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Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 Second City : Essays from Western Sydney
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Contents

* Contents derived from the Artarmon, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,:Giramondo Publishing , 2021 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
On Agon in the Area, Luke Carman , single work essay
Hopefully the Future Is Dark, Felicity Castagna , single work essay

'Some people say ‘West’ like it is something wrong, like ice-cream that fell in a gutter. I think West is like my brother’s music, too much bass so you end up dancing like your body parts don’t fit together and laughing all at the same time. That’s what West is: shiny cars and loud things, people coming, people going – movement. Those who don’t know any better, they come into the neighbourhood and lock their windows and drive on through, never stopping before they get somewhere else.

'These are the first few lines of my second book The Incredible Here and Now. I can’t say that I like them very much. I don’t think they work. The rhythm is great, some of the images too, but really what blows the whole thing is that it’s too restrictive, too reductive an image of what western Sydney is to be that useful.' (Introduction)

Raise Your Needles : In Defenceof Public Knitting, Aleesha Paz , single work essay
An Elite Education, Sheila Ngoc Pham , single work essay
Second City, Eda Gunaydin , single work essay
Borges and the Tiger, Yumna Kassab , single work essay
A History of Reading : Alan Marshall and Helen Keller, Amanda Tink , single work essay

'On 9 May 1933, the day before the Nazis burned her book as part of their action against books of ‘un-German spirit’, Helen Keller wrote an open letter to them, which was published on the front page of the New York Times. ’You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe,’ she said, ‘but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.’ Today, if Helen Keller is thought of at all, it’s as the blind and deaf girl who, through the efforts of her teacher, learned to communicate. There’s scant acknowledgement that she was even capable of having ideas, and she’s often reduced to nothing more than testament to the ideas of others. However, Keller not only spoke, but read and wrote four languages, and was a prolific poet and essayist. The ideas that led to the Nazis burning her book Out of the Dark were contained in the essay ‘Why I Became a Socialist’.' (Introduction)

Uprooted, George Haddad , single work essay
(Feminist) Sages, Frances An , single work essay
Of Mosques and Men, Zohra Aly , single work essay
An Introvert’s Guide To Surviving An Arab Family of Extroverts, Rawah Arja , single work essay

'I lie on the lush cold grass. It’s familiar and safe, a sensation I have found difficult to retrieve in my adult years. The afternoon rays of light break through the grove of trees as the sound of birds sipping softly on hanging fruit creates a soothing hum. The grass is long enough for me to fade away to watch my own private slideshow of morphing clouds. I feel the damp earth beneath me, breathe in the fresh air that flows freely into my lungs. Nostalgia for a simpler time of making up storylines, of dancing bears and fire-breathing dragons high up in the sky. What I yearn for is a place of uninterrupted peace. Somehow this is more than memory, it is home.' (Introduction)

Muhammad, Raaza Jamshed , single work essay
Shopping Night, May Ngo , single work essay
Excuse Me, Tabi Tabi Po, Martyn Reyes , single work essay

'Mum tried to find her footing in the loose rocks on a narrow path sandwiched between golden wattle and mountain devil shrub.' (Introduction)

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