AustLit

'A few years ago, I had a crush on my best friend. I remember the panic, of beginning to suspect that these feelings might be something more than friendship, the desperate need to pretend that I wasn’t falling in love with someone who was then presenting as the same gender. I remember the tension and the yearning, the way that they became the centre of my universe and later I the centre of theirs.' (Introduction)

'I was in the middle of Yumna Kassab’s Politica when I had lunch with a friend. What had he been reading? The Iliad. His anger and disgust were palpable—he’d loved The Odyssey but Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan war left him sick. Hostages, revenge, relentless carnage. Wave after wave of bloody violence.' (Introduction)

I'n 2021 a curious comedy, Fisk, dropped on ABC TV. The main character, Helen Tudor-Fisk, played by Kitty Flanagan, turns her wits to the often bizarre issues that emerge in a Melbourne estate lawyer’s practice. Predictably (for anyone who works in this area), in one episode a claim is made on an estate that drives the sole beneficiary, Leslie, played by Denise Scott, into Fisk’s office seeking advice.' (Introduction)

'What is the relationship between writing—so often a lonely pursuit—and the nation, that slippery idea that is supposed to contain us all? And isn’t there something missing here, something between writing and the nation?' (Introduction)