Cirrus@Austlit

'Tincture Journal has been running for five years now, and the December 2017 issue will be our twentieth, so it’s with very mixed feelings that we’re announcing that this issue will also be our last. Some of you may have seen this coming, since we quietly removed the ability to purchase subscriptions from the website a few months ago; some of you may be surprised we lasted this long (I know I am!); and some of you may be disappointed at seeing an Australian literary journal fade away into history.' (Editorial introduction)

'Every now and then I find myself in a reading funk—a period where neither novels nor short story collections, nor the kinds of long-form journalism and narrative non-fiction that I usually enjoy, can really draw me in. At these times, reading poetry can help; it aids a kind of slowing down that can be exactly what I need. Doing something else for a while can help too, but that normally involves the kinds of distractions—social media, television—that make it more difficult to engage with a book. Usually it’s just a matter of allowing time to pass, then finding the perfect book or story to get me all excited again. Often, literary journals provide the spark.' (Editorial introduction)

'In last issue’s editorial, Daniel Young wrote about his “recent preoccupation with landscape metaphors”, and while writing this editorial it was impossible for me not to be preoccupied with landscape: Tropical Cyclone Debbie made landfall as a category four system on 28 March near Airlie Beach, approximately 480 kilometres north of Rockhampton, where I live. Subsequently, the Fitzroy River flooded, peaking on 6 April at 8.75 metres.' (Stuart Barnes : Editorial introduction)

'With the long hot Australian summer still burning fiercely here in Brisbane, it’s hard to think of this as the Autumn issue, but here we are. A few months ago, while reading submissions, I tweeted: “the skin as map / body as landscape metaphor feels very overdone”. Images came to mind of black-and-white cinema advertisements tracing a body’s contours in close-up, making them look like geographical formations in order to sell moisturiser (or something); or slightly more obscure references like lyrics from the song ‘Cardiac Atlas’ by June of 44: “he finds his way with a map of arteries / he makes camp just above your heart”. So yes, it felt overdone to me, but I was quickly forced to qualify this with another tweet: “but I’m reading a piece by someone who’s doing it well, so who cares?”' (Editorial introduction)