Overland’s 260th issue is our most substantial yet. At 212 pages, it contains writing from the winners and runners-up of the 2025 Judith Wright poetry and Neilma Sidney short story prizes, as well as last year’s Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers. Across eight short stories, nine poems and five essays, this issue showcases the breadth of talent across generations: Hana Pera Aoake mounts a critique of the economies of First Nations artmaking, asking who exactly benefits when Maōri artists excel within an unregulated market predicated on individualism, while John Kinsella makes an extensive case for unoriginality as both poetic method and political resistance. Elsewhere, Tom Gurn, winner of the 2025 Neilma Sidney prize, imagines a surreal, fractured dialogue between two speakers orbiting loss and urban adaptation. Susie Anderson’s Nakata Brophy winning story follows a Blak elder navigating council rooms as she carries the stories of those who cared for her Country’s waterways. The issue also features new poetry by Ouyang Yu, Dorothy Lune and Dave Drayton, as well as an excerpt from Surveying the Wild Abyss, a new book by Hawkesbury elder and educator Barry Corr.
Myles Russell-Cook is a PhD candidate and lecturer in Design Anthropology and Indigenous Studies at Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia. Prior to this he undertook postgraduate studies in fine art, and undergraduate studies in photography. He is a board member for Banmirra Arts and has undertaken archival and museum research in Australia, North America and Europe. Myles also works part time as Community Liaison & Cultural Advisor for Kids’ Own Publishing as an artist manager. Myles runs artist led studios with CALD artists producing books by communities for communities that strengthen culture, language and literacy. He is also a member of AIATSIS and has been recognised for his contributions to the area of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, as well as his service and achievements in the development and management of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archives, libraries, galleries and museums.
