Journal
Articles
At the end of the line
THE CALLS STARTED the night I was released from hospital. My lungs again. I’d coughed so hard inside my motorcycle helmet that I’d blacked out as I slowed down for a traffic light, slipped off and under my bike, and out into a rain-slick intersection.
Moonwalking
The first woman on the Moon will have to think carefully about her first words, as they will resonate for generations into the future. Neil Armstrong chose his famous ‘one giant leap’ line himself; but in this case, knowing what’s at stake, there’s bound to be a committee who gives this long and considered thought.
Speaking my language
MY AUNTIE HAS stopped speaking to her siblings. Rifts like these are commonplace in my family, where people fall...
Away from the edge
MY MOTHER EMIGRATED to Australia on the SS Australis in 1967 as a ten-pound Pom. I first opened my eyes...
The banksia revolution
IT IS FRIDAY morning in a moderately busy, inner-suburban Melbourne supermarket and I am standing a little awkwardly in the...
For all we do in the dark
I DEAL WITH grief the way I deal with most trauma. I keep it locked away in a dilapidated archival box –...
In America 1979
In America, I was no longer who I thought I was; one time in America, I was a white...
Americano Sal
It was always busy there in Palermo. During a snow shower I’d sit in the cafés, small corner net connections. Sometimes the weather was a little heavy – I’d kick my boots clean of ice at the entrance, umbrella heavy with sleet. The man you paid to use the internet would be singing in Farsi; a woman would speak in hushed tones in the cubicle. Sometimes not so hushed. Talking to her family on the other side of the world. Where maybe it was snowing, too. And together they could listen to each other. Together in the snow they could talk.
After three years in Australia
I take for granted going into movie theatres without checking for guns, or sitting as close to the exit as possible, assume now any...
The menaced assassin
SOPHIE STANDS IN front of the painting, flexing her toes. She pushes one heel off the ground and then...
The day Khet Thi was tortured to death
after Lou Reed I dreamed – I was the poet laureate of Naypyitaw, the Abode of Generals. The Generalissimo was a poet too. So...
Wildflowers
Listen to contributor Peggy Frew read her fiction ‘Wildflowers’. IT HAD TAKEN Meg a long time to convince Nina. Many lengthy phone calls....
