The Journal

251 Winter 2023

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New fiction, poetry, and essay from literary luminaries such as Daniel Browning, Bill Gammage, Jen Craig, Rico Craig, Luoyang Chen, Jane Downing, and Jo Langdon. Featuring cover art from Liss Fenwick's haunting Humpty Doom series.

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Overland literary journal > Articles by: Tabitha Lean

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Tabitha Lean

Tabitha Lean is a Gunditjmara woman, born and raised on Kaurna yerta. A story teller, poet, artist and abolition activist, she is blessed to have her mother's stories and the blood of all the women before her coursing through her veins. It is in their honour, that she centres their unique knowledges, and privileges their voice in all her work. You can find her writings at The Revolution Ware. Twitter: @haveachattabs.

Articles by Tabitha Lean:

19 August 202116 September 2021 · Deaths in custody

Into the belly of the beast

Tabitha Lean

Wayne is gone. And more than 470 of our people are gone, and countless before them. Gone. They are all gone. Disappeared into the belly of the beast. Killed to feed a system that must perpetuate its own existence. And what better fodder than the disposable? And who is the disposable in this country? Us. Blak fullas.

8 June 202113 July 2021 · Prison

Why I am an abolitionist

Tabitha Lean

We are systematically broken down to a six-digit number. I know because I am #177057. I am one of this country’s disposable people. And every single week I struggle to survive a system designed to kill, dehumanise and eradicate my kind. And this is why abolition is the only common-sense option for me. This is why I argue that abolition might be the only thing that breathes life back into my communities and into the lungs of my people.