AustLit

'For my first trip to Tassie it was Valentine’s Day. Hobart was sunny and picturesque as all hell, with the harbour featuring heavily in our sightseeing. There was also a skater I kept swapping hopefully seductive glances with until my dad noticed which totally salted the whole game. Now, jump forward a just shy of a decade to the Emerging Writers’ Festival Roadshow. During this visit there was something more difficult to contend with. More particularly, how can literary journals pay their writers fairly? What even counts as ‘fair’ when online publications pay their ‘content creators’ in exposure? When our publications have such diverse aims, budgets, demographics and access to resources? This debate is not new. Many industries struggle with a sense of entitlement from consumers wanting to have their cake free and eat it in the comfort of their own rooms. On a personal, selfish level, I totally get it. Without judging from on-high, this understanding of why people love free stuff (because it is free) is not the solution and it’s not a sustainable way to eat cake.'

 (Introduction)

'Until very recently, I have been guilty of treating Australian writing as second-rate. In high school, the colonial novels were always left decaying at the back of my locker. During the early stages of my arts degree, the one Australian literature subject on offer was the one I ignored, arrogantly assuming it would be inessential to a well-rounded education in English. Even Australian short stories were something I’d read because I felt I should, as if they were some kind of patriotic vitamin supplement to be taken between meatier meals of American classics. Maybe because until then I’d only had the most tired examples of Australian writing stuffed down my throat, or maybe because the books I had been prescribed were leading me to believe that real writing was happening elsewhere.'

 (Introduction)

'"Remember," G. says, dunking a sachet of decaf into a plastic thermos, "the lives of these creatures are at least ten times more valuable than your own. Always remember that." And then he rolls down the big door and leaves me alone in the factory with eleven tiny sharks. They're hammerheads if I remember correctly what hammerheads look like. They're all a sort of brown colour; some are spotted and some are streaked. They move through the water slowly, never leaving even a ripple behind. I guess then that I work for a pretty neat company. Each shark is about the size of a finger. That's pretty neat. I feed them twice a shift, once at two, once at four. I drop little orange pellets into their tank and they just eat 'em, they just slide on in. I name them after food: Cheese and Tomato Sandwich, Egg and Bacon Sandwich, Burrito with Everything, Sticky Date Pudding, Enchilada with Cheese, Hash Brown. Hash Brown is the littlest and my favourite. Hash Brown has a red hue to him, I notice. Hash Brown, I feel, could be a good pal. I feel we could even grow to be great pals...'

 (Publication abstract)

' I stand in a queue of impeccably dressed women. Hats, gloves, cat-eye sunglasses and seamed stockings abound. Everyone is nervously chatting, giggling, eyeing off the makeshift stage and the impressive looking judges on it. Our setting is the annual Rose Seidler House Fifties Fair in Wahroonga, Sydney, run by the Historic Houses Trust and Vintage Allsorts. We're in line for the Best Dressed Female competition; consisting of twenty finalists, we're a group of differing ages and styles. There's a cool rockabilly lady in mustard yellow pants and a young girl in a Dior-inspired cloak and hat, not to mention the abundance of petticoats.'

 (Publication abstract)

'Consciousness came with a hiccup - and the unplaceable certainty that something was wrong. Hubert blinked into his goose-down pillow with dread. What was happening? When did waking ever feel so fraught? He hiccupped twice more before finally detecting the problem: he was pissing. He rolled over and grabbed at his boxers, trying to stem the flow with a firm twinge, and kicked at the blankets in his rush to the bathroom. The top sheet was twined around an ankle and dragged after him. He heard his wife squeal as her body was stripped bare...' (Publication abstract)

 

'July 21, 2013 was a Saturday. The night-time neon dust had fallen across the square mile and Adelaide was just getting ready. The Hindley Street nightclub strip glittered and shone as the music began to play. Rundle Mall had been closed for a couple of hours by now and was empty except for those using it as a corridor to get from the upmarket cafes on Rundle Street to the bars on Hindley. From way up high, it would have all been a very pretty scene.' 

 (Publication abstract)

'I wake up too early that morning and have to wait for my father to leave. From my bedroom I can hear him putting on his fake Aussie accent, the one he's had to practice in order to make friends with the other butchers. I miss Pa's old Dutch accent, back before we came to Bomba, back when people called him Ferdinand. Now his name is Fred and his Australian slang is so much rougher and so are his hands and so is his smile...'  (Publication abstract)

' I punched your grave the other day. Literally balled my hand into a fist and slammed it into the earth piled on top of you. Broke two knuckles in my right hand and popped my pinkie out of its socket. So fucking stupid...'

 (Publication abstract)

'A few years ago, I was desperately trying to convince myself to quit smoking as I worked my way through a pack-a-day. During this phase I met a man named Aubrey de Grey. I had been attending some sort of ridiculous conference, hosted at a ridiculous hotel on Collins St in Melbourne. The well-known biologist was there to speak about his radical idea - that we could very soon delay, or even abolish, the process of getting older. De Grey envisions a world without old age as we know it. The Cambridge-educated de Grey is probably the most prominent - and notorious - figure in the field of gerontology, or the study of senescence.' (Publication abstract)

 

'For over a year, I have been trying to get a job. Mostly it's because I want to start earning money instead of wasting my life surfing the web and doing little else. Despite achieving post-graduate qualifications, little progress has been made. My interests are limited to history, anime, football and fetish fiction. I have no experience in manual labour, and tend to get overwhelmed if given multiple projects at once. My resume only boasts one week at a library from high school work experience.' (Publication abstract)