y separately published work icon Voiceworks periodical issue  
Alternative title: Root
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... no. 121 2020 of Voiceworks est. 1988 Voiceworks
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Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2020 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Better Homes and Gardens, Adalya Nash Hussein , single work essay

'For most of my life, I’ve lived in apartments. Some of these have outdoor spaces, but they’re managed by body corporates. You can tell which blocks have more owners than renters because the gardens are better looked after, more manicured.' (Introduction)

(p. 4-5)
Deeply Rooted, Kareena Dhaliwal, , single work essay

'Last year a work friend, while doing some marking for his other job, mentioned that students would often use the phrase ‘deeply rooted’ in their essays, which he always found unintentionally funny. By ‘deeply rooted’, I imagine these students mean something like ‘inseparable; grown from the very heart, filled with the blood, bearing the features, inhabited by the stories’. Whereas it reads more like ‘deeply fucked’.' (Introduction)

(p. 6-8)
Mulberry Hands, Sofia Casanova , single work short story

'I’m standing in my underwear on Chestnut Street. The morning of Lunar New Year is sticky like mango left in the sun, ushered in with a herald of cicadas. The jacaranda tree behind me, over six metres tall, arches over with its purple blossoms and whispers good morning!' (Introduction)

(p. 9-15)
Bryozoan Potluck : On Wok Hei, Love and Vegetables, Victor Guan Yi Zhou , single work essay

'Through a surge of reproductive energy, the aquatic invertebrate Bryozoa bloom buds of larvae that wiggle and bubble out from their own body. Oceanic eddies then whorl them outwards; their amor- phous bodies reach out in an act of watery connection.'

(p. 17-22)
Sprouti"lately", Sonya Frossine , single work poetry (p. 23)
This Place and Us, Coco X. Huang , single work short story

'When I was four, I almost drowned. My scrawny arms had tired of holding onto the pink inflatable ring and I slipped through the hole in the middle, into the over-chlorinated waters of Galston pool. Ma said she’d plucked me out gasping and floundering like a trapped rat, but strangely, I have no memory of it. I only remember and occasionally dream of the space between my breaths—that transient, painless pause when everything feels right, before the body realises the danger it is in. Suspended in that soundless calm, I had opened my mouth, curious, to taste the elastic shades of blue that pressed in like thumbs, firm and supple but as comforting as my own fist. Even as the light from above paled and my chest grew taut, I held on, aching for more.' (Introduction)

(p. 27-33)
Extraction, Mickhaella Ermita , single work autobiography

'Dawn breaks like an open wound and spills onto my bedroom’s blank white walls and ceiling. Desperately, I cling to the sunrise as a temporal marker. I’ve been restless in the fortnight since my return to Australia, immobile in bed as my body gradually acclimates to the leap forward in time from Manila to Melbourne. But left to my own devices and bereft of the presence of work or education to structure my everyday, very little moors me to the present. The light scalds my sleepless eyes, a reminder of my abject tenselessness, as I try and fail to catch up with myself in the here and now.' (Introduction)

(p. 35-39)
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Sea, Sandra Kallarakkal , single work short story

'The train is empty. Or maybe it’s just the carriage that’s empty. The absence of something is still absence, no matter the size. Like how some ghosts are smaller than others. But that doesn’t mean they do not cling on harder, claws digging into backs. Arms and chests too, if they can reach that far. Devi would know, does know.' (Introduction)

(p. 42-52)
Less Wonderi"I was never taught how", single work poetry (p. 53)
The Countries We Carry, Anthea Yang , single work autobiography

'Three months before my paternal grandmother dies, I sit across from her in my auntie’s apartment in Nanjing, China. Her hair is dark grey and tied into a low ponytail. She wears square, wire-framed glasses that match the shape of her face: a shape she has passed down to my father, passed down to me.' (Introduction)

(p. 55-60)
Merino, Niamh Wood , single work short story

'Winter swept in like a draught. It brushed through the streets in just an evening, stretching the air thin then sharpening its edges. Its breath pressed in on the windows, and theyblurred and filled with fog. Inside was filled with moving hands, knives and forks, and the static of chatter, warmed by Merlot and creamed potatoes.' (Introduction)

(p. 64-68)
Nothing Left to Sayi"The gravel hasn't been graded", Bridey Ellis , single work poetry (p. 69)
Fragments of Green, Nina Adams , single work short story

'Sometimes I imagine the escarpment watching—a slumped giant, trees sprouting up from its fingers, its green sigh winding down between the houses below.'

(p. 71)
The Moving Man Arrivesi"to be greeted by the silence", Nicole Moore , single work poetry (p. 72-73)
Lineage, Niamh Schofield , single work short story

'Some people say that every person born left-handed was once a member of a twin pair. In twins, around a quarter are left-handed. I am left-handed, but I was born alone, and I came bursting out backwards with a full head of black hair and pink white skin. I had big hands and feet like a Labrador, with strokes of wiry fuzz decorating every inch of my skin, veins flowing all over my flesh, like a cow udder. My mum says I had a twin early on in utero. Before we had hands, we were one bundle of cells burbling like a creek. She would tell me about my sibling and who they could have been in soft whispers before bed, cradling me so close in her arms that I could have sworn her heartbeat was coming through the walls of my little room.' (Introduction)

(p. 74-80)
Notes on Solidity, Lucy Robin , single work prose

1. All my crushes—both fictional and real-life, childhood and contemporary— have been solid people.

(p. 81-85)
Forecasti"the weather is good", Eric Jiang , single work poetry (p. 86)
OVU, Georgia Ketels , single work short story

'OVU came into your house yesterday. A large ostrich-egg being—silent except for the calming, deep, meditative sounds it expels from the speaker hidden beneath its cream, porous shell. Hard and smooth, like glazed ceramic. Slightly warm.' (Introduction)

(p. 93)
Root Rot, Sar Fegan , single work prose (p. 97-104)
Daylight Savingsi"at night, an hour slips away into god’s pockets", Stella Exton , single work poetry (p. 105-107)
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