'Ranging over Tony Birch’s career, Ruby Lowe’s review explores the distinct tonalities of Birch’s fiction and criticism, attuned as they are to what he calls the ‘quiet moment of triumph’ that is survival in the face of invasion and settlement.' (Introduction)
'In late 2021, as he moved into assisted care, the Australian writer Frank Moorhouse donated his decades-long collection of anthologies of Australian writing to Western Sydney University’s Writing and Society Research Centre. He died not long after in June 2022. The Frank Moorhouse Reading Room was established as a tribute to his lifelong advocacy on behalf of Australian writers and writing: his work towards fair pay and copyright ownership for all Australian writers, and his commitment to diverse voices, progressive thinking, and social justice. In this essay stream, we invite writers to help us unpack this singular archive, spotlighting the intergenerational concerns and affiliations through which Australian literature is constantly being shaped and reshaped.' (Introduction)
'Frank Moorhouse died in mid-2022, but it took me a while to realise I missed him. Most of the celebrations of his life and work came from people who knew him and/or loved his League of Nations trilogy or his discontinuous narratives from the 1970s. I never met him; I’m not one of the many female fans of his best-known character, Edith Campbell Berry; and although we were both part of the 1970s sexual liberation movement, we were fighting on very different fronts. While Frank was discussing sex and censorship in Balmain pubs, I was joining the annual Adelaide women’s pub crawl, where a bunch of feminists refused to be confined to the Ladies’ Lounge and invaded the men-only front bars.' (Introduction)
'From Vietnam to Gaza, Eda Gunaydin considers the recent and historical convergences of mass politics and anti-war sentiment, examining the role of artists at moments of political mobilisation as well as their vulnerability to state surveillance.'
'Drawing on Stephen J. Pyne’s idea of the Pyrocene, James Bradley explores how this periodisation – the Age of Fire – reframes our relationship with an element that has become an uncontrollable force as well as a figure for our ecological fate.'
'Surveying poet laureateships throughout history and across the world, Sarah Holland-Batt argues for the benefits of an Australian iteration – one that might galvanise the institutional support required to restore poetry to its place in civic life.' (Introduction)
