Issue Eight • Issue Eight Poetry • Poetry
December 1, 2019
By Robyn Rowland whirling Dervish, Istanbul Unworn as any adolescent son, the youngest Mevlani Dervish trembling on the cusp...
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By Marilyn Humbert west of Alice Springs the Finke River rambles roots of ancient eucalypts Namatjira paints his soul ghost...
By Matthew M.C. Smith for Anne We fly over girded earth trailing the rise of Apollo light thousands of feet high The...
Issue Eight Contributor • Past Contributors
Robyn Rowland is Irish-Australian who has been living in both Connemara and Australia. She regularly works in Turkey. She has 15 books, 12...
Eden van Leeuwen is an amateur writer for 19 years. Creating wonderful worlds in her words and sharing them with others, she hopes to...
Lauren O’Connell is an Irish-Australian emerging writer. She has a Certificate IV in Professional Writing and Editing from Swinburne...
Fiction • Issue Eight • Issue Eight Fiction.
by Samuel Bernard. The radiating aroma of aging books and mahogany grazed my nostrils as I brushed past mountains of pre-loved...
Issue Eight • Issue Eight Reviews • Reviews
Reviewed by Angela Wauchop “… Vrezh stomped the blood-red flags with enthusiasm … The older boys poured kerosene on the heap...
By Dr Wendy J. Dunn Red like blood I plucked a rose Grasped its beauty close to me uncaring of its thorns Blood red red blood...
by Peter Boyle. The lost cantatas of Mozart are being performed on an island in the wide fork of a river not far from here....
by Ian C Smith. To visit their son, a bearded adult now in what feels to him a fast-forwarding of years, she drives him to the...
Issue Seven Contributor • Past Contributors
June 18, 2019
Gary McCartney is a designer, artist and writer originally from Northern Ireland. His company, McCartney Design, has won several Australian...
Brittney Alexander is currently studying professional writing and editing at Swinburne University. In her spare time, she enjoys reading...
June 17, 2019
Stuart Barnes was born and grew up in Hobart and lived in Melbourne for seventeen years before moving to Rockhampton. His first poetry...
Amanda Bell is a Dublin-based writer and editor. Her books include The loneliness of the sasquatch – from the Irish of Gabriel Rosenstock...
June 16, 2019
Audrey Molloy is an emerging Irish poet living in Sydney. Her poetry has appeared in The North, Magma, The Moth, Meanjin, Cordite, Overland...
In 2018, Mari read at the Strokestown International Poetry Festival and at the Irish Writers Centre International Women’s Day 2018-2019....
Gareth lives in Sydney with his wife and daughter. He has taught poetry and poetics in schools, youth centres, universities, libraries and...
Caitlin Bowen is currently in her third year at Swinburne University, studying both a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Arts....
Guest reflection • Issue seven • Issue Seven Contributor
by Tom Meagher. A yearning for freedom from both physical and ineffable barriers re-emerges throughout this issue of Backstory. Visible and...
Issue seven • Issue Seven Essays
by Anne Connor Picking up on the work of Jane Elliott, retired American teacher and racist educator, imagine the history of the...
Issue seven • Issue Seven Fiction
by Moya Roddy. Similimum, similimum. Like with like. Homeopathy works by releasing the body’s innate power to heal, a power...
Issue seven • Issue Seven Reviews
A kookaburra laughing carries me home through the clearing where the wattles are bursting their golden crowns dancing against a brooding...
Reviewed by Angela Wauchop “… Herta’s eyes were open to an army of haters spinning their sticky threads among the populace. Every...
Issue seven • Issue Seven Poetry
Port Arthur, Van Diemen’s Land, 1842 By Bill Cotter, I slunk from black to grey and black again. Smelt the gum leaves. Felt the...
by Eleanor Hooker. ...
by Sven Doedens Cameron slammed the door behind him. He didn’t slam it too hard because he knew he could damage the door, and then...
Reviewed by Brittney Alexander. “He had always been fond of knives. Each hilt sat warm and comfortable in the palm of his hand, as though...
by Moya Roddy I told myself you didn’t feel the cold, out and about in tee shirts in all weathers. When the rest of us were...
By Gareth Jenkins An earlier version of this poem was a finalist in the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Prize and published under the title...
