Cirrus@Austlit

'Escape Artists Anthology comprises a literary interarts compilation of creative and critical works by authors and artists from around the world including essay, memoir, short story, poetry, song lyrics, art, and interview. The themes include: taste, longing and melancholy; speculative fiction; and fascinations with phenomena such as UFOs, "aliens", spacecraft, telepathy, and fugue in art and literature and what these signify as metaphors and/​or literally about: contemporary society, and the inner journeys of the self in relation to others and forms of social media community, in this time of disruptive global technological change.

'The anthology was conceived and created in Newcastle, Australia, in a 19th century post and telegraph office. Read the story of how it began in the anthology.'   (Publication summary)

'Featuring the works of thirty four authors, artists, arts and cultural historians, from around the world and across urban and regional Australia, the inaugural anthology issue of Arts Features International literary arts anthology journal, addresses themes of artistic, social, cultural and technological change, in a time of major historical evolutionary transition. From the displacement and shock of transitioning from the ‘private’ timeless zone of writing to the public zone of ‘virtual reality’ and publishing via computer, to social media and digital arts production arises the need to gather together to defend our humanity, and environment, and speak in a polyphony individually together.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'From long narrative lines to fine-boned, lyrical loops and ties that bind these poems into place, Richard James Allen has taken risks with language that mark this as his most adventurous and significant book to date. --Anthony Lawrence

'Allen's subject is being itself, and the way our biological and mental dimensions interact, with human intelligence and love being the unifying forces for this interaction. --Adam Aitken' (Publication summary)