Strung with contour lines

About the author

Alice Curry

Dr Alice Curry is an Honorary Associate of Macquarie UniversityShe is the Children's Literature Advisor to the Commonwealth Education Trust, for whom she compiled...

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Slow and steady

EssayWHEN I GOT back to the Ministry the electricity was still down. Our open plan office was a cavernous space, quiet now without the...

Interview with
Carmel Bird

InterviewCarmel Bird has written many books of short fiction, essays and novels, as well as manuals for writers. She co-edited Griffith REVIEW 42: Once...

FictionWhen 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.'