Intimacies, intricacies, cadences

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Learning the local language

Essay IT WAS IN a Melbourne museum that I realised I didn’t know the traditional name for the area in South Australia where I’d grown...

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IntroductionMore than fifty years after Larkin lamented the emotional inadequacy of generations past, we’ve equipped ourselves with an extensive vocabulary with which to characterise, analyse and diagnose our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with the places, objects and ideas that shape our sense of who we are and who we wish to become. Yet still we face the same old set of conundrums: from parasocial connections and fractious family politics to the solace we seek in non-human entities, our myriad attachments continue to offer us comfort and complication in equal measure.

Ask me anything

In ConversationYou don’t ever want to go so off the rails that you encourage somebody to blow their life up thoughtlessly. It was always helpful to remind myself, ‘The most I can do is offer someone a useful suggestion that they will consider. They still have to make their own decisions based on how they want to live their lives.’ If you take yourself too seriously in that position, you feel like, my God, I’m responsible for the wellbeing of all of these strangers, what if I mess up?

Black love matters

Non-fiction I WOULD LIKE to love my mother without feeling, to perform the rituals and duties of filial care without the risk to heart of hurt. Mine,...