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Finger-branches – by Eliza Henry-Jones
Fiction Eliza Henry-Jones Fiction Eliza Henry-Jones

Finger-branches – by Eliza Henry-Jones

A breathtaking new story inspired by a residency at the Australian Institute of Marine Science

… We, the oldest from the reef, remember crown-of-thorns starfish from the sea. We never see them, but we know they’re near. They change things (a whiff a tremor). We have long learnt to buckle down (draw in fight fight fight) at their approach. The whiff tremor of them carries through cold lab air. It makes us so grateful for our tight, clear tank. Louise noises COTS. Crown-of-thorns COTS. They are feasters. We are their sunlight …

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Nature Writing Project- Cycle 3

The next six pieces are the third and final cycle of work from our Australian Nature Writing Project.

The pieces were selected by Ben Walter, who also initiated the project. This is what Ben had to say about this set of works …

Recently, I found myself with a spare day in Launceston. I thought about climbing an obscure mountain nearby, but there’d been major rain, flooding in the area – the huge weather event that trammelled over Victoria in mid-October had also blasted Tasmania …

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I Go Down to the Shore – by RT Wenzel
Nonfiction RT Wenzel Nonfiction RT Wenzel

I Go Down to the Shore – by RT Wenzel

In the scheme of rivers, this river is not extraordinary. The surface is sometimes lustrous with scum and agricultural runoff, the riverbed coated in sludge and bacterial matting. Not a river you’d travel to see – although tourists do come for the platypuses.

Stretches of picturesque wilderness aren’t far away; this is Tasmania, after all. Golden mountainscapes and unpeopled beaches are always within driving distance. But I crave intimacy with my own backyard, and in particular, the uncultivated part beyond the marked beds, apple trees and sometimes-mown lawn. The terrain beyond the fence where the river lies …

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The Shimmer of Flying Fox Landscape – by Matthew Chrulew
Nonfiction Matthew Chrulew Nonfiction Matthew Chrulew

The Shimmer of Flying Fox Landscape – by Matthew Chrulew

… We are in William Robinson’s Flying Fox Landscape. At first we were just looking at this oil painting from 1989. We stood there trying to orient ourselves, bewildered by shifting perspectives. We knew what the artist had called it and followed his hint, searched for the flying fox. Perhaps it’s just named for the locale near his home. But that name must have come from their presence. Perhaps that’s the flying fox there, just below centre, a brush of angular purples caught up in some to-do with a magpie. But perhaps it is us. Sucked into this scene, thrown about by its winds, flipped this way and that …

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Animal Rescue – by Bastian Fox Phelan
Nonfiction Bastian Fox Phelan Nonfiction Bastian Fox Phelan

Animal Rescue – by Bastian Fox Phelan

My first experience of rescuing a native animal doesn’t end well. It’s after midnight and I’m driving home to Newcastle from Sydney. At the big roundabout in Jesmond, there’s a flash of pale-coloured feathers in my headlights. I swerve. Did I hit it? We pull over. When my partner spots the bird, it’s mounting the gutter on the far side of the highway. I can see its pink and grey plumage under the streetlights. It’s a galah, seemingly unfazed by its brush with death, strutting in the confident, plucky way that parrots do – perhaps just out for a midnight stroll? But that doesn’t seem right. Galahs aren’t nocturnal, and if they can still fly, they shouldn’t be walking across roads. Something about its wing looks funny – the way its tapered tip sags like a door that’s come off its hinges …

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In the Rain Shadow – by Jessica Carter
Nonfiction Jessica Carter Nonfiction Jessica Carter

In the Rain Shadow – by Jessica Carter

I wake to the smell of fading red blossoms. The air is warm already. There are bushfires in the west, yet the haze is not smoke but dust. Late last night I arrived here, on the other side of the Great Dividing Range, the one marked by rain shadow, and the absence of tall buildings, rushing humans, city fumes and ocean breeze. The sky is wider, the plant leaves tighter. Breathing comes lightly.

I’m back on the family farm, but the return is always fraught – a mixture of trepidation and a deep pull somewhere near my heart. A reminder of the queasy combination of fear and hope that comes with being tethered to something …

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The Magpie and the Scarecrow – by Helena Pantsis
Nonfiction Helena Pantsis Nonfiction Helena Pantsis

The Magpie and the Scarecrow – by Helena Pantsis

Mangia, Mangia, the men call out, throwing bread through the metal fence, its tessellating wire pattern opening onto a park, sod wet and uneven. The factory sits directly beside the park. The men sit in the adjoining alleyway, cigarettes burning holes in their mouths while they tear their lunches apart with ashy hands. Mangia swoops lithely down from the gum. He opens his mouth – his voice threads through the gaps, a loud artillery, fine and fluty. A short, descending call. Mangia, Mangia, the men say in response to his carolling, c’mon magpie, time for lunch …

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The Right One to Rescue – by Sharon Kent
Nonfiction Sharon Kent Nonfiction Sharon Kent

The Right One to Rescue – by Sharon Kent

… ‘Mum! There’s a cat on the road. With a bucket on its head.’

I am studying the map. From somewhere, I half-hear this ludicrous statement, but I dismiss it, like an annoying mosquito that I can’t be bothered to swat away. I turn to my son. ‘It’s going to be dark soon. Will – you – get – in – the – car!’ I flash him a stony look. ‘Hurry up!’

He hesitates, looking down the road forlornly, before trying a different tone.

‘There’s a cat on the road. With a bucket on its head.’ He speaks evenly, as if he’s dealing with someone who doesn’t understand his language, where there’s no point becoming exasperated or overly excited …

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The Grass Painter – by KA Rees
Fiction KA Rees Fiction KA Rees

The Grass Painter – by KA Rees

When you look at me, you wonder what it is like. To be an artist. I think what you are really asking is what it is like to be a failed artist. Let’s face it, where are the successful ones? Does anyone know? You may know of them, from catalogues sitting unread in your magazine rack, from guest spots on Arts on Sunday, but you do not know them. You do, however, know artists like me who serve you. Who work as your baristas, your cleaners, your children’s entertainers. Who arrive at the door with glitter and metallic paint and large brushes that scream of ruined furniture.

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Nithing – by Clayton O’Toole
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Nithing – by Clayton O’Toole

… He lived in the inert dark between night and early morning. Things that had been snug in the afternoon light were cold to him now. The house was a void corralled by clean, white, modern lines. There was furniture; a thin TV. Nooks clung in clusters to the walls, filled with picture frames and souvenirs and little baked-clay monsters. From the kitchen you could see the paddock. From the table you could see the paddock. From the wrong end of the lounge room you could see the paddock …

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Far Out, Cats – by M.T. O’Byrne
Nonfiction M.T. O'Byrne Nonfiction M.T. O'Byrne

Far Out, Cats – by M.T. O’Byrne

I confess that I am more of a dog person than a cat person but am not so enamoured of man’s best friend that I am incapable of acknowledging the feats of cats, or that they have achieved such fame as to equal any dog, save Lassie. An average, healthy cat, for example, can jump six times its own length, which is double that of a chihuahua, assuming a chihuahua could be bothered. In human terms – according to the World Health Organisation in 2021 – this would mean being able to jump 10.2 metres if you’re a man and 9.6 metres if you’re a woman. Or, being able to jump as high as two London buses, or three stories of a building and still have enough left in the tank for a celebratory Black Russian and a Montecristo N4 cigar …

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Animal Life of Penang – by Claire Aman
Fiction Claire Aman Fiction Claire Aman

Animal Life of Penang – by Claire Aman

It is lovely to have Claire back in Island again! Long before 'Animal Life of Penang', Claire's very first published short story, 'Sustenance', appeared in Island issue 109 in 2007.

Penang used to be interesting. Back then, young, you could pay to let a swallow escape from a wicker cage. You could choose a crab from a tank in a laneway. You could wake up on the beach at dawn. The tide could be out, your clothes slightly damp. You would remember nothing. Afterwards, you could live your whole life …

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Butter – by Daniel Ray
Fiction Daniel Ray Fiction Daniel Ray

Butter – by Daniel Ray

It’s that time of morning when everything’s clean with cold and I can smell Dad’s aftershave spilling with gold light from the bathroom. My mouth is dry. I’m still shrugging off sleep and dark misshapen dreams. I focus on the yellow cut of light, imagining sheafs of steam, and Dad, face red with razor burn, looming in the mirror, clipping his fingernails while Mum ties back her hair and leans in to spit foaming toothpaste into the sink. For a moment their images converge in the mirror as if they are one person. Then they split apart like anagrams into body parts—ears, hair, noses, eyes—before they resolidify. I know little about them apart from this: their routines, their tiny ministrations. It’s as if they both died when they married …

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Not Gone, Just Different – by Rae White
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Not Gone, Just Different – by Rae White

Our neighbour’s latest pandemic purchase lounges on the front porch, brown fur glistening in the sun and big limbs stretching across the stairs.

‘Babe!’ I holler to my wife, as I stare out our finger-smudged window. ‘Looks like next door’s got a dog.’

In the backyard sit more of our neighbour’s recently acquired bargains: a shiny new barbecue, a blow-up kids’ pool (now deflated) and a crashed drone lolling on the highest branch of a tree.

Brooke comes over and wraps her arms around me, her old woollen jumper scratching at my upper arms. She peers over me, leaning her chin on my head. ‘Looks like a good dog,’ she comments …

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Rigel and Betelgeuse – by A E Macleod
Fiction A E Macleod Fiction A E Macleod

Rigel and Betelgeuse – by A E Macleod

R looks at their ball of thread on the floor. They are never sure when they pull the first thread where it is coming from. Is the beginning really blissfully unaware of the end? … R has been marking their movements with thread for years to thwart the loss of time; letting it out, taking it in. R is not sure who recommended this …

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Get Joy from GetJoy – by Alex Cothren
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Get Joy from GetJoy – by Alex Cothren

Your neighbours all have one. Your work colleagues never talk about anything else. Celebrities, star athletes and even the Pope have gotten in on the action. Yep, it’s official: GetJoy fever is sweeping the globe! But while obtaining your very own GetJoy is just a click away, being a host with the most can be trickier business. So, if you find your jubilation turning to frustration, more despondency than joie de vivre, well we’re here to help with our top tips to get joy from GetJoy …

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Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: Windsor Chairmaking in Tasmania – by Dan Dwyer
Nonfiction Dan Dwyer Nonfiction Dan Dwyer

Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: Windsor Chairmaking in Tasmania – by Dan Dwyer

… The democratic chair is designed to be made with a small number of hand tools, hence democratic. If a student learns this chair, they can make more complex Windsor chairs. ‘It wouldn’t be a Windsor chair without a bit of blood on it,’ Jon said … My vision of soulful strokes and wispy shavings, the Zen and the Art of Chairmaking, had become a crash course in kindling. I took another spindle, and returned to first principles, ‘one long stroke, two short ones.’ Secretly, I breathed a sigh of relief that Jon was away; I could embarrass myself in peace …

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Living Poets – by Jessica Lim
Nonfiction Jessica Lim Nonfiction Jessica Lim

Living Poets – by Jessica Lim

Recently I read Virginia Woolf’s 1929 classic A Room of One’s Own while my daughter slept off her adenotonsillectomy overnight in hospital … Of course the limitations of Woolf’s common sitting-room with all its openness and interruptions would naturally resonate. The sureness of her message, I suppose, had accounted for the lack of any real urgency on my part to read it – a 100-year-old truth will still be true tomorrow …

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An Open Space – by Luke Johnson
Nonfiction Luke Johnson Nonfiction Luke Johnson

An Open Space – by Luke Johnson

… To become a part-time firefighter, you have to make it through two weeks of intense training … If you do not want to know what they tell you at firefighter training concerning housefires and deceased children, then you should stop reading here. Because this is not a work of fiction …

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A Shadow From Country – by Naomi Parry
Nonfiction Naomi Parry Nonfiction Naomi Parry

A Shadow From Country – by Naomi Parry

SHORTLISTED, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2021

… I’ve been researching the Gai-mariagal warrior Musquito since 2003 and today we are looking for a name list that I have heard about, which is supposed to tell a story of the time he was exiled from Sydney to Norfolk Island. We go through indexes and bibliographies and footnotes without finding anything. Then Melissa flicks through the computer catalogue and pulls up an image. It’s a seraphic face, illuminated in the computer’s glow.
Who is this?
It’s Black Jack. It’s his death mask.

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