AustLit

'At the start of this print cycle, being both queer and newly-appointed as Editor of Voiceworks, I was excited for the possibilities that the selection of Drag as the theme for this issue would bring, but I also felt a certain level of anxiety about all the potential things that might go wrong. Bringing queerness into the spotlight is all too often a double-edged sword. (Of course, there are several definitions of the word drag that have nothing to do with queerness, but I’m gay so I only think about gay things). Personally I worried about having to read submissions treating gender defiance as a joke, and professionally I worried about the responsibility of producing an issue with a theme that has several very complex connotations. What would happen if all the submissions we received were problematic, transphobic, totally uncritical of RuPaul? We would have nothing to print and the entire publication would fall to pieces!! (Did you know queer people are more likely to suffer from anxiety than our straight peers?) As it turns out, my fears went totally unrealised. Instead, the issue you now have before you contains some of the most raw and powerful work we have published in a long time.' 

 (Introduction)

'Literally what isn't a drag right now? Trump is president of the US; refugees are being held captive in trauma-inducing prisons off-shore; the Great Barrier Reef is dying; and Neo-Nazis are making a comeback nobody wanted. Just to name a few of the issues I feel upset about within the first ten minutes of my morning. Before I've even properly woken up, I open my digital, blue-screen newspaper (Facebook and Twitter) to absorb the horrors of the day. Almost everyone else is doing this too, from the looks of my Feed. I started doing it in hopes that the exposure to blue light would help wake my serotonin-deficient brain up, but I'm pretty sure it's just making me more depressed. I'm not sure if I'd admire or be extremely cautious of anyone who didn't feel as though their soul was being dragged across hot coals in this political climate.' (Introduction)

'For the same reason people go to China, I might go to Los Angeles on February the fifth. Travel to San Francisco after, stay in the cheapest five-storey hotel with vacancy and think about Black Mountain Poets and 'The Subterraneans' which I study in school.'  (Publication abstract)

' 'My home is by the' corner of the house. It is a small home, though only in comparison to other homes. On its own, it is perfectly substantial. I have my gravel and I have my castle. I have some reeds too that give good shade from the bright light of the window..'

 (Publication abstract)

'I'm unsure how to describe myself, so a lot of the time I just don't. I am unsure of how to understand a non-binary gender inside my one body, so I have, generally, tried not to inhabit that body at all. That... that's not always true though, and when I try to bridge that gap in the days I can, I find more comfort not in words but in images.'

 (Publication abstract)

' 'I was dating a new guy'. That was on my mind as I stirred the saucepan-full of black beans and water. I had said something terrible to him. The white eyes of the beans magnified beneath the water and made me feel sudden paranoia. I turned down the heat and let the pot bubble gently...'

 (Publication abstract)

''Daniel, Dan, Danny-boy pulled' his sled, groaning under the weight of firewood, to the foot of the last hill...'

 (Publication abstract)

'Aged somewhere below 13 I built a fairy house with a boy on a field trip to a cemetery I couldn't stop thinking about his penis in his shorts, how he was different to me, I couldn't trust his intentions and now, on a bed door open sun streaming, coke up my nostrils a man chokes me, kisses me, says sorry' 

 (Publication abstract)

''In our old suburb, which' existed at the dawn of dial-up, time was a small thing. Most of the local kids spent long afternoons pinballing from door to door, down avenues dotted with one-storey shacks, hollering for fellow yobbos to come out and bike, wrestle and spit. Alyssa and I, along with Jamie K from number nine, didn't run with the mainstream crew. Firstly, because we're Cantonese, and the Shanghainese kids thought we stank of century egg and ate dog for dinner.' 

 (Publication abstract)

'I was washing the sticky residue of a lemongrass soap off my hands. 
''Do you want to borrow some moustache hair?' Dani asked me while almost touching noses with their reflection, meticulously placing individual hairs on the glue on their upper lip.'  (Publication abstract)

' 'Rotting teeth have a weird smell'. Like the clumps of hair that block bathroom pipes. Like the wall smell when a possum chews the wires and carks it. Mum warns me of the smell as we're driving up the long hill to Nan's. We're not going to be here for long, Mum says, so try to enjoy the quiet...'  (Publication abstract)

'The first time I altered my body was in 2006, when my mother smeared hot wax onto my brow ridge. In retrospect, the two of us didn't know enough about the liquid fabric, the way it would fasten itself to skin, clinging desperately to every last strand of hair. I was 12, and - embarrassingly enough - could hardly tell the time, let alone understand the mechanics of hot wax. My mother was born with no eyebrows or eyelashes, which practically rendered her useless when it came to hair removal practices. Naturally, the wax-strip poked fun at our naivety and took my entire eyebrow hostage, damning me to a three-month eyebrow-less sentence. I was an insecure preteen enjoying the tail end of primary school with half of her face stripped bare.'  (Publication abstract)