Take a walk on the wild side with award-winning writers Chris Flynn and Laura Jean McKay as they discuss their contributions to Griffith Review 82: Animal Magic with journal editor Carody Culver.

From the big business of digging up dinosaur bones to the mysteries that lie in wait beneath the waves, this edition of Griffith Review lets the cat out of the bag to examine why animals occupy such a central place in our social, cultural and emotional lives.

Chris Flynn is the author of three novels, one of which, Mammoth, was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards and the Russell Prize for Humour. His work has appeared in The Age, The Australian, The Guardian, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review and many other publications. His latest book is Here Be Leviathans, a short story collection which won the 2023 Aurealis Award.

Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country – winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the Australian Book Industry Award for Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia and an adjunct lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. Her latest collection is Gunflower.

Carody Culver is the editor of Griffith Review. She was a contributing editor for Peppermint magazine and has written for publications including Sydney Review of Books, The Lifted Brow, The Toast and Books+Publishing. Her chapbook, ‘The Morgue I Think the Deader It Gets’, was published by Cordite in 2022 and she’s been a featured Australian poet on the Best American Poetry blog.