AustLit

'If you grew up in the nineties then there is a good chance that you know what a Polly Pocket is. However, if you did somehow miss out on the endless hours of joy that came from moving a tiny plastic figurine whose only two actions were ‘sitting’ or ‘standing’, from room to room in their tiny house, then well done. You were probably doing something constructive instead.'

 (Introduction)

'As a writer, I find it increasingly difficult to be able to separate myself from my work; as a poet, even more. My anxiety runs through my poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and a lot of the time it even drives it. Roland Barthes writes about ‘the death of the author’ — the idea that once a piece of writing is written, it becomes its own thing, separate from the writer and the writer’s biography. It exists as art, in a kind of art-vacuum. It’s something I wish I could do sometimes — not let my anxiety affect my writing as though they are welded together. But it’s certainly something I’ve gotten better at since editing for Voiceworks; editing others’ work and my own allows me an objective space from which I can read pieces, and think about how I can make it better.' 

 (Introduction)

'Ed's real name was Edgar Jansons. He worked at a television repair store on the second main road of the second largest suburb of a large regional town in Victoria, Australia (a country in Oceania, south of the equator). He was Latvian, and identified as such. He would say: "Why I am Latvian, of course," as if expecting the thickness of his accent to penetrate the thickness of years of ingrained racial prejudice and lax education standards. He owned the television repair business, which was named: Telemarket...' 

 (Publication abstract)

'I'm sharing my room here with a nun. Seriously. Her name is Mother Constantine and she wears a rosary and everything and spends all her time praying or else staring into space. The staring creeped me out 'till I realised she's just doped and now I totally want what she has. Like, why should some nun get to be high all the time and me on only 10 mg of Val, when I'm the most miserable woman in the country?...' 

 (Publication abstract)

'We moved into the house on Wilson Street the day after your first birthday. Kat had organised a party for you at the park with balloons and everything. It was meant to be small but half our year turned up, I think mostly because they wanted to see if Kat had lost the baby weight and also to compare HSC marks. When we moved in the next day, the leftover cupcakes from the party were the first things in the fridge...'  (Publication abstract)

' I go over to the door and lock Jim and me into my coffin-width apartment. Jim's sitting in his fat armchair, sipping from his flask. Staring at his finger - at the wedding ring he still wears. I pull out my watch and count the seconds. Because that's how you pass time on duty. Tick by tick. Tick by tick. And then: Boom...' 

 (Publication abstract)

'My grandparents met in L'Aquila, the state capital of Abruzzo, Italy. I still have family there. Until five years ago, relics from old, forgotten ages covered the city. Unlike most of Italy, the city was spread out wide like an enormous country town. The Santa Maria del Suffragio, a tall and dignified stone cathedral, cast a stern shadow over the dusty cobblestone piazza. The Santa Maria di Solemaggio was a bone white basilica covered in a pattern it might've stolen from a Persian soldier's clothes. It had sat alone in a field of grass since the 1200s, much like the Forte Spagnolo, a Spanish castle with a moat that dried up long ago and now had vegetation in place of water. People took brisk walks up the stairs that the army once patrolled, past the skeleton of an Ice Age Archidiskon standing in the castle which they incorrectly called Il Mammut, The Mammoth. My cousin suggested I scale the castle for exercise, good advice until five years ago but now impossible.' (Publication abstract)

'When Mrs McDonald called me to ask if I'd be able to give Lisa a hand with her schoolwork, I was surprised. In the whole time we'd attended the same school, Lisa and I had spoken twice. Once, when she'd been drunk at the semi-formal after-party; the other, when she'd asked to borrow my pencil in biology because hers had broken...'   (Publication abstract)

'I am reading the Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry in the nurses' station of the psych ward. There aren't enough chairs, and even if one were empty I would not presume to sit down, so I am leaning against a filing cabinet. The nurses' station is located within the central room of the ward and - unlike the station in other wards - is totally enclosed by large perspex windows. Patients mill around the station, and try to attract the attention of a nurse inside by tapping gently on the windows, much like one taps on the glass of a fishbowl to attract the attention of the goldfish inside. Hence, the soubriquet: the Fishbowl.' 

 (Publication abstract)

'Dirk insists that catching the train with him to the hospital in the morning would be "worth the commute"...' (Publication abstract)

'Dirk insists that catching the train with him to the hospital in the morning would be "worth the commute"...' (Publication abstract)