IntroductionIN A RECENT article in The New Yorker, ‘The Dead Are Real’, Larissa MacFarquhar described historical fiction as ‘a pioneer country without fixed laws’ but seemed reluctant, at least initially, to grant it a stable literary status. The recent...

FictionTHERE'S THE TUG of it in her stomach, always, a heavy thing. Sarah's hot, clammy like she knows she shouldn't be on a day like this – nearly forty years old and yet every month the worry like something...

MemoirBACK IN THE very early '90s, McDonald's is still number one. Before Nandos and Subway and juice bars, and Sushi Trains and fancy delis and alfresco dining. Before cardboard salads and Super Size Me and pistachio gelati, Maccas is still the...

MemoirNOT SO LONG ago, I lived in paradise. A luxury apartment on the Gold Coast. I still remember waking up every morning to the sea and sky. All that blue felt like heaven. The elevator doors flinging open, a...

EssayIN THE DISTANCE, the rows of high-rise towers on Dubai's infamous Sheikh Zayed Road glitter; ornaments on the edge of an immense plain. Closer, giant boxes – elaborate light-fringed shopping centres and business precincts – rise out of the...

FictionMICHAEL THINKS ABOUT the sounds Rachel is making. Little whinnies like she's losing motivation. Michael knows what that feels like. Even listening to her doesn't really fuss him, not like it does Rory. Michael knows Rory's committed presence on...

Non-fictionMY MOTHER EMIGRATED to Australia on the SS Australis in 1967 as a ten-pound Pom. I first opened my eyes at 1.42 am in the maternity ward of the Manly Hospital, Sydney, in 1974. Now, forty-five years later, Mum and...