It’s been a crazy six months for me – but poetry helped. The editors of the NOTHEME XI issue of the online poetry journal Cordite, Emily Stewart and Eloise Grills say it better. They write that, ‘in this post-not-really pandemic juncture’ they remembered, most of all, ‘How much we need the work of poetry and its sublime, strange
We can be thankful Lee Kofman suffered for four years from writer’s block because it ultimately led her to a deep examination of why she was stuck. Having clarified (the hard way) the dread that was holding her back, she developed strategies to get herself back on track. She poured these insights into her blog
The first hint that this debut short story collection won’t focus on the sunny and upbeat is its title. Permafrost is formed from ice holding various types of soil, sand and rock in combination and, as the Earth’s permafrost melts, it releases its greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, creating a feedback cycle that increases climate change. Layers,
COVID-lockdown limited my walking but reading about walking (beyond my 5-kilometre-from-home boundary) kept me on track. River wander … The River gives you the sense you’re walking beside a beautiful river with someone who knows it as their friend. Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr is a Yolnu man from the Gonalbingu clan and his drawings of the
I read SO many good books this year … but here are some highlights to inspire your holiday reading. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams – Sparked by the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary, this wonderful tale explores missing words and the lives women lived between the lines. As Esme discovers: language shapes
A breathing place is what poetry offered me in the back half of 2021. Sydney was in lockdown for many months – again – and it was easy to be restless. Easy for anxiety to stagger your breath. Poetry gave me different cadences to hook into. Some of which I’ve sampled here. I make my
‘In a snowy mountain village, my family had lived peacefully for hundreds of years …’ – so begins Karen Hendriks’ new picture book for children aged 7 and upwards. The narrative continues with guards forcing the peaceable villagers to leave their homes taking no more than they can carry. The little girl at the centre
Billy-Ray Belcourt is an NDN from the Driftpile Cree Nation and Canada’s first First Nations Rhodes scholar. He is also an award-winning poet and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Creative Writing at University of British Columbia. The essays in his non-fiction debut, A History of My Brief Body, have the resonance of poetry zinging off the
Award-winning author Ellen van Neerven has gathered a bumper crop of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories in Flock. The refreshing anthology features established and emerging Indigenous writers flexing their creative wings and considering myriad concerns in their fiction, including the joys and struggles of our First Nations people. Van Neerven is of Mununjali Yugambeh (South
COVID restrictions have robbed many of us of our chance to get outdoors and into mysterious places to see wild and wonderful creatures in their element. Next best … read about them. Myth and mystery I’m a reluctant seafarer but love the Hebrides and Philip Marsden writes mesmerically of skippering a wooden sailboat up the
Recent Comments