Dying of tuberculosis in Rome, the poet John Keats requested his epitaph: ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water.’  

A few weeks ago, I attended a presentation about the first attempts at universities in Australia to support the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities. Laudably, these programs aren’t limited to vocational paths but allow participants to study the subjects they are most interested in.

Back in 2013, I began an epic novel. For the next three and a half years, I consistently worked on this project. Its working title changed at least three times, before I finally settled on Dreamers.    

Salons advertise all kinds of treatments, from the mundane – Feeling sad? Get a mood-lifting manicure! – to the outlandish – Dull skin? Try our revitalising facial made from nightingale poo! These treatments are sold as the latest scientific miracles guaranteed to make you feel younger, sexier and more confident. But there is much more to salons than the newest age-defying goo or the freshest hairstyles: these are intensely intimate spaces.

It is now twenty years since the first Matrix film was released. Written and directed by the Wachowski sisters, Lilly and Lana, the film became a social phenomenon, transforming science fiction in the process. Inspired by everything from cyberpunk literature to the philosophies of Jean Baudrillard and René Descartes to the Gnostic gospels, the film was a melange of images and ideas that nevertheless found a mass audience.  

As 2019 comes to an end, it would be wrong not to mark the centenary of one of the most momentous and least remembered events of the twentieth century: the German Revolution. The revolution doesn’t have one sole year as its anniversary. It raged from 1918 to 1923, spreading from the mutinous naval yards of Kiel to the pits and steelworks of the Ruhr.

Written by Queensland barrister Cathy McLennan, Saltwater has received almost universal acclaim among readers, reviewers and indeed the Queensland Literary Awards (QLAs), which declared it ‘Best Non-Fiction Book’ in 2017. Its author, appointed a magistrate shortly before the book’s publication, has since accepted invitations to speak on matters of law and policy affecting Aboriginal people and communities.

Sayaka Murata’s recently translated novel Convenience Store Woman opens with a soundscape. The protagonist, Keiko, is alert to the subtle sounds of the shop in which she works, recognising a fridge door opening and a cold drink being removed as indicators that the customer is about to make their purchase.

Since we met in Isfahan in 2016 and discovered our shared interest in poetry and literary translation, we have co-translated many Persian works, both classical and modern. Most of our translations have been carried out across continents, through email exchanges and text messages, but we have also had the chance to refine our method in person, in Yerevan, Beirut and Birmingham.

When the public hearings for the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice’ began in May this year, my brother Mitchell had just been released from prison for the eighth time.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this document contains descriptions of people who have since passed away.

Laurie was on the way to the No HoWARd march when she noticed something was wrong with her leg. She went on the march anyway. Her first in Melbourne. And her last.

Ever since Grandpa died, Ambuya – Grandma – rations her affection in morsels, like the last pieces of beef in a stew. Some to Daddy, her first son, less to Mummy, the one who stole him from her bosom.

The sun burnt us beneath the eucalypt canopy. It was a familiar, humid day. I remember the millions of grains shifting under my feet as we make our way across the sand dunes.

dear Quang, don’t forget you are already here,

The circadian rhythm of the footpath gets messy on wk/ends. In the early morning I break out

it’s fuckin hot out today we sweat at each other, perspiring punctuation; this is my sentence and i am lying on the dying lawn

day’s heat dissipates in each water- rippling toss of light   spreading out between hunched bodies of granite  

There is a very fine line between writing and just sitting down like the difference between asking and begging,

Fact: things are like other things. Supposition: liking tweets is like a simile. A house on fire. Like an inconsequence. My love

The highway that connects the Hudson River with your home planet is honest as a knife. Just over halfway I pull off and park in the shadow of a derelict warehouse. Meteorites glint at me as they cruise by in tight

Cover and illustrations for this edition by artist Matt Chun.

Last night I attended a talk by former editor Jeff Sparrow, about his new book on fascism and the Christchurch massacre. ‘What can we do about the intense alienation and isolation that many people seem to feel today?’ someone in the audience asked.

We are once again pleased to support the Fair Australia Prize, this year co-sponsored by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, and the newly formed United Workers Union. Members of both the National Union of Workers and United Voice came together to vote for the bigger and stronger union which officially came into being in November this year. Already we have taken action which speaks to the heart of this year’s theme: STRIKE!

godspeed monthly budget. add dues to outgoing, feel vindicated until checking your account in the bottle-o. if trade unionism = wolf blass can it ever win hearts and minds? one knockoff at a time. new management, second reusable bag today;

‘sunny city room for rent’ turns out to be a balcony covered with a blue tarp

It seemed simple at the time. By pricing carbon, we would ‘internalise the externalities’: make capitalists pay, and they’d change their behaviour. Of course, that only makes sense if you accept that capitalism does what it says on the box.

I don’t think there’s ever really been a time when my mother wasn’t terrified of her own existence. This realisation oozed out in a toxic haze over my childhood, and lingers to this day.

Walking towards the meeting place, I make sure the coal-black sweatshirt covering my uniform is firmly sealed, or as much as it can be. It really is chilly. The sun is setting behind the cluster of buildings that form Courtney Place, and the city is making its slow and steady transition into the night, neon lights blinking into life and the volumes of several speakers increasing.

‘When you’re speaking to a patient who is deaf or hard-of-hearing, make sure you’re facing them,’ the educator explains before clicking to the next slide. The hospital’s disability awareness training is optional and just a handful of people have shown up. I’m sitting next to another physiotherapist from the 2010 new-graduate program. I pretend not to notice that he is starting to nod off. Apart from when we scoff down lunch, this is the only chance we’ll have to sit down and rest our feet.

Binayak had spent two years in prison in Chhattisgarh already, and, now, he was going to go back behind bars. As Ilina accompanied Himanshu and Raj to the door, a deafening silence filled her house. Her daughters were in their rooms, fatigued and battered, their nerves frayed by the seeming chimera and now dismal reality of their father’s conviction in the Raipur Sessions Court.

Shahinaz felt tired. She always felt tired. She’d toiled all day every day for weeks, months. Today, the manager had told her there were deductions to be taken out of her pay, so she wouldn’t get all the money she had counted on to help her family. Her father was sick and needed medicine. Her mother needed to buy school uniforms for Shahinaz’s sisters and brothers, so they could go to school. And now she wouldn’t have enough.

Winner of the 2019 Fair Australia Prize – Best UWU Member, Elky Martin, on labour and solidarity.

Winner of the 2019 Fair Australia Prize – Cartoon, Adam Adelpour, on the 1969 general strike and work of Clarrie O’Shea.