1 I’ve often written too fast. This is partly because I didn’t start publishing short stories until my mid-thirties and have always felt a few steps behind. But it’s mostly because I’m impatient. A while ago I wrote a novel far too quickly. I decided soon after I finished a draft that it was broken beyond repair. It had some good moments, but it was a mess of ideas, inconsistencies, and confused themes. And it lacked that mysterious extra thing, that thing I suspect can only come through time and patience, that intangible, unknowable thing that can make the last […]

Why not anger? For many, the hallmark of our moment is a building sense of frustrated exasperation, a state that applies equally to the broad sweep of the public sphere as it does to the more granular intricacies of personal relations. Conversations seem more difficult than confrontations. The structural inequalities and rigidities behind so much that is simply antiquated, repressive and wrong, seem impossible to shift. The to-do list of dysfunction is growing, compounded by the unsettling fact that at the top of that pile are the very institutions charged by our society with reforming its ills. Our public politics […]

We’ve been biding our time, but on March 24, for the first time in more than two years, the Meanjin pub night returns. We’ll be presenting an evening of readings to mark the release of our Autumn edition. It’s free, and you’ll hear a talented team of writers read from their Meanjin writings. So, Melbourne folk, and others passing through, make a note: 6.30pm, Thursday March 24 Grace Darling Hotel, 114 Smith St, Collingwood You’ll hear from: Declan Fry, Yves Rees, Soon-Tzu Speechley, Wen-Juenn Lee, Alice Bishop, Arnold Zable, Fatima Measham, Ouyang Yu and Carly Stone. Hosted by Meanjin editor […]

At the end of this, the first week in March, 2022, Australians, each one of us, are facing a set of difficult circumstances. If it isn’t the aftermath of a flood, fire, death from Covid-19, destitution due to unemployment, or homelessness, then it is war in Europe, and if it isn’t a world war, it is the death of a sporting hero. Or even worse, two sporting heroes. Could we be more vulnerable, more fragile than we are, right now? And don’t we need each other, right now, more than ever? On Friday, after running errands with my partner, I […]

It was late one weeknight in Carlton when a bartender who went only by the name of ‘Goose’ leaned over the bar I was propping up after last drinks and asked if I’d like to see where John Curtin was buried. A history obsessive and the daughter of a proud trade unionist, I was not one to be asked twice. ‘Come with me,’ the man named Goose said and we descended into the bowels of the century-old pub. A damp chill set in around us as he beckoned me over to a dank corner where the walls seemed to be […]

There is a gag from The Simpsons episode ‘Mr Plow’ that I’ve always adored, even before I fully understood what it was about: Homer, Bart, and Lisa run into Adam West, the ‘real’ Batman, at a car show. Bart and Lisa are nonplussed, only being familiar with the ‘new’ (Tim Burton) Batman movies, to the chagrin of West, who asks: ‘how come Batman doesn’t dance any more?’ then proceeds to dance ‘the batusi’ to the shock and horror of the kids and Homer alike, who backs them away, saying ‘just keep moving, don’t make eye contact’. It’s a great goof, […]

On the evening of 15 August 1944, beside a creek in northern Queensland, a figure strode up to a young, sleeping soldier and swung a blacksmith’s hammer three times into his skull. The first two blows punctured the twenty-year-old’s brain, spraying blood onto a nearby fence. The third blow created a deep gash across his face. The attacker kicked his victim in the crotch and face, too; a tooth rolled onto the ground. The soldier was left for dead on the cold grass. His mates soon found his broken body, his mouth choked with blood, and rushed to find help. […]

Last Wednesday a historic mass meeting of freelancers took place online as freelance writers, photographers, illustrators and other media workers came together, beaming in from around the country. With over 120 people in attendance, it was the biggest meeting of any kind MEAA has had since the start of the pandemic and the biggest meeting of freelancers the union has ever had. Members voted overwhelmingly to endorse the new Freelance Charter of Rights. The meeting was exciting for me because I’ve been working behind the scenes on the National Freelance Committee since 2018, and for years before that with the […]

Folks, I hope you believe me when I say I never started telling jokes about Boko Haram with the intention of making bank. I’m a comedian, not a fool. When you make experimental multi-media ‘alt-comedy’ you’re not making it with money in mind. Especially when you’re based in Perth, Western Australia … the cultural capital of Perth, Western Australia. Tragically however, I do exist in a human body, I do have to buy meds, and I do want the people who help me bring my art into the world to be at least a little compensated for having to put […]

I’ll never forget the first time I hit another person. I was in primary school, playing footy on the field, when one of my friends yelled at me for making a mistake and without thinking, I punched the side of his head, driving his face into the fence. I remember his shock, how the boys around us seemed to absorb it, and the game kept going even as he ran to a teacher and both of us left the field. I had detention for a week, writing lines in the office, and maybe this is why I became a writer, […]

Governments age in dog years: far quicker than the voters that elect them. Wear and tear takes its toll on the machine of government. Policy becomes sclerotic. Talented people leave or are forced out, replaced by second and third-rankers. Leaders become isolated, cocooned in luxurious power. Mistakes are made. Political damage accumulates. The Coalition government led by Scott Morrison is now 101 months old. It’s older than Rudd-Gillard, older than Curtin-Chifley, older than the governments of Malcolm Fraser or Joseph Lyons. The spring of 2013, when Australia needed Tony Abbott, seems a very long time ago. Only Luke Breust and […]