The power of stories

‘CIVILISATION OFFICIALLY ENDED today,’ the ever-pithy Jane Caro tweeted forty-eight hours before Anzac Day 2015. She was not referring to the looming centenary commemoration of the tragedy on the Gallipoli Peninsula, which we have been urged to believe made Australia a nation, but the...

Close to the edit

THIS IS THE second year that I’ve been involved as an editor of the Griffith Review novella edition, and it’s an honour to be part of this wonderful initiative. It has certainly proved popular with writers, with a record 271 entries received this year,...

Cargoes

The first time we were here it was just the two of us, Lindsey and me. We stayed at the Chelsea and I got my hair cut there by a hairdresser who had done Dee Dee Ramone’s that morning. Nothing unusual in that. She’d cut his hair for years, she told me. I never discovered if it was true or not. I wanted it to be true. Dee Dee’s hair was no fixed thing though…. Johnny’s was the iconic Ramones hair, so that’s the cut I got. No one at home had that. And Johnny threw his hair forward when he stabbed at his guitar, as if hair could be another weapon.

Afraid of waking it

HE SET THE camera up by the wall in the space he used as his studio. It was one of the many rooms in the too-big house he didn’t need. It was mostly empty – the wallpaper left to peel away from the walls,...

Will Martin

MY OAR STABS the side of the Reliance. We push off and pull away from the ship. Venus is out, but the sky still has some light. Mr Bass and I boat the oars and hoist sail. The Lieutenant takes the helm. Tom Thumb’s sail snaps at the breeze and air-filled we bounce across the water.‘To dare is to do!’ Mr Bass shouts our motto.‘To dare is to do!’ The Lieutenant and I reply as if we are one.Seawater sprays across the gunwale. It is Thursday, the twenty-fourth of March, the year 1796. This is the day that we embark on our second Tom Thumb sail.

The flight

THE PLANE IS moving backwards. Slowly. You have to stare at the ground to confirm it. Yes, the luggage vans and fuel trucks are edging right to left across your window.Surely that’s it. They can’t reopen the doors now. Not after all those false...

Quarry

Now from the dark, a deeper dark…Elizabeth Coatsworth, ‘Calling in the Cat’  LUKE CROSSES HIS arms against the bluster and stares out across the grey. Even on the hottest days in summer, when dozens of people come here to walk their dogs or jog or...

Papercuts and bloodlines