Published in Overland Issue 229 Summer 2017 · Uncategorized Editorial Jacinda Woodhead This edition has many unusual aspects – Mel Campbell’s desire to understand her 25-year obsession with a low-fi computer game, Michalia Arathimos’s reflection on the 10-year anniversary of her partner being charged with terrorism, Alice Melike Ülgezer’s fictional meditation on the lives of refugees in Turkey, Allan Drew’s examination of the persisting influence of Paradise Lost, first published 350 years ago. Additionally, there is the fact that two of our authors quote the same line from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, albeit with differing translations. There’s always a pleasure in discovering the synchronicities in the making of an edition. Sometimes the patterns are small and subtle, other times they’re explained by zeitgeist. It can be compelling when the parallel is a response to the same piece of culture; for example, a line from a novel is taken by two writers, interpreted and transformed in individual ways, and then becomes fundamental to different pieces of writing. It’s an organic process wherein culture develops roots and branches and vines through corresponding words and fragments. Overland 229 includes the winners of the Fair Australia Prize, a competition founded by the National Union of Workers, which this year is also supported by the Media, Entertainment Arts Alliance and the Victorian branch of the National Tertiary Education Union. This collaboration is important to us, particularly in a period where the rich are more aggressive than ever when it comes to asserting their domination over the lives and bank accounts of others. This year has seen penalty rate reductions, robo-debt attacks and an absolute disregard for the futures of refugees. This prize offers writers and artists space to critique the present and to imagine alternatives; to remind us that, collectively, we can effect change. After all, this edition goes to print the day after Marriage Equality became a legal reality in this country. Read the rest of Overland 229 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Jacinda Woodhead Jacinda Woodhead is a former editor of Overland and current law student. More by Jacinda Woodhead › 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 18 December 202418 December 2024 · Nakata Brophy Prize Dawning in the rivulet of my father’s mourning Yasmin Smith My father floats words down Toonooba each morning. They arrive to me by noon. / Nothing diminishes in his unfolding, not even the currents in midwinter June. / He narrates the sky prehistorically like a cadence cutting him into deluge. 16 December 202416 December 2024 · Palestine Learning to see in the dark Alison Martin Images can represent a splice of reality from the other side of the world, mirror truths about ourselves and our collective humanity we can hardly bear to face. But we can also use them to recognise the patterns of dehumanisation that have manifested throughout history, and prevent their awful conclusions in the present. To rewrite in real time our most shameful histories before they are re-made on the world stage and in our social media feeds.
