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'There are so many ideas in this issue that have moved me, gnawed at me and floated around in my head for the many months we’ve worked to bring these writings and artworks to you. At the time of going to print, COP26 was only a week away, so it seemed fitting to begin this issue with Harriet Riley’s ‘Climate Girls’ and an image of Bristol’s massive mural of perhaps the most outspoken one. (If you haven’t heard Greta Thunberg’s ‘blah blah blah’ speech, do look it up.) It struck me how often climate impacts loomed in this issue, whether front and centre as in Harriet Riley’s and Joan Fleming’s essays, or as a malevolent force in the background – from Ivy Ireland’s dying trees and struggling nasturtiums to Claire Corbett’s experience of being far from home in a wintry Europe while bushfire raged in New South Wales. The term ‘apocalypse’ rolls off the tongue so regularly now, but the word has a broad meaning: catastrophic destruction, disaster and endings, yes, but also revelation, disclosure, discovery. This issue covers the spectrum of ‘the various apocalypses of a life’ – tragedy, loss, illness, but also strange visions, transformations, uncertainty and the connecting power of love.' (Publication introduction)
Notes
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Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Climate Girls by Harriet Riley
Pat Brassington in Conversation with Andrew Harper
Contents
- Tabulations (A Nine Year)i"First thing, The Morning News: Virus Travel Expedited by Cool", single work poetry (p. 10)
- Masqueradei"the sun had moved to the left", single work poetry (p. 11)
- The Mowing, single work short story (p. 12-17)
- Unmarked Grave, single work essay (p. 18-25)
- The Break Walli"A few crabs are packed in the crevices of the break wall.", single work poetry (p. 26)
- Elegyi"Hard to keep an empty chair at the table where together we scoff", single work poetry (p. 27)
- Boy Falling, single work short story (p. 28-29)
- Lagi"on the night of the day I return to her home, I dream", single work poetry (p. 38)
- Very Originsi"Beer in plastic cups in the once most bombed hotel in Europe", single work poetry (p. 39)
- Dressing for the Apocalypse, single work essay (p. 40-45)
- Emerging Tasmanian Aboriginal Writers Award 2021, single work interview (p. 46)
- Life between the River and the Concrete Pavement, single work poetry (p. 47)
-
An Exceptional Future,
single work
essay
(p. 48-54)'Tasmania has been lauded for its natural beauty and sublime landscapes by European arrivals since the late nineteenth century. It took another century for the island's biodiversity and unique ecologies to be recognised for their inherent values. In 1995, something occurred that many thought impossible - Tasmanian Aboriginal land rights were granted to a people whom popular history had declared were gone forever. In addition, a burgeoning conversation movement in Australia has increasingly recognised that Western models of ecological value based on rarity, diversity or threat are able to embrace the principles of ethics and knowledge emerging from Indigenous lifeworlds. This has resulted in what Philip Toyne has described as 'a green black alliance to stem the tide of destructive elements in our society', embracing our responsibilities to the past and recognising the deep values and connections that make a place an enduring home?' (Introduction)
- Secret Beach, single work graphic novel short story (p. 56-61)
- A Room Beneath the Earth, single work short story (p. 62-65)
- Kitschi"They (that is we) were just like everyone else", single work poetry (p. 66-67)
- Antipsychotic, single work essay (p. 68-73)
- Transformer, single work short story (p. 74-79)
- Wind : Feelingi"My library of slurs minimal", single work poetry (p. 80)
- Removali"Both his old neighbours, not old as him, have died", single work poetry (p. 81)
