Overland literary journal > Articles by: Clare Strahan

Author archives

Clare Strahan

Clare Strahan is a two-time novelist with Allen & Unwin publishers, long-ago contributing editor to Overland, and teaches in the RMIT Professional Writing & Editing Associate Degree.

Articles by Clare Strahan:

13 October 202013 November 2020

When someone great is gone: remembering Ania Walwicz

Jacinda Woodhead, Clare Strahan and Benjamin Laird

Ania Walwicz taught us that art is central to being human. She recognised that to be an artist is also to be a teacher. She wanted to create a community and a movement, and when it suited, that community was also her court.

Published in Overland Issue 221 Summer 2015

Story Wine Prize: judges’ report

Alicia Sometimes, Clare Strahan and Leah Swann

This year’s Story Wine Prize submissions yielded a superb collection of hotly contested favourites and we judges were blessed with an exciting long- and shortlist. For us, the best of these stories honed in on a moment, relationship, mood or event with precision and attention to the finest evocative detail, some managing to also traverse deep issues and spans of time – and all in fewer than 800 words.

14 August 201421 August 2014

Coming out okay: The Boys Own Manual to Being a Proper Jew

Clare Strahan

Since we couldn’t drive on Shabbat, the synagogue kept all religious Jews tethered to a walking distance.

22 January 201322 January 2013

Discard an axiom

Clare Strahan

‘The Left’ seem like an argumentative lot, and yet they offer a glimmer of hopeful politics – a socio-political worldview that celebrates the possibilities of humans finding ways to look after everything.

19 November 2012

On art, the premier and RMIT TAFE

Clare Strahan

Artists are driven, and privileged (though sometimes in the face of great poverty) to concern themselves with thinking and feeling about the questions of their age (or ‘the ages’) and our shifting (or is it eternal?) relationship with the divine, the profane and the mundane, and of translating those thoughts and feelings into action, into events, into things – creations – with which the soul of any witnessing human being can resonate and conceivably find comfort, catharsis, awakening, provocation, solidarity, beauty and, perhaps, enlightenment.

7 June 2012

The Slow Canoe

Clare Strahan

Three of the writers from Women’s Work will be reading for The Slow Canoe on 7pm Friday 15 June the Schoolhouse Studios (97 Nicholson Street, Abbotsford).

29 November 201126 March 2012

‘That’s what I love about the short form’

Clare Strahan

Author of several children’s books and currently at work on a debut novel, the stories of writer and editor Irma Gold have been published in such notables as Meanjin, Island and Going Down Swinging and she is, of course, a blogger here at Overland. Her debut collection of short fiction, Two Steps Forward is the […]

16 October 201126 March 2012

Animal People

Clare Strahan

Animal People Charlotte Wood Allen & Unwin Shortlisted for all sorts of excellent awards, most notably the Miles Franklin for The Submerged Cathedral, Australian writer and editor Charlotte Wood also blogs on ‘food, writing and reading’ at How to shuck an oyster. Animal People is her latest novel. I’ll confess it. I’m an animal person. […]

21 September 201126 March 2012

Writing is always a political act

Clare Strahan

An interview with John Kinsella Poet, journalist, activist, academic, editor and playwright (just to name some of his many occupations), John Kinsella has written more than thirty books, won numerous prizes, including the Grace Leven Poetry Prize, Age Poetry Book of the Year, WA Premier’s Book award for Poetry and senior Fellowships from the Literature […]

20 September 201126 March 2012

Emmett Stinson on why publishers need to take self-publishing seriously

Clare Strahan

Writer, editor, short story writer, reviewer, academic and co-founder of Wet Ink, Emmett Stinson is currently shortlisted for the 2011 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, for his collection, Known Unknowns , published by Affirm Press. He chats with us today about his essay ‘Vanity Fair’ featured in Overland 204. You write, ‘In a traditional publishing contract, […]

1 September 201127 March 2012

Bite your tongue

Clare Strahan

Bite Your Tongue Francesca Rendle-Short Spinifex Press In Bite Your Tongue, Professor Francesca Rendle-Short managed to pull-off a remarkable feat: a fictionalised memoir that moves pretty-well-effortlessly between the directly auto-biographical and the lyricism of good fiction. Her description here, of her created self, ‘Glory’, represented in a childhood photograph of Francesca, sums up the relationship […]

23 August 201126 March 2012

Gender and China Mieville’s ‘Embassytown’

Clare Strahan

Fiction writer, poet, essayist and literary critic, Kirsten Tranter, grew up in Sydney’s literary atmosphere and studied at the University of Sydney, but it was at New York’s Rutgers University that she completed her PhD in English on Renaissance poetry. Tranter’s first novel, The Legacy, was listed for the Miles Franklin in 2010. Her second […]

22 August 201126 March 2012

On being an editorial intern

Clare Strahan

Well, the fresh-faced (okay, I’m 46 but heck) intern that rocked up to the Overland office way back in January of this year has done her dues and the internship is over; so even though I’m staying involved, I thought I’d take a little space to reflect on my observations and share my intern widsomosity*. […]

18 August 201127 March 2012

Sophie Cunningham’s ‘Melbourne’

Clare Strahan

Melbourne writer, editor and publisher, Sophie Cunningham, is the author of several novels: Geography and Bird, and currently working on a third. Editor and publisher of numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, she has worked for such notables as McPhee Gribble, Penguin and Allen & Unwin as well as taking the helm as editor of […]

10 August 20111 June 2012

‘This earth, this realm, this England’

Clare Strahan

England in 1819 An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King; Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring; Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, But leechlike to their fainting country cling Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow. A people starved and […]

5 August 20111 June 2012

Ali Alizadeh on catalysts and inspiration

Clare Strahan

Born in Teheran, Ali Alizadeh won a young adult’s literary award at thirteen and became the subject of a documentary film for the [then] Kingdom of Iran’s national television. In 1989, his family emigrated to the ‘mostly hostile environment’ of Queensland, Australia. Since completing his PhD in Professional Writing at Victoria’s Deakin University, Ali has published Eyes in Times […]

4 August 20111 June 2012

Me and the Melbourne Writers Festival

Clare Strahan

Well, look out; I’m one of five UNblogger competitors selected for this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival. My pass is in the mail and I’m excited. A minimum of ten events are on my obligation horizon (oh, what a hard life it is) and from them I’m to wrestle at least eight blogs, so watch this […]

8 July 201126 March 2012

Judy Durrant speaks

Clare Strahan

Judy Durrant is runner up in the 2010 Judith Wright poetry prize for new and emerging poets in Australia with her poem ‘and day breaks’, published in Overland 203. We’ve asked Judy to share with us a little of what led her to write ‘and day breaks‘, what inspires her, what she’s hoping the reader […]

4 July 201126 March 2012

Paul Mitchell on fiction

Clare Strahan

Melbourne-based writer Paul Mitchell has published two books of poetry, Minorphysics and Awake Despite the Hour. His short fiction collection Dodging the Bull was published by Wakefield Press in 2007. Journalist, fiction writer and poet, Paul’s work has appeared in Black Ink’s Best Australian Stories & Poems, Scribe’s New Australian Stories, HEAT, Meanjin, Overland, the […]

21 June 201126 March 2012

Susan Bennett speaks

Clare Strahan

Emerging writer and self-confessed clever pumpkin Susan Bennett knows how to stir the pot, blogging her mix of politics and food at Fudging the menu. Co author of The Cook’s Toolkit by Clever Pumpkin, Susan is currently working on the intriguingly titled Trial of the Romance Novelist and her novel, Grace, the premise for which […]

20 June 201126 March 2012

Larissa Behrendt on fiction

Clare Strahan

Larissa Behrendt is a writer, barrister and law professor, and celebrated Australian personality, passionate about the rights of Indigenous Australians and the development of Australian culture. In 2009, she was the NAIDOC Indigenous Person of the Year and in 2011 voted NSW Australian of the Year. Talented across several genres, Behrendt’s bibliography includes many articles […]

16 June 201126 March 2012

Antony Loewenstein on boycotts and literary festivals

Clare Strahan

Passionate and outspoken about Israel/Palestine, among other things, Antony Loewenstein is a freelance independent journalist based in Sydney. Author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution, he is a denizen of the Twittersphere. Antony speaks regularly at literary festivals around the world and his essay ‘Boycotts and Literary Festivals’ is published in the 203 […]

10 June 201126 March 2012

Stephanie Holt on football and gender

Clare Strahan

It’s the Women’s Round and former Meanjin editor and dedicated St Kilda supporter, Stephanie Holt chats with Overland about her gig at The Footy Almanac, the vitality of AFL culture and its mirroring of gender inequality found in society as a whole. Her essay, ‘Football’s Women Problem – Stephanie Holt on sex, lies and the […]

7 June 201126 March 2012

Michael Brull & Dr Tad Tietze speak

Clare Strahan

Healthy debate is a wonderful thing and Michael Brull has gone head-to-head with Dr Tad Tietze to debate the idea: Political Islam is not a friend of the Left, published in Overland‘s edition 203. Mike is on Twitter, has a featured blog at Independent Australian Jewish Voices and is involved in Stop the Intervention Collective […]

6 June 201126 March 2012

Benjamin Law speaks

Clare Strahan

Benjamin Law is a freelance writer living in Brisbane. His debut book The Family Law was published by Black Inc. Books in 2010 and Matchbox Pictures have bought the rights to make it into a TV series. Benjamin writes for Frankie magazine, contributes to such notables as The Big Issue, The Monthly, Cleo, Crikey, New […]

3 June 201126 March 2012

Overland 203 out now

Clare Strahan

Overland 203 is hitting mailboxes now. The mailboxes of subscribers, that is – and so if you’re not a subscriber, there’s never been a better time to join up. It’s only $54 ($40 if you′ve a concession) and it guarantees you twelve months of great reading. Over the next days, we’ll be publishing all kinds […]

19 May 20112 April 2012

On rejection and the comfort of Nietzsche

Clare Strahan

Described as ‘real life opera’, a beautiful young woman is jilted and throws herself off a balcony in her wedding dress. Blessedly, she is saved. I find myself hoping she doesn’t become a writer and betroth herself to art, because in this culture, cruel (or polite) rejection is all part of the courting process and […]

15 April 20114 March 2014

Helen Dinmore interview

Clare Strahan

Adelaide writer Helen Dinmore takes time from her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide to chat with Overland about her short story ‘Unplugged’. How did you come to write the story – was there a catalyst? As a short-story writer, what kind of thing inspires you? This story came out of some research […]

Published in Overland Issue 202 Autumn 2011

Finders keepers

Clare Strahan

Minch didn’t want Over in his head but she rattled on. Last-Night’s eyes were closed in concentration.

4 March 20111 June 2012

Fiction review: This Too Shall Pass

Clare Strahan

In exciting news, last night, Melbourne writer SJ Finn and Sleepers Publishing launched Finn’s second novel, This Too Shall Pass. A writer with a diverse oeuvre, Finn is a well-known poet and her first novel, Fine Salt, was published in 2002. Finn’s short stories have been produced for radio and published in such notables as […]

28 February 20111 June 2012

Did you read … Meanjin?

Clare Strahan

The latest Meanjin, Volume 70, the first edition for 2011, is also the Meanjin-swansong of its editor Sophie Cunningham who took the helm in 2008 and resigned unexpectedly in 2010. Sophie’s editorial wraps-up her time with the journal and welcomes the newly appointed Sally Heath. This edition of Meanjin begins with the rather droll ‘Mulgrave, […]

22 February 20111 June 2012

On waking up

Clare Strahan

Egypt. A revolution on the scale of the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, the Women’s Revolution. Millions are changing everything because they can’t bear the oppression any longer; because they’ve captured the imagination of another way. Iran, Yemen, Bahrain … Egypt’s imagination inspired by Tunisia. Tunisia inspired by … Facebook? Well, clearly Facebook is just […]

24 January 201114 February 2011

Love your work, Childs: a review

Clare Strahan

I have come across some writing that made me think ‘I have never come across anything like this before,’ and then I thought about thinking that and the closest comparison I could come to was Richard Brautigan. But it’s not that, either. Because it’s written by a woman, is Antipodean and totally twenty-first century. I […]

10 December 201010 December 2010

Theatre review: Peer Gynt

Clare Strahan

Peer Gynt | Four Larks Theatre | until Saturday 11 December On Wednesday night I was lucky enough to share with friends in the experience that is the Four Larks Theatre company. Even a visit to their website gives a sense of how this self-funded young company masters atmosphere. Entering their space is like being […]

18 October 201020 October 2010

Off to the Athenaeum

Clare Strahan

It was a shocking night for venturing out on Friday – rain, wind, dark (you get that at night), cold, a storm on the way. Bravely, I drove into town. After my last foray to the comedy theatre, I thought better of using public transport. Meeting dear, generous friends in the foyer of the Athenaeum, […]

13 September 201014 September 2010

Fiction review – Child of the Twilight

Clare Strahan

She may have grown up in Tasmania, but I’m claiming Carmel Bird as a Melbourne writer because she lives here now. If you haven’t heard of her, why not? The woman has a prolific publishing history, beginning with her first collection of stories in 1983. I published my first two books myself. If you decide […]

8 September 2010

Bookless shelves

Clare Strahan

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one […]

3 September 20103 September 2010

MWF Writing Women – a review

Clare Strahan

2.30 at Fed Square and there’s a queue fifty people strong cluttering up the paving-stones, waiting to go in to ACMI for the Melbourne Writers Festival. The doors are shut. Chaos reigns. ‘Is this the museum?’ asks a lost tourist. The MWF volunteers are doing a sterling job, blithely ignoring any queue-disgruntlement and pointing the […]

26 August 201026 August 2010

Fiction review: Graffiti Moon

Clare Strahan

Downtown Yarraville is, in its own right, a great place to be on a sunny winter’s Sunday afternoon – if you haven’t been west for a while, maybe it’s time. It is an especially pleasant destination if you are lucky enough to be attending the book launch of a respected Australian author. Hosted by the […]

18 August 201019 August 2010

Journal review – Kill Your Darlings Issue 2

Clare Strahan

Kill Your Darlings stands accused of new fiction, essays, commentary and reviews and is guilty on all four counts. I was very pleased when the July edition of Kill Your Darlings fell into my greedy hands. The editorial team have produced a chocolaty artefact of some beauty with superb artwork from Jeremy Ley. A collector’s […]

12 August 201012 August 2010

Theatre review: Sappho…in 9 fragments

Clare Strahan

Stepping off the St. Kilda Road tram at Southbank Boulevard for a short walk to the Malthouse Theatre on a sunny Melbourne winter’s afternoon is a very lovely thing to do. It’s true that Melbourne’s independent arts scene is eclectic, marvellous, under-funded and perpetually under threat. Nevertheless, trundling past the Art Gallery and the Arts […]

9 August 20109 August 2010

On voting

Clare Strahan

When my daughter turned 17, the government sent her a birthday card and an enrolment-to-vote form, in preparation for the big 18: voting age. Six months later, this ‘gift from the government’ has been unearthed in an office reorganise. This morning, I gave it to her and she threw it on the bench. ‘They’re all […]

9 July 2010

Single mother, and all that

Clare Strahan

Unmarried parents now account for one in three births, compared with about 10 per cent of births in 1980 and just 5 per cent in 1960. ‘Families tend to blend as single-parent households now the most common.’ The other day a friend was bringing me up to speed on a mutual friend, an older woman […]

5 July 2010

An autonomous collective

Clare Strahan

Some ‘lovely filth’ for the Overlanders:

22 June 2010

Olyotya, Africa
[Hello, how are you, Africa]

Clare Strahan

Africa, Africa. South Africa around Johannesburg, Botswana in the village near the border with SA, the Kalahari desert, Uganda – the airport, the city of Kampala, the Village of Katebo near Lake Victoria … on my mind. Like tears. Like hundreds of faces. Like hundreds of small children spontaneously cheering, celebrating a gift of two […]

15 June 201015 June 2010

Writing and helplessness and being comfortably numb

Clare Strahan

I’m thinking about writing and helplessness and being comfortably numb. I was chatting with my nephew, 27, as we set off to see Exit through the Gift Shop: (sold out so I suggest you book ahead!) Now, dear reader, 27 is the young man’s age – my sisters and I are not such keen Get […]

19 May 201019 May 2010

Rail against the machine!

Clare Strahan

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute tells us: Transit [public transport] becomes more important as cities grow. In smaller cities transit primarily serves transportation disadvantaged riders (people cannot use an automobile), typically representing 5-10% of the population, but as cities grow in size and density transit serves more discretionary riders (people who have the option of […]

13 May 201013 May 2010

Leonardo Da Vinci castrated for graffiti crimes

Clare Strahan

I came across this online Age newspaper article by Kylie Northover, ‘Graffiti is enough to give a critic an art attack’ (8 May 2010), a response to ‘Hey Banksy, graffiti is vandalism not art’ by Charles Purcell (4 May 2010). I was duly horrified. Purcell concludes his smug, ignorant rant with the following outrageous suggestion: […]

23 April 20101 May 2010

From ‘sex kitten’ to educating the sexes

Clare Strahan

In 2009, a choreographer from the television programme So you think you can dance said his routine involved ‘a bit of a peep show’ explaining, ‘They’re such hot looking girls, why wouldn’t I portray them as sex kittens?’ I then pulled the face that causes my teenaged daughter to exclaim, ‘I hate watching television with […]

14 April 2010

Off to see the wizard

Clare Strahan

It’s wonderful to see the diversity of good folk involved in the profession of writing, editing, publishing and scriptwriting. I am impressed by the dedication and passion of individuals who publish, teach, speak, blog, run workshops, assess, praise and damn – and their enthusiasm for writing and writers, both established and emerging. What strikes me […]

Author archives

Clare Strahan

Articles by Clare Strahan:

When someone great is gone: remembering Ania Walwicz

Story Wine Prize: judges’ report

Coming out okay: The Boys Own Manual to Being a Proper Jew

Discard an axiom

On art, the premier and RMIT TAFE

The Slow Canoe

‘That’s what I love about the short form’

Animal People

Writing is always a political act

Emmett Stinson on why publishers need to take self-publishing seriously

Bite your tongue

Gender and China Mieville’s ‘Embassytown’

On being an editorial intern

Sophie Cunningham’s ‘Melbourne’

‘This earth, this realm, this England’

Ali Alizadeh on catalysts and inspiration

Me and the Melbourne Writers Festival

Judy Durrant speaks

Paul Mitchell on fiction

Susan Bennett speaks

Larissa Behrendt on fiction

Antony Loewenstein on boycotts and literary festivals

Stephanie Holt on football and gender

Michael Brull & Dr Tad Tietze speak

Benjamin Law speaks

Overland 203 out now

On rejection and the comfort of Nietzsche

Helen Dinmore interview

Finders keepers

Fiction review: This Too Shall Pass

Did you read … Meanjin?

On waking up

Love your work, Childs: a review

Theatre review: Peer Gynt

Off to the Athenaeum

Fiction review – Child of the Twilight

Bookless shelves

MWF Writing Women – a review

Fiction review: Graffiti Moon

Journal review – Kill Your Darlings Issue 2

Theatre review: Sappho…in 9 fragments

On voting

Single mother, and all that

An autonomous collective

Olyotya, Africa [Hello, how are you, Africa]

Writing and helplessness and being comfortably numb

Rail against the machine!

Leonardo Da Vinci castrated for graffiti crimes

From ‘sex kitten’ to educating the sexes

Off to see the wizard

Olyotya, Africa
[Hello, how are you, Africa]