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.”
Dr Meg Foster is an award-winning historian of bushranging, settler colonial and public history, and the Mary Bateson Research Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Her first book, Boundary Crossers: the hidden history of Australia's other bushrangers charts the lives of Aboriginal, African-American, Chinese and female bushrangers, and will be published with NewSouth in 2022. As well as writing for academic audiences, Meg is a public historian and has a passion for making connections between history and the contemporary world.
