Cirrus@Austlit

'How often do you think about what’s in the ground beneath your feet? The cavities and caverns, the small bodies that live in subdued light? In our tenth edition, our writers and artists explore the science of the underground, drawing our attention to that which is often out of sight.' (Jessica White : Editorial introduction)

'In this issue of Science Write Now, launching (finally) alongside a brand new website, we’re excited to share the work of writers and scientists engaging with concepts of migration. These works examine the movement of bodies and objects - human and nonhuman, living and non-living - and the future of migration on an increasingly unliveable planet. Importantly, in an age where climate-induced migration is beginning to be framed as an issue that may affect us all, these works stay with the uneven vulnerabilities of climate migration and the ongoing histories of forced migration brought about by colonisation and global capitalism.'  (Publication summary)

'I’ve been thinking about what humour is, and what it means for something to be ‘funny’. There are definitely different kinds of funny depending on where you live—I know this as a midwestern American now living in Australia. Love you, Oz, but I will never understand Kath & Kim. (I am, however, with you on Team The Office UK.) '

'I’ve come to learn that writers are always asking each other how they write. Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you write everyday? In fact, the way I write is closely related to the theme of Edition #5: Illumination & Illustration. I’ll pretend that you asked.' (Editorial introduction)

'Within the first few pages of Richard Flanagan’s The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, one encounters a raft of losses. The book, which centres around three siblings, Anna, Tommy and Terzo, and their mother Francie, opens with the vanishing of Anna’s middle finger; Tommy recounts the loss of ladybirds, soldier beetles, bluebottles, earwigs, Christmas beetles, flying ant swarms, frogs and cicadas and their songs, emperor gum moths, Persian rug wings, quolls, potoroos, pardalotes, swift parrots, great kelp forests, abalone, and crayfish; and it becomes known that there is a fourth sibling, Ronnie, who died in his teens.' (Editorial introduction)

'We hope everyone who has landed on our pages over the past month has enjoyed our focus on women and science, and we welcome you to our next issue on Extinction. We initially shaped this theme around three novels released earlier this year – James Bradley’s Ghost Species Donna Mazza’s Fauna and Chris Flynn’s Mammoth (the subject of a conversation with Jess White to be uploaded next week) – which focus on de/extinction, whether through genetic engineering or voices from the past. These novels aren’t unusual in a country which has the highest rate of vertebrate mammal extinction in the world; what is interesting is that they have emerged in a year which has seen significant disruption to humans’ ecosystems. Perhaps fiction and Covid-19 might engender some empathy for the ways in which our fellow living creatures experience the devastating impact of humans.' (Introduction)