Published 27 August 200927 August 2009 · Main Posts what’s that i see on the horizon, folks? Maxine Beneba Clarke Have you looked around you in Melbourne lately? The stationary shelves are empty. Strange dreamy-eyed out-of-towners walk around newsagents with odd hopeful smiles on their faces, slipping exercise books and HB pencils under their jackets and running for all hell in their threadbare docs as the anti-theft sensors scream at them. The coffee houses are full (but only the cheap and non-franchise ones) with silent scribblers, crouched low over their tables. The shelves of secondhand bookstores are dust free for the first time in months (cause we all know Borders and that Angus place don’t stock any of the hard stuff these godsent desperates are pining for). Must be folks, that Overload 09 is almost here. Maxine Beneba Clarke Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian author and slam poet of Afro- Caribbean descent. Her short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the 2015 ABIA Award for Best Literary Fiction and the 2015 Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her memoir, The Hate Race, her poetry collection Carrying the World, and her first children’s book, The Patchwork Bike, will be published by Hachette in late 2016. More by Maxine Beneba Clarke › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 8 November 20248 November 2024 · Poetry Announcing the final results of the 2024 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers Editorial Team After careful consideration, judges Karen Wyld and Eugenia Flynn have selected first place and two runners-up to form the final results of this year’s Nakata Brophy Prize! 4 October 202418 October 2024 · Main Posts Announcing the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers 2024 longlist Editorial Team Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 and now in its ninth year, recognises the talent of young Indigenous writers across Australia.
