Lines of Location – by Johanna Ellersdorfer
Nonfiction Johanna Ellersdorfer Nonfiction Johanna Ellersdorfer

Lines of Location – by Johanna Ellersdorfer

… With each step I take, webs come in and out of focus. Light-jewelled threads like small nets in the night sky. Looking upwards towards an opening in a leafy hedge, I see a spider begin to build its web. It starts as a single line, like unspooled thread, taut and bright in the light of the street lamp. The spider glides back and forth between other lines I can barely see, and then starts to join them into an intricate mesh.

Compared to the spider, my hands are clumsy. I have tried to stitch the night sky in a series of loops and knots, copying patterns designed by a Scottish woman who, the century before last, moved around this country with her engineer husband …

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How to Kill a Pea – by Lara Keys
Fiction Lara Keys Fiction Lara Keys

How to Kill a Pea – by Lara Keys

Twins! Adorable! Like two peas in a pod.

People say shit like that when they meet me and Mary. Well, old people say it. Kids wouldn’t. It’s stupid.

Mary smiles at them. Bang! Be. Ee. Ay. Em. A full-on blowtorch. That grin is squint-eyes kinda bright. She turns it on in an instant because she knows she’s beautiful.

I don’t smile.

I’m something else.

Shit. Not two peas at all. That is one perfect pea and that, that is one garbage pea …

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How to Build a Brother – by Helena Pantsis
Nonfiction Helena Pantsis Nonfiction Helena Pantsis

How to Build a Brother – by Helena Pantsis

My brother is a creature slowly falling apart … He first breaks a bone in Year 8 when a football hits his hand and fractures his thumb in a thin, painful line down the bone. Our school doesn’t have a nurse, just a bursar with a first aid kit, so he is sent back to class to write with his broken thumb, to return to PE in his bright-purple sports uniform. He falls apart in these ways so subtly it’s hard to remember we are all fading, slowly …

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Selfish Ghosts – by Heather Taylor-Johnson
Nonfiction Heather Taylor-Johnson Nonfiction Heather Taylor-Johnson

Selfish Ghosts – by Heather Taylor-Johnson

WINNER, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2022

It’s 1978–79 and in an abandoned warehouse in New York City, at a diner slightly out-of-focus, on a crowded subway pistoling through Brooklyn, seen pissing in a toilet in a dilapidated cubicle is Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud’s in Coney Island and at the Hudson River sex piers. He’s shooting up heroin. He is masturbating. He is pointing at Jesus graffitied on a wall. He is holding a gun to his head …

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Sudden, Temporary Deaths – by Chris Fleming
Nonfiction Chris Fleming Nonfiction Chris Fleming

Sudden, Temporary Deaths – by Chris Fleming

SHORTLISTED, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2022

I had a dream last night that I could extend my arms and legs in any direction I wanted. At first, bending my forearm back past 180 degrees, I was sure it would dislocate; and it did – but only a little, like the nitrogen pop of cracking bones. I kept going and soon possessed complete flexion and extension. I discovered the more I bent my joints like this, the fewer dislocation pains there were, the quieter the pops. I moved on to incredible, disturbing yogic feats. And then, as I often do whenever I accomplish something impossible in a dream (unaided human flight, producing fresh juice inside my mouth to drink, passing my head through solid objects), the thought occurred to me:
anyone
can do this …

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Wingsets and Snowdrifts: A Subantarctic Year – by Emily Mowat
Nonfiction Emily Mowat Nonfiction Emily Mowat

Wingsets and Snowdrifts: A Subantarctic Year – by Emily Mowat

SHORTLISTED, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2022

It’s late December, and the subantarctic summer stretches out the daylight hours. On the slopes of the escarpment where the light-mantled albatross nest, egg hatching is imminent.
I approach one, sitting plump and pleased upon her scraped-together nest of mud and tussock. She’s as sleek as a Siamese cat, with slate-brown head fading seamlessly into a mantle of pale grey. Her crescent-moon eyes tell of pack ice and polar fronts.
I notice her stretching to gather scraps of grass within reach of her nest, and tucking them carefully under her body in preparation for her soon-to-hatch chick. Perhaps I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but proffer a dried grass stem myself, and, to my surprise, her powerful, hooked black bill delicately grasps it from my hand …

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The Long Daylight – by Jo Gardiner
Nonfiction Jo Gardiner Nonfiction Jo Gardiner

The Long Daylight – by Jo Gardiner

SHORTLISTED, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2022

2015. December. Diamond Beach.
That Christmas, I travelled north from the Blue Labyrinth up through the dairy country east of the Barrington Tops and turned into Failford Road where great smooth-barked apple gums gathered amber light into their limbs.
As I crested the last rise before the small town of Diamond Beach, a snatch of violet sea appeared. That night, I remembered its colour as I rode the steady thump of surf into sleep.
On that first morning, before I met my three brothers and sister, magpies gathered on the open grassland before the dunes in front of the cabin and poured light from their throats. The whipbird whistled up the sun.

Fully fledged, first light
appears – swoops out from night and
conjures up a world …

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Chaste – by Suri Matondkar
Nonfiction Suri Matondkar Nonfiction Suri Matondkar

Chaste – by Suri Matondkar

SHORTLISTED, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2022

I once lived in a city where the buildings stood too close, edges brushing like sardined shadows on public transport.
I lived in an apartment on the third floor, sharing a room with a pair of girls. We sat on that floor, arms outstretched on either side – wingless birds imitating flight – joking about how our fingers touched each end of the room without even trying.
Stuck in that cage of cement. A luxurious one. Western toilet with flush, shower we never switched on. Buckets stoically awaiting flood. A ceiling with a bulb and tube light. Never to be used during the day, even if the room was bathed in gloom, because light was only needed at night.
The front door was held together with a chain that anyone could unhook with a floating arm, desperate fingers scraping until the metal clicked apart. Perfect for surprise wellness checks to ensure we weren’t being dirty girls who would invite dishonour into the house …

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Dottie and Pin Go Somewhere – by Kate Kruimink
Fiction Kate Kruimink Fiction Kate Kruimink

Dottie and Pin Go Somewhere – by Kate Kruimink

The day was in three fat strips, like cuttings from a magazine. At the top, a thick piece of dark purple for the sky. In the middle, dense green treetops lit with gold. Below that, a narrow strip of grey road set with low buildings. Pin and her feral little creature were stuck down in the bottom strip, the grey road and the buildings, although they were standing in a cloud of glitter. The air down there was warm and wet. Pin’s little creature, her Dottie, was dancing, or something …

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Landfall – by Megan Coupland
Nonfiction Megan Coupland Nonfiction Megan Coupland

Landfall – by Megan Coupland

Thirty minutes north-west of Adelaide is a stretch of South Australian coastline synchronously, gloriously, luminous and bleak. In the language of the Kaurna people, the traditional owners of the land, it is Winaityinaityi Pangkara, ‘country belonging to all birds’. And from where I’m standing, not far from its northernmost point, I can see just a fragment: a shoreline so planar and still that it’s difficult to tell where solid ground transitions to water. It’s low tide, a Sunday in late January, and there is no one else in sight. There are the birds though, more numerous than I’d expected given the time of day and the settling heat …

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The Planet Terrarium - by Philomena van Rijswijk
Fiction Philomena van Rijswijk Fiction Philomena van Rijswijk

The Planet Terrarium - by Philomena van Rijswijk

The big Cat woman wakes at six every morning with enough time for half-a-dozen fatalistic breaths before dragging herself crooked across the mattress and somehow standing, her tie-dyed nightie bunched around big bluish thighs, her breasts pulled askew by the twists and suns. Those old boots that she fumbles into are stained and split from too many wet and dark winters in this wet and dark place ... a grey hollow where the frost lies all day in winter, making impressions on the grass of towels hanging stiff from the line. Sometimes she can smell the very moulds of the place exhaling from her skin. But it is not winter yet. It’s still trying to be autumn, though none of the beauty has come …

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Sestina After B Carlisle – by Stuart Barnes
Poetry Stuart Barnes Poetry Stuart Barnes

Sestina After B Carlisle – by Stuart Barnes

WINNER OF THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2022

My dying friend maintains Heaven
hallows only one queen. ‘Hell is
just around the corner, like a
gaudy shopping centre, a place
of no rest day nor night. Hot on
my heels, the Devil’s moving earth …

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Antarctica – by Andrew Sutherland
Poetry Andrew Sutherland Poetry Andrew Sutherland

Antarctica – by Andrew Sutherland

RUNNER-UP IN THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2022

I was thinking about Antarctica
how even in the last landmass labelled great unknown
there are stations // there are borders

how covid was on six continents of the world
and then in late 2020, people on the Chilean station tested positive
and suddenly // it was on seven …

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The Girls Become – by John Foulcher
Poetry John Foulcher Poetry John Foulcher

The Girls Become – by John Foulcher

RUNNER-UP IN THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2022

Scarlett Kate O’Mara joined us in her final year.
We were told to make no jokes about her almost name –
she’d had enough of southern drawls, glib confederate
quips. Elegant and tall, she clipped the smitten boys
like trinkets round her wrist, loaded up her pistol smile
and locked it on their hearts …

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Sloane on the Mountain – by Alexander Bennetts
Fiction Alexander Bennetts Fiction Alexander Bennetts

Sloane on the Mountain – by Alexander Bennetts

What she was running from, well, Sloane would never speak of it, but if you pored through reams of court transcripts and certain bank transactions, I’m sure you could eventually work it out.

She parked her canary-yellow Saab opposite the Mount Macedon Hotel and nodded to the regulars on the porch. Sloane made a show of greeting the bartender. He wore a deep V-neck; he looked like the kind of man who paid for his protein supplements to be shipped in from overseas. She asked for two bottled waters.

‘Just came in on the Spirit this morning,’ Sloane told him. ‘Figured it’d be a smart move to stretch the old legs.’ …

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Lines of Curiosity – by Margaret Aitken
Nonfiction Margaret Aitken Nonfiction Margaret Aitken

Lines of Curiosity – by Margaret Aitken

The building was once used for storing vegetables, but the huge fridges have been re-crafted into offices, the drafty attic spaces renovated into meeting rooms. Crumbling bricks and dusty wooden floors testify to the original use. Paint peels from the rectangle that stands against the winter sky.

I scramble up the hill toward it, my silky dressing gown stuffed into my bag. I’ve chosen my outfit carefully. It’s easy to slip in and out of, doesn’t wrinkle when folded, not suggestive. I don’t knock before I open the corrugated-iron door …

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Infrared – by Ryan Delaney
Fiction Ryan Delaney Fiction Ryan Delaney

Infrared – by Ryan Delaney

Emily scans the bush for signs of life. She can spot Ben and Gary in the distance – their lurid, wattle-coloured jumpsuits making them stand out amongst the burnt gum trees. Their eyes will be peeled for fresh droppings, scratches on black trunks and animal tracks imprinted in the ash. As she watches the men solemnly comb the scorched earth, Emily wonders if there is really a difference anymore between a forensic and environmental scientist.

On the surface, the land appears to be healing. Bright pink and green epicormic shoots have burst through black bark and are beginning to flower. Other native pyrophites – such as blackboys, bottlebrush and banksia – are not only surviving but flourishing in this post-fire landscape, their hardy seeds split open by the extreme heat …

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The Day the Wave Came – by Paul Mitchell
Fiction Paul Mitchell Fiction Paul Mitchell

The Day the Wave Came – by Paul Mitchell

Morning sunlight through the kitchen window warmed my stubbled face and I finished filling the sink with hot water and soap suds. I turned off the tap and picked up the silver pot that I hadn’t been able to cram into the dishwasher last night. It smelt of the Portuguese-style chicken dish Leah had made, a meal she’d dubbed ‘our last supper’. I hadn’t laughed, or eaten much.

My dressing gown sleeves drooped into the dishwater so I rolled them up, tighter this time. I could have taken the gown off, but I was naked underneath. If I went and got dressed, I’d risk waking Leah – who should really be up by now, given the plan we’d made last night. Maybe she was sick and would stay in bed all day. And the inevitable would be postponed …

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Learning to Be Tame – by Carla Silbert
Nonfiction Carla Silbert Nonfiction Carla Silbert

Learning to Be Tame – by Carla Silbert

Books with pastel covers tell me to expect the sensation of butterflies flapping deep in my stomach when I first feel ‘the little one’ kick. A butterfly is a fragile creature – a tiny rip in its wing renders it flightless. In my guts, an orca whale is doing somersaults. It is flipping and rolling in a too-small swimming pool, its smooth skin stretching the edges. I nickname the baby Tilikum after the orca who spent its life performing for tourists at SeaWorld in Florida. …

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Collateral Damage – by John Tully
Fiction John Tully Fiction John Tully

Collateral Damage – by John Tully

Barry Hall didn’t care too much for pubs but it beat sitting in front of the TV in his crummy Yarraville flat on a rainy Friday night. He was nursing a pint of Fat Yak in the lounge bar of the Railway Hotel and keeping a covert eye on who was coming in through the doors from Anderson Street. The city did nothing for him; Barry was a Tasmanian country boy who liked his space. Melbourne was vast and noisy, with trucks going past his little flat at all hours of the day and night with their headlights blazing through the faded old curtains …

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