Private Sadness and Public Grief
You’re never more more famous than when you die. Being born is nothing special. Unless you’re Jesus or in line to a throne, it’s a profoundly equitable moment. Babies are nothing but potential. At the moment of death though, everything crystallises: the story has an ending. Word travels fast; the name of the deceased is passed around friends, family, acquaintances, and, if they were a public figure, half the world via social media. There’s a summing up, a judgement, a parading of defining moments (Olivia Newton-John in tight black trousers, Judith Durham’s voice soaring above 200,000 people at the Myer […]
Cultural Policy: Have Your Say
The new federal government has started its term with positive messages about rebuilding areas of our national culture. The arts minister, Tony Burke, appears to be listening to what the writing and reading community are saying. The development of a new National Cultural Policy offers a rare opportunity for us all to inform the vision for the arts in Australia, and to advocate for the central importance of the literary sector. We need to seize this moment to ensure a thriving sector for years to come, which is why I am inviting you to make a submission as a part […]
Online Reviews: August
We’re excited to launch a new series of online reviews, edited by Cher Tan. You’ll find the first offerings below—watch this space for more excellent content soon. Reviewed: Everything Feels Like the End of the World, Else Fitzgerald by Alex Gerrans “Else Fitzgerald’s debut short story collection, Everything Feels Like the End of the World, is about love in a time of climate grief. The crux of the collection points to how even though we are now experiencing relentless change—climate-related or otherwise—love and loss remain constant…” Read More Reviewed: Raised by Wolves, Jess Ho by […]
September Meanjin: Coming Soon
Chances are you’re still picking your way through the June edition of Meanjin … Margaret Simons’ detailed study of the crisis in Australian journalism, or Yves Rees on the new sobriety perhaps? Maybe you’re lost in the fiction of James Bradley or Karen Wyld? Well, we don’t mean to distract you … but we did think you might appreciate a first mention of September’s Spring edition. The lead essay is a compelling piece from Kate Holden, looking at the great paradox of modern life: the many commonalities of human experience and our increasing isolation as atomised individuals … and this […]
Essays
Vierge Ouvrante, Opening Virgin
We were up around five thousand metres when I started to vomit. Not the kind I was good at. The violent kind. The kind that left me hanging over the bowl, all strings of bitter yellow. That’s how you found me. On my hands and knees with my hair across my face.
Fiction
Soroche
We were up around five thousand metres when I started to vomit. Not the kind I was good at. The violent kind. The kind that left me hanging over the bowl, all strings of bitter yellow. That’s how you found me. On my hands and knees with my hair across my face.
Memoir
This Must Be Very Strange
One of the things about having synaesthesia that I’ve only become aware of in the past few years is that I smell certain music. There is a scene in Robert Guédiguian’s film L’Armée du crime (2009) that suddenly and loudly inserts klezmer music as it shows the actors throwing down a bright-red poster from a bridge.
Poetry
Makeshift Drinks in a Celebratory Garden
verses of conversation
the ease of company
writers sculpting novels on the fly
linearity of noise
a climate of clanking liqueurs
