Gareth Hipwell

Gareth Hipwell is a Sydney-based Australian artist, freelance arts journalist and author, writing for Rolling Stone Australia, Big Issue Australia, Australian Book Review and other publications. Gareth is currently working on his first novel, 'Maneroo', an acid western set in the New South Wales colony of the mid-19th Century.

Articles by Gareth Hipwell:

Published in Overland Issue 238 Autumn 2020 · Fiction

Mermaid

Gareth Hipwell

Late one Friday night in the year I left university, I woke on a strange and distant railway platform, lying face-down in a puddle of my own yeasty vomit – half-chewed chunks of pineapple strung in my hair – and resolved never to regret another choice. Since then, I have applied myself assiduously to leading a blame-free life, fearing guilt, and retreating from any situation that might lend itself to my own embarrassment or shame. Time and again, I have been reassured that regret is little more than the destructive byproduct of an inconstant mind.