'It’s a cliché of contemporary publishing that every editorial in a literary journal like Overland invariably makes arguments for the importance of literary journals before platitudinising about the importance of literature generally. In Overland’s first editorial in 1954 Stephen Murray-Smith invited our readers to share our ‘love of living, our optimism, our belief in the traditional dream of a better Australia’ which is hard to beat for brevity.' (Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk : Editorial introduction)
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Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Notes
-
Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Taking What's Owed by Rafi Alam
Life-making through and beyond the Pandemic by Miriam Jones
Skin by Lena Fransham
Honeybabe by Kathryn van Beek
Contents
* Contents derived from the 2021 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
-
I Would Prefer Not To,
single work
essay
(p. 3-11)
'When my father, Laurie, retired from his job as a high school science and IT teacher, he’d been a teacher for about thirty-five years. He was, I think, a good teacher. ‘I wasn’t super teacher,’ he told me, ‘I wasn’t Eddy Woo, but my students did well and sometimes they bought me a beer years later, I was an ok teacher.’ I liked the fact that he was a schoolteacher, liked that he chose to work at a public school down the road, because his values were my values.' (Introduction)
-
Reading Humphrey McQueen's A New Britannia in Decolonial Time,
single work
essay
(p. 12-19)
'There are books that, without you even knowing it, have shaped who you are as a thinker. I was reminded of as much on re-reading Humphrey McQueen’s A New Britannia: An argument concerning the social origins of Australian radicalism and nationalism. First published in 1970, my well-thumbed third edition from 1986 had been picked up at a second-hand store to replace an earlier fourth edition published in 2004 and now yellowing on some long-lost acquaintance’s bookshelf.' (Introduction)
- The Whale Ghosts, single work essay (p. 29-42)
-
Imagining a New Conversation with Landscape,
single work
essay
(p. 51-58)'I wander down the wide corridor of the crunchy fire trail. Both sides of the track are lined with scaly black matchsticks sweeping up to the sky. It has been six months since I was last here and almost a year since the fires of the New South Wales Black Summer. Th change is dramatic in this time. The matchsticks are now coated with a fuzzy layer of vibrant green epidermic growth and fresh grassy whiskers punch out from the burnt forest floor. The music, however, is still sparse. From what is usually the chatter of the noisy friar and lyre birds is now just the echo of my footsteps and the gentle hum of the cicadas. At least the cicadas are back.' (Introduction)
- Press Seci"Fashion ephemera until it becomes fashionable", single work poetry (p. 61)
- Mouth Piecei"tongues who feast in salt rinds of passage", single work poetry (p. 61)
- Pointless in Spacei"Is there anything more fucked", single work poetry (p. 62)
- In the Only Flats in a Posh Suburbi"Wake to the back neighbour's pool pump", single work poetry (p. 63)
- Stick Insectsi"In the dream I give birth to twins but they aren't human: they are small spindly creatures", single work poetry (p. 64)
- Marshmellow Flowersi"This morning the viel the morning threw", single work poetry (p. 64)
- Can't Cant, single work poetry (p. 65)
- Leafless - Leafsi"Words are leafless", single work poetry (p. 66)
- Autofictioni"The author composes an homage", single work poetry (p. 67)
- Birds, Againi"The birds are at it - hacking up the morning -", single work poetry (p. 68-69)
- A Tale of Two Crowdsi"A group", single work poetry (p. 70)
- Shane's Castration, single work short story (p. 71-76)
- Lost, single work short story (p. 89-93)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 1 Feb 2022 09:00:53
