Cirrus@Austlit

'This year marks the beginning of the second decade of constitutional recognition. Who could’ve known when Julia Gillard created the expert panel, at the urging of the Greens and independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, that 10 years, seven processes and nine reports later the nation would still be waiting for the Commonwealth to act?' (Introduction)

'Flock is a brief glimpse at the past 25 years of First Nations writing. As Ellen van Neerven, the collection’s editor, writes, “many collections have come before this one”. There have been a lot of stories, shared between kin, across Country and generations, some of them that evade the written word. Here are 20 previously published short stories that together tell of resurgent ecological communities, of loss, shadow-lives and family.' (Introduction)

'Sinéad Stubbins writes paragraphs the way some people write entire short stories. In the space of three or four lines she has sketched out a narrative, led you to believe you know where it’s going, and then, right near the end, turned off in another direction. From there she carries on talking about the bigger idea she’s dissecting as though nothing has happened. It’s remarkable how effortless she makes it seem. An anecdote about watching Jurassic Park morphs into a brief comment on hypocrisy. A description of trying to figure out what a cocktail dress is suddenly becomes a high-stakes reference to Icarus flying too close to the sun. The movie Point Break somehow becomes the perfect analogy for gastrointestinal upset.' (Introduction)