217 Summer 2014 Buy this issue Writing an African novel, work and ‘happiness’, the enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes, a tale of two settler colonies, the Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize winners, poetry and more. Issue Contents Regulars On the end of the internet Giovanni Tiso On binary states Stephen Wright On author bios Mel Campbell On writer’s block Alison Croggon Features Bias Australian? John McLaren A tale of two settler colonies Michael Brull The politics of deduction Tony McKenna Go, little book Kirsten Tranter The authentic writer self Khalid Warsame Happiness™ Christopher Scanlon The end Jennifer Down Fiction Story Wine Prize runner-up: 6 pm Saturday Night Sally Breen Story Wine Prize runner-up: I thought maybe I could be a lounge singer Lauren Aimee Curtis Fancy Cuts: Taffy was a pacifist James Aldridge VU Short Story Prize winner: Dog story Madelaine Lucas VU Short Story Prize joint runner-up: Late change Michelle Wright VU Short Story Prize joint runner-up: The circle and the equator Kyra Giorgi Story Wine Prize winner: That inward eye Leah Swann Story Wine Prize: judges’ report Paddy OReilly Fancy Cuts: Samira was a terrorist Ali Alizadeh Fancy cuts: introduction Jennifer Mills VU Short Story Prize: judges’ report Jennifer Mills Poetry In Memoriam Hashem Shaabani Martin Kovan Valentine’s Day massacre Cassandra Atherton Éventualité Dusk Dundler Dinosaur Brendan McDougall The PM and me Mark O'Flynn Xanadu Nathan Curnow Hymns Ben Walter Save Behana Gorge Phillip Hall Skater Tim Thorne I wrote lines during a period of insanity, too Emily Stewart Foxes strung up on fence on Toodyay-Bindi Bindi Road: in the accusative John Kinsella Art Art Leuli Eshraghi, Lily Mae Martin, Mahla Karimiyan, Sam Wallman, Merv Heers, Madina Sayar, Anton Pulvirenti and Alwy Fadhel Editorial editorial | Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow Browse the issue: Regulars Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Culture On the end of the internet Giovanni Tiso The internet is the future we seldom imagined. It eluded generations of science fiction writers, only to suddenly appear, fully formed, some time in the mid-1990s, and from then on quickly become an essential part of how most people communicate, research, write and work. Our new present. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · On binary states Stephen Wright When people who have experienced violence in childhood come to see me for the first time in my counselling practice, they bring stories to tell, stories that take the form of puzzles. Each story is a description of a crime, a story that makes no sense. It is like watching someone find evidence of a crime and mistaking it for a message, or wondering if they are the one who is guilty. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing On author bios Mel Campbell The author bio briefly summarises an author’s life and achievements, usually in the third person. Buried in a publication’s contributor pages or tucked at the end of an article, the bio can seem vestigial: a mere convention or afterthought. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing On writer’s block Alison Croggon If you Google ‘writer’s block’, the miracle that is the internet serves you 81 million responses in 0.35 seconds. You can identify which of the ‘10 Types of Writer’s Block’ might be plaguing you, and then attack it with ‘5 Tips for Punching Writer’s Block in the Face’ or ‘7 Strategies to Outsmart Writer’s Block’. Features Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Culture Bias Australian? John McLaren Murray-Smith had taken the motto for the new journal from Joseph Furphy’s description of his novel Such Is Life: ‘temper democratic; bias, offensively Australian’. Furphy had intended this as a declaration that his novel had nothing in common with what he regarded as effete and gentlemanly writers like Henry Kingsley ... Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Politics A tale of two settler colonies Michael Brull Australians should be well positioned to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Reading The politics of deduction Tony McKenna Throughout the last century, a certain London address was inundated with strange requests. People across the globe wrote to 221B Baker Street, seeking to procure the services of its famous fictional detective – that is, to persuade Sherlock Holmes to apply his deductive prowess to the most pressing conundrums of the day, from the Watergate scandal of the Nixon era to the mysterious and unsolved murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in the mid-1980s. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing Go, little book Kirsten Tranter Margaret Atwood was recently announced as the first author to participate in the Future Library, an unusual publishing project initiated by Scottish artist Katie Paterson. The project will collect a book every year from a different author, but will not publish them until the year 2114. Apparently it doesn’t bother Atwood that she is writing a novel that no-one in her lifetime will be able to read. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing The authentic writer self Khalid Warsame When I meet new people they often ask me where I’m from. Sometimes I say Melbourne; other times I say Africa. Both claims are equally true. Like many people, I grew up between two cultures. My identity has always been something I could not pin down with any accuracy. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Politics Happiness™ Christopher Scanlon Research findings about what makes us happy have begun to influence public policy. In December 2011, the US Department of Health and Human Services convened a panel of experts charged with devising a reliable measure of ‘subjective wellbeing’ – the academically respectable term for happiness. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Reflection The end Jennifer Down My grandmother passed away this week. She was ninety-five. It was not a shock. A few weeks ago she was hospitalised for what was believed to be kidney failure. It all went south from there: infections, rehabilitation, a fall from a hospital bed, refusal to eat, collapsed veins, delirium. Fiction Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing Story Wine Prize runner-up: 6 pm Saturday Night Sally Breen 6pm Saturday night. In a Boulevard town, mum and I debate about whether it’s too early for a cocktail or if my hair is too early or if we’ll even get in. We do the hair in the sliver of light on the black outside of a 711. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Story Wine Prize runner-up: I thought maybe I could be a lounge singer Lauren Aimee Curtis My name had been amputated when I was young from two syllables down to one. I fancied myself a Marilyn or a Belladonna – something you could really wrap your tongue around, something you could pronounce with pouty lips. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Fancy Cuts: Taffy was a pacifist James Aldridge It was not an unkind town, it was simply a town which was always on the edge of seasonal catastrophe, as the wheat was sown and the grain ripened. Would it rain enough at the right time? Would the winds blow dry storms across the sandy plains and root out the young wheat and smother the town of St. Helen for days? Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · VU Short Story Prize winner: Dog story Madelaine Lucas We left the dog on a highway once. It was the middle of summer, a week or so until Christmas and we had been arguing. We were supposed to drive down South to visit some friends of yours who’d just had another baby. You’d talked about the baby for weeks, showing me pictures. I think now maybe that is what you wanted – to father a child with your name. At the time, though, you only talked about getting out of the city. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · VU Short Story Prize joint runner-up: Late change Michelle Wright Walking back late afternoon, salt-crusted and heavy from her swim, Helen follows the high tide line along the cooling sand. Her eyes search the ridge of drying seaweed, empty plastic bottles, lengths of yellow fishing line, and half-rotten birds. If she sees a specially smooth, bleached piece of driftwood, she pauses to examine it, turns it over with her toes, maybe takes it home. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · VU Short Story Prize joint runner-up: The circle and the equator Kyra Giorgi The first time I saw Tercero I didn’t know what I was seeing. His head loomed over me, and I thought he must be a spirit or an animal, or a combination of the two. From his mouth came a language that rolled and bubbled and spat like boiling water. It was awful. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Story Wine Prize winner: That inward eye Leah Swann On the bus she’s pressed next to a man with the same grey hair as her father, and he’s reading the news while the rain falls outside the windows on the new blossoms, and she thinks how glad she is of the fact of spring because it reminds her of when she was four ... Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing Story Wine Prize: judges’ report Paddy OReilly It was the great pleasure of the judges (Campbell Mattinson, Clare Strahan and me) to read through the 400 submissions for the Overland Story Wine Prize, whittling down the excellent offerings to our top twelve, and rereading those a number of times to determine the winner and runners-up. Each judge was impressed with the diversity, cleverness and pathos of the submissions. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Fancy Cuts: Samira was a terrorist Ali Alizadeh Samira Alizadeh was a fearful girl living in a very dull city in Australia. It was perhaps not an evilly banal city (as a certain German philosopher may have put it) but simply uninteresting. Samira had lived the first sixteen years of her life in a very eventful country in the Middle East. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Fancy cuts: introduction Jennifer Mills In 2014, Overland has commissioned four contemporary writers to contribute a short story that responds in some way to a piece of fiction from our sixty years of archives. The last of these Fancy Cuts is from Ali Alizadeh, award-winning poet, short story writer, critic and novelist. Alizadeh’s typically unflinching story ‘Samira was a terrorist’ began with James Aldridge’s story ‘Taffy was a pacifist’, first published in Overland 21, August 1961. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Writing VU Short Story Prize: judges’ report Jennifer Mills As usual, the hundreds of entries for this year’s Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize were read blind. The judges – me, Overland editor Jeff Sparrow, deputy editor Jacinda Woodhead, and Victoria University academic and writer Jenny Lee – finally decided on a shortlist of fourteen stories; we later learned that this shortlist was made up of eleven women and three men. Poetry Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · In Memoriam Hashem Shaabani Martin Kovan We searched you in the hollows And we searched you in the fen We took you down for mercy Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Valentine’s Day massacre Cassandra Atherton You tell me not to answer the phone. But I do. Because your eyes flash gold when you walk past the kitchen. Because Plath was brave enough to answer the phone. And I need to make sure it isn’t Assia Wevill Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Éventualité Dusk Dundler t took you ten years to climb mt sorrow took captain cook a little while to pass by but he was in a bad mood – you return for a better one with gwendolyn, Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Dinosaur Brendan McDougall curled up in a dead world now underground, stroking Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · The PM and me Mark O'Flynn As a boy with Keating just after the Redfern Speech he looks as soft and innocent as a three day old chick. Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Xanadu Nathan Curnow for the attractive people there is a wall to skate through it was a joke until somebody told it Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Hymns Ben Walter And can it be our voices need consoling, well we only link our voices at footy, guess he’d never been, corporate projection Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Save Behana Gorge Phillip Hall To town planners, the granite gorge traces like a wound across this scythed and hothouse landscape; its water a sprawling spray-storm in the Wet Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Skater Tim Thorne A skateboarder hisses down Salisbury Crescent, the sound of a soluble Panadol in the glass. The night is packed full of fog. Only the rolling Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · I wrote lines during a period of insanity, too Emily Stewart Flung them on the riverbed which flooded that week next. Not short of invectives, I cursed pebbles as flint, startling the public of Wagga Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Foxes strung up on fence on Toodyay-Bindi Bindi Road: in the accusative John Kinsella On land cleared to a few trees you say you’re protecting native wildlife (but not kangaroos, Art Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · CAL Art Leuli Eshraghi, Lily Mae Martin, Mahla Karimiyan, Sam Wallman, Merv Heers, Madina Sayar, Anton Pulvirenti and Alwy Fadhel [ngg_images gallery_ids="4" display_type="photocrati-nextgen_basic_thumbnails" override_thumbnail_settings="1" show_slideshow_link="0" thumbnail_width="90" use_imagebrowser_effect="0"] Editorial Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · editorial | Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow I’m leaving Overland at the end of 2014, which makes this the final edition I’ll edit. It’s been a strange seven years, watching the social settlement of the postwar era dissolve and so many of our certainties about culture and politics melt into air. Previous Issue 216.5: Summer fiction Next Issue Photonic Overland
