'Our new issue opens with ‘Dream Geographies’, an important essay by Alexis Wright that covers the many aspects of writing her most recent novel Praiseworthy. In her expressive, allegorical style, Wright discusses the importance of writing on a large scale in an imperilled world, the state of Aboriginal self-determination and the value in thinking off-key to conjure humour. She also describes the collection of notes (many scribbled quickly to catch the flow of thoughts) and treasured objects that helped fire her vision of the book (random gifts from a windfall: a feather from the local birds, or a perfect bird’s nest that had floated down from the highest tree in a night storm, and fallen undamaged into the garden). ' (Introduction)
Only literary material by Australian authors individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Sentences on Wonderment by Edina Szvoren (trans. Erika Mihalycsa and Peter Sherwood)
Everything Solid is Vibrating in Place by Chris Ames
'The writing of Praiseworthy was loosely guided by a collection of notes and treasured objects that helped fire the vision of the book, the total life-world – the multiple realities of characters such as Dance, the moth-er, flowing right through her dreaming. The shape of things that live in the heart, the life force of all worlds and of all peoples, the great harvest of sensibility, wisdom old and new, intellect, drive, sheer guts and tenacity – these were some of the ideas that I learnt from over a half century of work in the fight for Aboriginal rights.'(Introduction)
