Cirrus@Austlit

'Hmong–Australian writer Michele Lee’s new play, which explores death, ghosts and memory, began with a regular phone call to her parents. By Jinghua Qian.'

'Queer women’s history is often relegated to sidebars and footnotes, ephemeral community publications, or academic texts that are prohibitively expensive if you can’t borrow a kind friend’s university library card. That’s not due to a lack of interest or scholarship: the frequency of lesbian historical narratives in fiction, film and television suggests there is audience appetite for stories of women loving women, and often just a little digging will uncover plenty of gold. But it’s nice to have someone else do the digging for you. Here, Danielle Scrimshaw and Ultimo Press have successfully identified a gap in the market for a popular nonfiction treatment of lesbian and bisexual women’s history in Australia that gathers a dozen narratives in the one volume.' (Introduction)

'She has exhibited nationally and internationally and won the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), the Australia Council’s Dreaming Award and Libris Artist Book Prize.

'Jenna spoke to Jinghua Qian about art versus craft, what’s behind a book cover, and the history of the pearling industry.' (Introduction)

'“It seems difficult here for anything to become permissible without becoming compulsory,” wrote child psychologist Martha Wolfenstein in 1951. She was writing about parenting and how softening attitudes towards playtime soon transformed into a new catalogue of duties and demands. The same could be said for the entire field of gender and sexuality: acceptance of any identity or practice seems to inevitably calcify into another set of norms and expectations, a test of authenticity.' (Introduction)

'I grew up thinking there were seven fundamental flavours: suān, tián, kǔ, là, xián, xiān, má. The first five translate easily – sour, sweet, bitter, hot, salty – but the other two don’t own a home on the English tongue. It was a shock to realise that something as material as flavour could be coloured and even erased by language.' (Introduction)

'Over the last few months, we’ve seen the beginnings of an anti-racist reckoning in Australia’s media, arts and entertainment sector, nourished by the Bla(c)k Lives Matter movement. As former and current employees critique racism and marginalisation at workplaces ranging from newsrooms and television sets to art galleries and festivals, organisations have responded with promises to do better.' (Introduction)

'S. L. Lim’s second novel is a vicious delight – a lit fuse that means to burn the whole house down.'

'Australian nationalism often promotes a history in which the colonisation of Aboriginal lands was somehow complete before the white patriot turned his attentions outwards to the threat of the non-white foreigner. It’s a deliberate trick.' (Introduction)

'Omar Musa weaves words and rhythms into a seamless story of boyhood, defiance, and faith.'

Lengthy review essay, which positions The Chinawoman within the history of 'yellow peril' narratives.