Overland 254 is the first in a set of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. This issue also launches a new design and format by Common Room Editions, inspired by Overland’s trove of radical literature spanning from 1954 to today. Andrew Brooks and Astrid Lorange consider the asymmetrical responses to two events: the wearing of keffiyehs by three cast members during the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, and, on the same day in the US, the shooting of three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs. Jeff Sparrow uncovers the Sydney Herald’s legacy of Terra Nullius, and Daniel Lopez writes on Marx, Meredith and the festival as an inversion of modern life.
Dan Bledwich is a 28-year-old sex worker and writer who lives in Melbourne. Dan dropped out of University of Wollongong’s Creative Writing degree (does it show?), and now divides his time between writing his first novel, poetry, punk, and being an agitator for social change. As a caveat, Dan acknowledges that he has never done street-based sex work before, and thus when using the words we/our/us, is referring to his sex worker peers as a whole. Dan blogs at backwardsbackwoods.com. His twitter handle is @singult
