Essays

It happens every year. Besides the ‘Best of’ lists that heave into view as early as late November, there are…

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.

During the first weeks that Francesca was in hospital, whenever I sat beside her bed, all I could do was cry. Again and again I told myself to pull it together; she didn’t need someone behaving as if she was about to die. But whenever I saw her in that gown, in that ward, all I could think about was losing the woman I loved.

Serialised in 1909-1010, The Poison of Polygamy by Wong Shee Ping is the first novel of the Chinese Australian experience. It recounts the story of a man from southern China who tries his luck on the Victorian goldfields.

I need to go back to that daylight encounter in Homer Street and walk up to that fox, and look it in the eye. I need to have a better conversation with that fox, a more honest one.

I always wonder whether I have fused fragments of several memories together to create my own narrative. Did my mother or I displace significant details?

People often don’t realise my being non-binary means they need to do some work. You can acknowledge my queerness by shaking my partner’s hand but you have to actually change language to get the trans thing right.