Journal
Articles
Two tales of the sea – The boat story
The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilisations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place...
A castle in Toorak
THE BOUNCER WAS cute. I gave him a wicked smile, he frowned, looked us up and down slowly, and...
Light dawns
And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caughtThe Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.– The Rubaiyat...
Snow White and the child soldier
'LISA THINKS SHE'S the hottest girl around.''She's so up herself. She doesn't even have a Facebook page.''Guys! Guys! Who's...
A glimpse of paradise
I WAS HEAD over heels about Steven, and that’s the truth. And having such a spectacular house didn’t hurt...
Snake in the grass
Selected for Best Australian Stories 2014I BAKE ON the smooth clay of dried creekbed. Soak in light the colour...
Metafur
LONG AGO, WHEN the world was just as unfair as it is today, villagers gathered at nights and told...
Black swan event
THE FIRST THING Dawn heard every morning was her brother stretching his wing. The soft whooping travelled down the...
Three bunyips
MY FIRST ENCOUNTER with a bunyip was in a School Paper, the monthly supplement to the Victorian School Readers:...
The myth of Charlie McMahon
THERE’S A MAN and a musician who’s been behind the scenes and across this country for many a year....
Told in the bush
'THAT'S A GENUINELY rare book you have there,' said the second-hand book dealer. 'I've never seen it before.''It came...
The ghost river
When he was about to begin the river story Moses would stamp at the ground with the heel of his boot and call out to the birds in the trees, 'listen hard now'. He'd clap his hands together a couple of times, make a clicking noise with his tongue and the birds would lift off from the trees in the distance and move a little closer, to the wattles lining the riverbank. 'Back in the old time, before the humans,' he would begin, 'this girl, the river, she didn't stop her life where she does now, at the mouth at bay there. There is no bay in the time I'm talking with.'
