235 Winter 2019 Buy this issue Walking through coal country, the gunboat nation in a lifeboat world, the agency of pregnant women, re-reading Primo Levi, and medicine and racism. First edition with new fiction editor Claire Corbett, with works by Jem Tyley-Miller, KA Rees, Laura Elvery, Elizabeth Flux and Ben Walter, and stunning poetry from Ouyang Yu, Ivy Alvarez, Eileen Chong, Norman Erikson Pasaribu and others. Art by political cartoonist Tia Kass. Issue Contents Regulars On not moving to Australia Giovanni Tiso On writing as a child Mel Campbell On art Alison Croggon On grief Tony Birch Features Schrödinger’s worker Godfrey Moase Making & shaping Enza Gandolfo The most natural thing Natalie Kon-yu One hundred years of Primo Levi Giacomo Lichtner The gunboat nation in a lifeboat world Scott Robinson Restorying care Ellen van Neerven La mina no se cierra Caitlin Doyle-Markwick Fiction Of water KA Rees The Garden Bridge Laura Elvery The Economist Ben Walter Hook. Line. Sinker. Elizabeth Flux The island Jem Tyley-Miller Fiction editorial Claire Corbett Poetry Origin story Siobhan Hodge Sapphic legacy Siobhan Hodge The waiting Ouyang Yu Stanwell Park Aurora Scott The hymen diaries Eileen Chong Walis tingting Ivy Alvarez Report on Norman – after Vigan Norman Erikson Pasaribu Art Guest artist for Overland 235: Tia Kass Tia Kasambalis Editorial Introducing Overland 235 Jacinda Woodhead Short Story Prize Paper boats | Neilma Sidney Prize, runner-up Angela Rega Eva and Tobias | Neilma Sidney Prize, runner-up A S Kátharsis | Neilma Sidney Prize, first place George Haddad Browse the issue: Regulars Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Immigration On not moving to Australia Giovanni Tiso I couldn’t move to Australia even if I wanted to, due to having two children with autism. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Writing On writing as a child Mel Campbell Juvenilia is frequently bad, but charmingly so; it seems emotionally lucid and unembarrassed of its own literary shortcomings. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Art On art Alison Croggon Art is a magnificent illusion of possibility. It expresses the best of us, as well as the worst: it encompasses everything we are. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Loss On grief Tony Birch None of us can rehearse grief. It is an intangible force that comes into focus and disables us when we are least prepared to deal with it. Features Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · atomisation Schrödinger’s worker Godfrey Moase Social relationships are breaking down. According to an OmniPoll survey from July 2018, the number of close friends Australians have has declined from an average of 6.4 in 2005 to only 3.9 today. In other words, the rate at which relationships break down no longer keeps up with the rate at which they form. In turn, more and more Australians are becoming ghosts in their own communities. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · women's work Making & shaping Enza Gandolfo The philosopher Judith Butler argues that gender is produced through performance: ‘Gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through time.’ As an adolescent girl growing up in the 60s and 70s, I understood that performing the domestic work my mother did, including her craft work, would shape me into the kind of woman I didn’t want to become. I did not want to be my mother. I did not want my life to be controlled by a husband, and to be limited by and to the domestic. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Feminism The most natural thing Natalie Kon-yu I was in no way prepared for pregnancy – had not even considered the idea that pregnancy is something to prepare for. I had not thought about what Maggie Nelson labels ‘the capaciousness of pregnancy. The way a baby literally makes space where there wasn’t space before ... the rearrangement of internal organs, the upward squeezing of the lungs.’ I imagined such things almost painlessly. After all, my mother had done it; my grandmothers had done it. How hard could it be? Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Holocaust One hundred years of Primo Levi Giacomo Lichtner On 22 February 1944, Levi was deported to Auschwitz, where he would survive until the Soviet liberation of the Camp on 27 January 1945. A warm and humble man, he resented any suggestion that his experience was somehow paradigmatic, or that he held some greater clarity than other survivors. Yet Levi’s post-war writings remain fundamental reading, especially his 1947 Auschwitz memoir If This Is a Man. Through his own story, that work still now conveys with an empathetic yet clinical eye the historical, social and economic prerogatives that define the Holocaust as a modern genocide. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Militarisation The gunboat nation in a lifeboat world Scott Robinson ‘Just like super-typhoons, rising seas and heatwaves, border build-up and militarisation are by-products of climate change,’ Miller writes. We should not overlook the brutal and racist policies of the current Trump administration as a defining factor in the increased securitisation of the border. But the military’s worldview puts migrants under the category of ‘threat multiplier’, and replaces the shared dangers of climate change with the external danger of forced displacement. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · PEN essay Restorying care Ellen van Neerven As a writer, I find opportunities to tell my story. Us artistic mob share our stories to audiences through poetry, art, music, theatre and dance; through this, we celebrate who we are and honour those who have come before us. One space (there are many) where we consistently struggle to feel heard or tell our story is in the health system. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · History La mina no se cierra Caitlin Doyle-Markwick The anarchy of the market is writ large in the housing sector throughout Spain. In the years before the GFC, the country experienced a housing-construction boom fuelled by the same debt-ridden loans that had thrown the country into crisis. There are now around 8.4 million empty houses in the country, and the coast is dotted with ghost towns made up of apartment blocks that have never been lived in. Meanwhile, around 3 million people in Spain are sleeping rough. Fiction Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Of water KA Rees The memories of their speech together came back to her on the water, the gentle flow of back and forth. Now she took his part and added it to hers. It seemed such a natural progression out on the flowing waters of the bay. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · The Garden Bridge Laura Elvery The promise of this new destination was now a bridge of a different sort, a tremendous light-filled opportunity. Less her father’s failed garden path connecting two halves of a divided city than an elegant suspension bridge spanning a before and an after – a slender piece of steel. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · The Economist Ben Walter I have been without any work for a long time and the listless days are heavy for being so bare: days when I’ve carved no steps into the story’s pages, days when I’ve annotated no clocks, written no words above the straight lines of minute hands and hours. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Hook. Line. Sinker. Elizabeth Flux He, they, spend perhaps an hour, a week, a year swimming through the soft dirt, learning to navigate around errant roots, to push through clumps of clay, to find ways around the tunnels of worms so as to not damage their carefully crafted tunnels of home. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · The island Jem Tyley-Miller A vast encampment – brimming with faces – stretches back farther than my eyes can see. There are no palm trees, only aerials: an enormous tangle that plays host to a symphony of sea birds whose droppings add texture to the flapping Visqueen patchwork roofs below. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Writing Fiction editorial Claire Corbett Even from the titles it’s clear most of the stories have something to do with water – the perfect image for both the physical world and our subjective states. Its ebb and flow, its clarity or obscurity, images the unconscious, traces the unstable frontiers of our inner and outer worlds. Poetry Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Origin story Siobhan Hodge I come from string, stringmakers and mining pots, clusters on coasts, boot in the backside of sodden sheep, Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Sapphic legacy Siobhan Hodge Marble braced – you are fed on the offerings loved by women. Tender sheets, Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · The waiting Ouyang Yu In a play, someone living is pretending to be someone dead Someone dead comes alive in another name Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Stanwell Park Aurora Scott We’re wondering how that bike got up there, running for a train that’s one minute early, moving the fern into a shadier spot. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · The hymen diaries Eileen Chong Stone in fist. Rock in hand. Sand a canvas, moon not yet— Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Walis tingting Ivy Alvarez take a coconut palm leaf pinnate in shape flat with a spine Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Report on Norman – after Vigan Norman Erikson Pasaribu Dear Mr Peter, Norman has sinned 1,830,666 times in his life so far. I notice the last three numbers too sinister. Art Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Guest artist for Overland 235: Tia Kass Tia Kasambalis Artwork for this edition by political cartoonist Tia Kass. Editorial Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Culture Introducing Overland 235 Jacinda Woodhead It has been a privilege to edit a magazine that emerged from different left traditions and continues to find new ways to foster radical spaces and thought. For me, it has always been the making of the magazines that I loved (18 print editions since 2015, and countless online editions and pieces) and the ephemerality of each edition, a collaboration shaped by all the ideas and forces around it. Short Story Prize Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Paper boats | Neilma Sidney Prize, runner-up Angela Rega Like most migrants, Biaggio lost his name on his arrival to Australia. In front of the rust-spotted bathroom mirror he gazed at his old reflection. His chest was sunken, his bottom front teeth were missing, his throat burned. He wondered if Biaggio, the brave young man who had boarded the ship to Australia some sixty years ago, had ever existed at all. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Eva and Tobias | Neilma Sidney Prize, runner-up A S Eva loved Tobias, same as anyone, but he wasn’t what she wanted so she left. Tobias was all right. He was a lovely and charming baby when he wanted – he made ducks with red paint on squares of white paper and called his father Twebba, which Eva adored. Eva did adore Tobias, same as anyone, but he wasn’t what she wanted so she left. Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 · Kátharsis | Neilma Sidney Prize, first place George Haddad I drive the ATV south from the hotel to Jackie O’ Beach Club. Kosta is on the back with one arm around my waist and the other gripping his phone, filming for Instagram. I tell him to put his phone away a lot but this time I get it. I park suddenly. Previous Issue Future sex Next Issue Speculative future(s)