AustLit

Ever since Egon Spengle first proclaimed it in Ghostbusters (1984), the murmurings of ‘print is dead’ have amplified  to an unrelenting tinnitus. In the meantime, we’ve suffered many casualties of technological obsolescence: we’ve lost the unique joy of hour-long sibling-fights at Network Video over whether you’ll play it safe with National Treasure for the third time or risk it all on Blade: Trinity; the satisfaction of hitting ‘record’ on the cassette player at the precise moment Crazy Town’s ‘Butterfly’ kicks of; the mesmeric ride of staring at the Windows 3D Pipes screensaver for so long that you come to believe that you are, in fact, controlling it with your mind.' (Introduction)

'When I was nineteen and mind-numbingly depressed, I set myself the task of self-actualising. Having learnt about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in high school psychology, I felt well-equipped to pursue the highest form of personal fulfilment. So I opened a Word document and placed my life under six neat headings: mind, vision, career, contribution, body and management. For twelve weeks I would check the boxes or, disappointed in my lack of progress, leave them blank.' (Introduction)

'I lie on the bed and put my face against the pillow. Mum has taken away the sheets, and I spread across the bare mattress as if it has been made new again. I let my fingers trail across its seams, and smile as they slip across the texture, silky and cool. I take my time and hook my fingernails into the stitches, one by one. Up close I can see where stains have spilled over the surface years ago, and the places where they have turned dark and brown...'  (Publication abstract)

'There is something wrong with you. 

'The problem is it's a Monday morning, so you wake up. You put on some shoes, there's coffee, there's toast, you chew it. Light's coming through the windows for the first time in days, pale and understanding. You avoid mirrors anyway.' (Publication abstract)

'Watashi. Nadia's tongue grips the roof of her mouth. 

'The classroom is sparse: two rows of trapezoid desks, American exchange students with Orientalist tans. Nadia sits behind the Hawaiian woman, staring at the gleam of her lacquered ponytail. She is distracted by the way the woman's buttocks protrude from the back of her chair...' (Publication abstract) 

 'Please do not ask me to take him to Royal Park Depot I could not do it.' (Publication abstract)

'My sister's on the couch waving her legs in the air like windshield wipers or long garlic stems. Like a Chinese dancer. I wonder if anybody's ever died from a woman's leg, or from the cruelty of a Chinese dance...'  (Publication abstract)

''Oi tate, we've got a vendetta - where the fuck is Ana Mendieta?'  (Publication abstract)

'A cousin turned sausages on the barbecue. The sausages hissed in the heat, spat grease...' 

 (Publication abstract)

'Mum bought the empty boxes from the Reject Shop after Dad's funeral, and left us to our own devices. It was one of her better ideas; adopting a crazed Jack Russell from the pound that same week was not. The dog ran through the legs of distant cousins and great aunts at the wake, humping pillows and snarling at plump, gooey-faced toddlers. We didn't mind - she was trying to salvage the normality in our lives at a time when the familiar had caved in around us.'  (Publication abstract)

'You're being watched. 

'There's movement on the water's edge; you can feel it from here somewhere deep in your chest. Voices and coloured shirts spread across the southern shore near the sign that reads do not disturb the crocodile. A few might stop and laugh, or take a photo for their friends. Just what was a crocodile doing nearly a kilometre above the sea?...'  (Publication abstract)