Cirrus@Austlit

'The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest story of 2020, causing severe and sudden changes that many people could never have imagined. Our Inside Voices is a collection of creative writing that looks beyond quick journalism or abstract statistics to offer deeper reflection on the cultural and social dimensions of the pandemic.

'Writers reflect on how the disease dramatically shaped our ways of living and dying: the abrupt, sometimes subtle, often challenging, changes brought to cultural, economic, and social aspects of everyday life during a global health emergency. Australians at home and abroad, stunned by a sudden shift in priorities as routine habits and occupations were fundamentally disrupted, faced so many changes that even time seemed inconstant.

'Pandemics are biological events with cultural and social implications. We hope (although, in mid-2020, we don’t yet know) that this virus will soon be managed by curative or preventative technologies, but the disease will have infected and killed millions before it is rendered harmless. 

'The voices gathered here are diverse and eloquent, capturing a vivid portrait of the COVID-19 pandemic as it grows towards its initial peak. They also capture various creative ways in which Australians adapt to rapidly changing realities.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A world-first collection of blackfella speculative fiction from well-known and emerging First Nations writers. The first-ever anthology of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction – written, curated, edited and designed by blackfellas, for blackfellas and about blackfellas. In these stories, some writers are summoning ancestral spirits from the past, while others are looking straight down the barrel of potential futures, which always end up curving back around to hold us up from behind. Dazzling, imaginative and unsettling, This All Come Back Now centres and celebrates communities, cultures and country.' (Publication summary)