'This issue of Southerly captures a snapshot of Australian writing today. Stories from writers just starting out on their long apprenticeship are placed side-by-side work from Australia’s finest essayists, writers and poets. This rich and expansive issue asks what it means to write in a contemporary Australia fraught with inequality, divisiveness, and the unrelenting exploitation of country. In a special collaboration with Sydney Story Factory, which runs workshops for young and marginalised writers, this issue of Southerly includes short stories that demonstrate the vibrancy and the vision of Australia’s up-and-coming writers. Including essays from Caroline Lefevre and John Kinsella, poetry from Kevin Hart, and much, much more, ‘The Long Apprenticeship’, is an issue comprising, as ever, the best in Australian writing.' (Editorial)
Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Chess P(r)o(bl)ems by Dave Drayton
Carol Lefevre: “The Pursuit of the Peregrine”
John Kinsella: “Reading and (non) Compliance
'My mother, now in her ninetieth year, told me yesterday that she had hurt her hand. she had been walking through the hallway to her bedroom when she accidentally knocked it against the doorknob. she must have hit it hard because the top layer of skin came off and it was bleeding. When she looked at it more closely she realised that not only had she knocked off the top layer of skin but also the wound was deep. she could see her tendons down to the bone. she took herself to the office in the home where she lives in the hope that a nurse would be on duty. ' (Introduction)