‘Verdict on a winter afternoon’ – Arjun Rajkhowa

‘Verdict on a winter afternoon’ is a fictionalised account of the aftermath of the conviction of a doctor in rural India, whose work focused on supporting communities displaced by mining and ravaged by insurgency and counter-insurgency operations, for the crime of ‘sedition’.

Dr Arjun Rajkhowa works in tertiary education in Melbourne. His research interests include public health; media, culture and society; human rights; and policy. He has volunteered in the community sector in Melbourne for several years. He can be contacted on Twitter at @ArjunRajkhowa.

‘working holiday’ – Guillermo Batiz

To dissolve the ego one must coagulate the self.

Guillermo R Bátiz is Mexican composer, artist and translator living in Sydney, Australia. He has played multiple international avant-garde festivals such as MUTEK, Plataforma and Interface, alongside musicians like Murcof, Sigur Rós, Telefon Tel Aviv, Manrico Montero and Justice. His project, ‘Plant Symphony’, composed using the bio-emissions of plants has been exhibited widely. Guillermo writes recurrently as part of his creative process. After many years trying to break into his field in Australia, he now works as a chef.

‘All the way with O’Shea’ – Adam Adelpour

‘All the way with O’Shea’ commemorates the 1969 Clarrie O’Shea strike that defied and defeated the ‘penal powers’ – anti-union laws used to prevent strikes.

Adam Adelpour is a cartoonist, artist, activist and member of Solidarity. He has a Masters of Fine Arts from Sydney College of the Arts and lives and works in Sydney.

‘Reasonable adjustments’ – Fiona Murphy

‘Reasonable adjustments’ examines the vague phrase ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, and how it has become a tool used to discriminate against disabled people seeking employment.

Fiona Murphy is a Deaf poet and essayist. Her work has been appeared in Griffith Review, the Big Issue and Kill Your Darlings, among others. She’s currently working on a collection of essays about Deafness.

‘While the Iron is Hot’ – Cora Tate (fiction)

A group of immigrant labourers find strength in themselves and their fellow workers to confront their crooked bosses with the support of a union.

Trained as a scientist, graduated as a mathematician, but a full-time professional entertainer most of her adult life, Cora Tate’s repeated attempts to escape the entertainment industry brought work as a librarian, physics teacher, syndicated newspaper columnist and city planner. Cora writes and struggles to learn dzongkha in Bhutan and Queensland.

‘The high road’ – Joseph Tiso (essay)

A short recounting of the 1913 New Zealand harbour strikes juxtaposed with my personal experiences of striking more than a century afterward.

Joseph Tiso is an 18-year-old student working in Wellington who is very interested in history and different forms of media entertainment, particularly animation. He hopes to combine the two after becoming qualified to do so. His favourite colour is red (preferably combined with black).

‘Courier smalltalk’ – Harry Reid (poetry)

This is a poem about working just a little bit harder than an out-of-office autoreply.

Harry Reid is a poet from Melbourne. They are a co-director of sick leave, and their work can be found in Overland, The Lifted Brow, Cordite Poetry Review and elsewhere.

‘Bee united’ – Elky Martin

Bee-ing united works.

Elky Martin is an animator, cartoonist and mixed-media artist based in Melbourne. Find online at elkymartin.com and Instagram @elkymartin.

‘Sanity sleuth’ – Rebecca Douglas

‘Sanity Sleuth’ depicts one woman’s struggle to unravel the mystery of her mother’s mental health, against a background of poverty and petulance.

Rebecca Douglas is an award-winning Adelaide-based writer whose work has been published by The Sydney Morning Herald, Overland, Verandah journal, Tincture, Visible Ink, The Big Issue, ABC The Drum and various other lovely places.

‘Apocalypse now – striking to save the world’ – Amy Thomas

This essay, reflecting on lessons of the climate movement in Australia, takes a big-picture, optimistic approach to the work we need to do for justice in face of the immediate climate crisis.

Amy Thomas is teacher, writer and academic. Amy’s co-authored study of media responses to Aboriginal initiatives for self-determination, ‘Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations? 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments’, is out in 2020 with Aboriginal Studies Press. Amy has been the recipient of an NT Literary Award, a UTS Vice-Chancellor’s teaching award, and the 2018 UTS Shopfront Community Fellowship.