243 Winter 2021

The history of Aboriginal theatre by Kim Kruger, Yves Rees on Detransition Baby, Robbo Bennetts on the West Gate Bridge and other crises, the winners of the Kuracca Prize for Australian literature and more.

Issue Contents

Features

Torrey Peters Detransition, Baby

Yves Rees

The bridge and the fire

Robbo Bennetts

Feature | A teleology of folding, and of dying

Dženana Vucic

Coming through ceremony

Kim Kruger

Fiction

see you later

Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn

Ritual

Jenni Mazaraki

Green thumb

Donna Mazza

Kuracca Prize Winner | Great Grandmother Arrabrilya

Online soon

Adam Brannigan

Poetry

Graphology restoration 17: name rename name ... term

John Kinsella

Graphology restoration 20

John Kinsella

The coffee coffee drinks

Dominic Symes

Out of time

Angela Gardner

until it was memory

Jennifer Nguyen

Backseat driving

Sam Morley

Abattoir song

Sam Morley

what’s hobbling the beat (a soliloquy in three rhythms)

Brian Obiri-Asare

The dead sea

Gayelene Carbis

Among the quietening air

Allis Hamilton

Art

Cover art: Anne Barnetson

Anne Barnetson

Editorial

Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk

Kuracca Prize

Kuracca Prize Runner-up | The grief tourist

Online soon

Yeena Kirkbright

Kuracca Prize Runner-Up | Me, the (failed) revolutionary

Online soon

Nandini Shah

Kuracca Prize Winner | Great Grandmother Arrabrilya

Online soon

Adam Brannigan

Judges notes, 2021 Kuracca Prize

Justin Clemens, Jeanine Leane and Elena Gomez

Browse the issue:

Features

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Reviews

Torrey Peters Detransition, Baby

Yves Rees

When, in late 2020, I first heard mention of a forthcoming novel called Detransition, Baby, I felt a jolt of alarm. A book with ‘detransition’ in the title? Surely this would be a TERF diatribe, companion to Abigail Shrier’s 2020 ‘social contagion’ screed Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Based on the title […]

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Workers' rights

The bridge and the fire

Robbo Bennetts

I want to begin by acknowledging the enduring loss experienced by those whose family members, loved ones and workmates died in Australia’s worst industrial accident. I started on the West Gate Bridge well after the collapse, and I often wondered if only those there on the day could fully comprehend the human dimensions of its tragedy.

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Memoir

Feature | A teleology of folding, and of dying

Dženana Vucic

For years, nobody called me by my name. In Brisbane, I was jen; in Melbourne people called me ana. It was a neat split, my name folded into a recognisable shape, the unnecessary syllables and foreign letters turned in against themselves and shushed. It is a recent thing to have claimed the full breadth of myself.

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · History

Coming through ceremony

Kim Kruger

The story goes that a writer, and wannabe singer, dancer and actor (who screamed like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and pivoted like James Brown), and a real actor and wannabe director (you might know her from such TV shows as Prisoner, The Flying Doctors, and the cult film Little Miss Wonder), met at the Black Playwright’s conference in 1989 in Canberra.

Fiction

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Fiction

see you later

Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn

Jess tossed and turned in her bed. Far away, she imagined thick sleeves of bull kelp sucking against limestone cliffs. The sea was restless, spreading itself over the crumbling city grid where vehicles dunked and flipped. Houses turned to flotsam as the Earth blinked, the eye of the storm turned away from the sun. There was no Moon—everything was churning liquid, rubbery darkness. She had sunk to the ocean floor, head firmly anchored to the pillow.

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Fiction

Ritual

Jenni Mazaraki

We live in a hotel now. Well, for the moment anyway. Until Thursday. Until the money runs out. Everything smells like mushrooms. People come and go, with their conferences and morning corporate functions. This morning, when we filled up on our complimentary breakfast in the small dining room for guests, I felt someone’s eyes on me and curled my lip. The animal in me rising.

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 ·

Green thumb

Donna Mazza

Out at the rubbish tip, she was first to spot the old caravan. It sat proud amid the twisted swing-sets, crushed white dishwashers, and dejected hot water systems. ‘If you fix it up maybe we can go up north next winter, Jase?’ Jason was always up for bringing new life where others had abandoned hope. ‘The world has gone mad with all this stuff,’ he’d often say. ‘Why we need all this shit is beyond me.’

Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Teaser

Kuracca Prize Winner | Great Grandmother Arrabrilya

Adam Brannigan

Online soon. In the meantime, subscribe to Overland.

Poetry