I am incredibly proud of being the Co-Senior Editor of Other Terrain and Backstory.

Backstory is particularly special to me. I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn’t love history. It was a love that made me a writer of history. I’m delighted Swinburne provides this journal as a platform for other writers of history to publish their work.

This is the third issue of Backstory. There’s something quite magical about the number three – and exciting. In my mind, the fact we have now published three issues indicates the success of Backstory and Other Terrain. We plan to keep building on this success with each new issue.

A big part of our success are those wonderful students who make up our editorial team. All our team work extremely hard, and with so much commitment, but Marnie Reid deserves particular praise. Marnie is the Associate Editor of Backstory; which means she has been very busy for the last few months working with writers who had work accepted for publication in Backstory. She has done a fantastic job.

I’ll let Marnie tell you about our issue three. Over to you, Marnie!

All the best,

Wendy

 We received some wonderful fiction and non-fiction submissions for this, our third issue of Backstory.

Amanda Pearson has contributed two pieces, the first dealing with a mother’s grief after losing a son to the war, the second telling the story of the Japanese comfort women from WW2 still struggling with their grief so many years later.

Louise Hopewell has written a story loosely based on her grandmother’s life about the joys of working a factory job and the sadness of having to give it up.

Judy Rigby has contributed a story detailing a mother’s harrowing journey from England to Australia with her small children on the way to start a new life.

Chris Childs has contributed two pieces, the first a fictional account based on the real lives of two cousins who have fallen for the same woman; the second a creative non-fiction account of the life of Caroline Dexter, a woman struggling to find her purpose in the world.

Janice Simpson has contributed an insightful journal article that explores the history of removing children from their families at a young age and the impact this can have on them.

As the Associate Editor of Backstory, it was my pleasure to work with such a diverse range of authors on some excellent stories.

Marnie Reid