Articles Archive

Really Surreal

THE MONSTROUS WAVE that engulfed the north-east coast of Japan, sweeping the means and products of decades of industrial...

By Julianne Schultz

Finding a place in the narrative

AS THE 1996 election campaign began, Paul Keating needed to record a five-minute statement for a free advertising slot...

By Don Watson

Words from memory

Kate Veitch with her father.HERE IS MY father's dictionary, the one thing of his I...

By Kate Veitch

What’s this thing called sex?

I GOT TO know Bunty because of Dad. Reacting in shock, my father had put the house on the...

By Tangea Tansley

Wild coast

ALL THE TIME there was Piha, wonderful, free flying, fresh Piha with its knotty cliffs, black sand, wild beach,...

By Rosie Scott

The reluctant memoirist

She leaned across the picnic hamper, reaching out for my hearing aid in my open-palmed hand. I leaned back,...

By Donna McDonald

Limits to power

THE CATHOLIC CATECHISM of old commenced with the question "Who made the world?" The answer was unambiguous: "God made...

By Gerard Henderson

A party for Germaine

'LESBIANS DON'T BITE,' Margaret says. 'Not as a rule anyway.' She lifts the corners of her mouth with her...

By Julie Bowen Kearney

Can you write a history of yourself?

‘EVERY HISTORIAN SHOULD write an autobiography,’ wrote the historian AJP Taylor, introducing his own, A Personal History (1983). ‘The experience teaches...

By Sheila Fitzpatrick

Googling me, Googling you

IN FEBRUARY THE Macquarie Dictionary committee named ‘googleganger’ as its Word of The Year for 2010.[i] ‘Googleganger was a...

By Brent Balinski

Staffroom confidential

AT THIRTY-TWO I ran away from school. I left in the middle of second term. Severed all ties. Took...

By Cassandra Atherton

Hospice

You never tire of the sky,caught within the frame and sash,spun sugar, your tongue can almost tastebefore it melts...

By Laura Jan Shore