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.”
Lou Garcia-Dolnik is a mixed-race Filipinx writer and editor working on unceded Gadigal land. A poetry editor for Voiceworks and alumnus of the Banff Centre’s Emerging Writers Intensive, they have been awarded third place in PRISM International’s Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize and second place in Overland’s Judith Wright Poetry Prize. They have work published in or forthcoming with Overland, PRISM International, Rabbit Poetry Journal, Scum Mag and Voiceworks, among others.
