from the Brooklyn Bridge. Captain Honor is currently under review for acceptance into Manhattan’s Hall of Justice supergroup …

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The Orchid - by Erica Wheadon
Nonfiction Erica Wheadon Nonfiction Erica Wheadon

The Orchid - by Erica Wheadon

Your husband gives you an orchid for Valentine’s Day. Again. You don’t know why he bothers and tell him so. All you have to do is look after it, he shrugs, and you twist your mouth into a smile, place the pot on the corner of the deck next to the hammock and stare at it like you would a newborn baby that has been thrust on you …

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Into the Clear Blue - by Susan McCreery
Fiction Susan McCreery Fiction Susan McCreery

Into the Clear Blue - by Susan McCreery

… Here’s my theory: you can tell a lot about a man and his opinion of women by his lap-lane etiquette. Men who shift to one side at the wall, nod off you go, are allies. Fast women swimmers are no threat to these men. Then there are those who refuse to give way, no matter how obvious it is they’re being out-swum, who, according to my theory, expect you to do everything except take out the bins, who get the shits when your salary outstrips theirs, and who rage whenever you’re curled up in sorrow about your grandmother, who is interstate and dying …

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Various Emilys/Gondals - by Josie/Jocelyn Deane
Nonfiction Josie/Jocelyn Deane Nonfiction Josie/Jocelyn Deane

Various Emilys/Gondals - by Josie/Jocelyn Deane

We’re getting back into Dungeons and Dragons, ordering Ghost Pan pizza. I’m experimenting with close reading, through the language of dice rolls and spell lists. Emily Dickinson, my character – who may not be an exact representation of Emily Dickinson – is sleeping in the garret she rents in the fictional city of Sigil. We agree there’s nothing much in her room. A bed. A chest of drawers, a mirror and a crucifix, a chair. Emily’s white dress is slumped across its back, caked in dry sewage …

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Surrogate Mother - by Helena Pantsis
Fiction Helena Pantsis Fiction Helena Pantsis

Surrogate Mother - by Helena Pantsis

Her body grew transparent under the weight of the water, her skin shrinking against the porcelain. The spiders spent more time inside these walls than she had. She hadn't been home in years.

Is it okay, ma, if I stay here a while?

Take as long as you need, darling …

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Fluctuations in Landscape/Language/Lasagne - by Christine Howe
Nonfiction Christine Howe Nonfiction Christine Howe

Fluctuations in Landscape/Language/Lasagne - by Christine Howe

… here we are – writers, artists, geographers – on a bend in the river, talking about our shared coastlines. We tussle with the knowledge that the coastal areas we love are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and we brainstorm how we might create art that could help our communities envision a vastly different future. We talk, walk and write together …

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An August for My July Mother - by Karina Ko
Fiction Karina Ko Fiction Karina Ko

An August for My July Mother - by Karina Ko

‘Augustus is an interesting name for a Vietnamese man,’ I’d said to Felix when we first met in a community hall in Parramatta. We were upcycling fences into benches. He’d told me that he lived with an Augustus after I asked whether his own name was inspired by something ancient Roman, or the fat cat …

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Witchcraft, charming, &amp;c. - by Eliza Henry-Jones
Nonfiction Eliza Henry-Jones Nonfiction Eliza Henry-Jones

Witchcraft, charming, &c. - by Eliza Henry-Jones

You live on a wild and beautiful collection of islands off the coast of mainland Scotland. Your name is Jonet. On the 14th of May, 1643, you are denounced as a witch by your neighbours. You are charged with witchcraft, charming &c. and soon you will be sentenced to die. Did you hear whispers of unrest on the sharp wind, kicked up from the icy tides of the North Sea? Or is the denouncement a shock to you? …

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