Essays

Fires, although not ones that flared into storms due to climate change and land mismanagement, have burned through this area before. The story of fire and country, of loss and regrowth is not, at all, my own.

At my desk, surrounded by its objects, I can slip into a feeling that I am a thing amid other things, a vessel inside which words gather and disperse.

Middle Eastern writers occupy a particularly jeopardised position on the peripheries of this imaginary, where to exist as a writer presupposes inventing palatable difference in ways that make readers feel special and accepting.

I was not a writer when I lived in Singapore. I do not know if I would have become a writer if I had stayed. I do not know if I would still be a writer if I returned.

Congratulations, our teacher said on the last day of school. You’ve all won the lottery. I’ve been with the railway for 47 years, and I’ve never worked a day in my life.

While standing and writing is increasingly common, and walking meetings are a growing trend, lying down to write or to talk in the office remains transgressive behaviour.

Each area conjures, true or not, a different kind of person, a different kind of suburbia, a different kind of cultural make up.

‘Sanary and Meranda’s story can be seen as more than a simple tale of altruism, it is a reminder of the close links that have bound New Caledonia and Australia together.’

‘Non-driving, my passenger assures me, is a far higher calling than being in the driver’s seat.’

The act of writing allows us to draw language through the physicality of the body. For us, this digesting takes form through writing and the subsequent maneuvering of this physical language through publishing, that is, the act of making public.