Backstory Author

AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE

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...

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Delivery

by Eleanor Hooker.  ...

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The Cool Beach

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...

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If When

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...

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Feeling the Cold

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...

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Mapping like all colonisers like to map

By Gareth Jenkins   An earlier version of this poem was a finalist in the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Prize and published under the title...

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Book Review of GS Johnston’s Sweet Bitter Cane

Reviewed by Angela Wauchop “The war had left them idle. Each bomb and bullet and bayonet had torn the fabric of the village to ribbons,...

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Swansong

by Wendy J. Dunn The nurse bends over Dad with her stethoscope and listens to his heartbeat. ‘Not long now,’ she mutters under her...

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The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World.

Reviewed by Brittney Alexander.   Gareth Russell’s book, The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World, addresses the sinking of the...

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THE “EARL CORNWALLIS”

By Bill Cotter, Between 1788 and 1840, twelve thousand women were transported, usually for minor offences, to New South Wales.   Oh,...

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Matrimonies

By Stuart Barnes     This poem was previously published in Glasshouses (UQP 2016)...

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no angel

By Magi Gibson   she was nine and half her milk teeth gone because she’d kissed the boys behind the shed And she listened in on big...

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Recipes for the Disaster

Reviewed by Michael Aiken Gareth Jenkins’ Recipes for the Disaster (Five Islands 2019) reads like a series of rituals or incantations,...

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TWO POEMS BY SULPICIA

Translated by Melinda Smith   V: From my sick bed Sulpicia 5 (Tibullus 3, 17)   Cerinthus, will you keep faith with your girl now...

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Richard James Allen

Interviewed by Samuel Elliott. Richard James Allen is an Australian born poet whose writinghas appeared widely in journals, anthologies,...

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Moya Roddy

Moya Roddy’s novel The Long Way Home was described in the Irish Times as “simply brilliant”.  Her collection of short stories Other...

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ERNIE ECOB AS A BARE-BELLIED JOE

By Melinda Smith ‘Women only want to be shearers for the sex’ — Ernie Ecob, former Secretary, Australian Workers’ Union   She...

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safe hands

By Philip Porter,   She falls into her father’s arms from various heights: This was the light that held her darknesses from her....

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Laura Wild

Poorly navigating the internet one LiveLeak video at a time, Laura Wild is an Australian writer currently studying at Swinburne University...

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Tuam Lullaby

By Gary McCartney     Hush, Macushla, time to sleep The night is getting colder Pray the Lord your soul to keep For you’ll...

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Someone to talk to

by Wendy Wicks   She is standing in the doorway examining him. His eyes were still grey. She remembered when they first met. Those...

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Mark Mulholland

Mark Mulholland was born and raised in Ireland, and when fifteen underwent a stroke of genius and left schooling to linger around a...

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Nigel Featherstone

by Samuel Elliott   About the author… Nigel Featherstone is an Australian writer who has been published widely. His works include...

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Metamorphosis

By Anita Patel (in memory of Maria Sibylla Merian – 1647 -1717)   It is not natural for a young girl to gaze at insects night...

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Michele Seminara

Michele Seminara is a poet, editor and yoga teacher. After studying English and Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, she...

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Karen Lethlean

Karen Lethlean is a retired English teacher. With fiction which has appeared in the Barbaric Yawp, Ken*Again, Pendulum Papers and has won a...

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Jerilderie

By Nathanael O’Reilly   Eat a counter lunch of lamb shanks, salad and chips at the Royal Mail Hotel in the room where the Kelly...

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Cockle Picking

By Amanda Bell   Look first for an open cockle shell, spreadeagled on the damp part of the strand, then, with your fingers, form a...

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Woven in the Bone

By Audrey Molloy   And all this time, was anyone keeping account?      Light from Light, true God from true God, Child-years lost...

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As woman surface

By Ellen Shelley   You watch as shadows wear you as ink dries hard up inside the stone.   Tombs collapse with their dialect of...

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