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.”
Magdalena McGuire was born in Poland, grew up in Darwin, and now lives in Melbourne with her husband and young children. Her short fiction has been published in The Big Issue, Island Magazine, Mslexia, Margaret River Press anthologies and elsewhere. In 2016 she won the Impress Prize for New Writers. In 2017 she won Mslexia's Short Fiction Competition, judged by Deborah Levy. Her debut novel, Home Is Nearby, was published in the UK and Turkey. She is now working on her second book.
