In this highly anticipated new issue, we encounter brilliant examples of what writing can do in a hypernormal time – whether that's Benjamin Gready on the absurdity of fieldwork on land under active occupation or Zahid Gamieldien's short story about a dancing rat who finds itself enmeshed in systems too shadowy to be true. But, as with the emotional cycles of resistance, hope and snark are features too. Dan Hogan considers the lawn as a class obsession, and π.ο. asks a question: why people hate poetry? We also read about a rakhasa family who passes on wisdom to their young kin, a story by Shefali Mathew. And you’ll find new poetry by Eli McLean, Fiona Hile and Sol Chan, among others, as well as a comic by Safdar Ahmed, plus heaps more. Co-editors Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk write in the editorial, "Writing always matters, but it matters most directly in the face of this kind of thuggish assault on language, our first and last commons. We can’t let the bastards have it.”
Barry Leonard Dickins is a writer and artist born deliberately in Reservoir in order to be disbelieved. He teaches Creative Writing in many schools including Victoria University and state schools through out Australia; mostly to Grade Fours. He loves everything in life even death. He writes regularly for The Age and is always working on a new stage play. At present he is completing a commissioned stage play for Currency Press in Sydney to do with the mystery surrounding the disappearance of heiress Juanita Nielson on 4 July 1975. Barry first contributed to Overland magazine in 1970 and is thrilled to be back in print here where he started to write.
