Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
Top of the class
IT WAS A strange moment, becoming aware that a school I had attended was classified as ‘disadvantaged’. I was...
Life on JobKeeper
IN SEPTEMBER 2020, two months into Melbourne’s second lockdown, I was in my local park doing my allotted hour of...
Home, together, a family
APPARENTLY, THE STEROIDS saved Charlotte’s life. Taking Charlotte out so early definitely saved Elizabeth’s life. The placenta was killing...
Astronomy as poetry
I BELIEVED IN it. I more than believed in it – I was obsessed. It was a vision of something amazing,...
Aftermath
IN THE AFTERMATH of 2020 – a year that outstripped description, so broad and deeply felt were its tragedies and...
Scaling change
Listen to Amanda Tattersall read ‘Scaling change’ I’M OLD ENOUGH to remember when Australia’s Wonderland opened in 1985 in Sydney’s western suburbs....
My Covid dreaming
HE WORE OFF-WHITE trainers with built-up soles. The caved-in line of his jaw told me he had no teeth...
On surviving survivor’s guilt
MY MOTHER’S ASHES got scattered at the end of Australia’s Black Summer. She’d been dead for eighteen months. But...
Embracing ugly feelings
THE FIRST TIME I was hospitalised, my mother visited me in the dank psychiatric ward bearing a three-tiered lacquer...
This Her Thing
I DRIVE PAST where Mum died and I feel the tractor beam of that place, the urge to pull...
The perennity of love
AS THE PANDEMIC begins to bite in March 2020, many people report exceptionally vivid dreams, recurring nightmares. The phenomenon...
Faith and trust and pixie dust
SO YOU’VE LEARNT some counselling techniques. Skills, pacing and rhythms to use in any conversation. Let’s recap – I’ll keep being...
