Published in Overland Issue 214 Autumn 2014 Writing Stanwell Tops Mitchell Welch We shake off the engine echo, dopplering Over cliffs and shoals of glossy cloud Where fly-suited radicals uplift From wild Kombis to the hydrosphere Slung in air as thick as Liquid Nails Leaching out of seams of distant ice The yellow light a horizontal knife Blunted on an algal bloom, the reef weed Rolled up like a finger of tobacco In a backed-up gutter, we stop to watch Mazarine blues wash the windscreen Down in rimy penstrokes, hieroglyphic Screams or dreamy helices – The end Is near, the end! – descend the mauve Ecliptic. One comes thru the skylight Of our noncanopic wagon, a blanketfall He says to drive, Crocs up on the dash The whole panoptic world gone black A groaning fissure widens in the cityself Open road and gutterfingers on the wheel He whispers: All of us are seachangers But some of us are serious. Mitchell Welch Mitchell Welch is a writer and editor from Brisbane. He currently lives in Melbourne where he works as the communications manager for a cemetery trust. More by Mitchell Welch Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 5 First published in Overland Issue 228 6 April 202231 May 2022 Writing What happens when authors stop listening to their editors Jessica Stewart When I moved into a second career in editing and publishing, friends told me that working as an editor might temper my love of books—that a professional eye might spy previously unnoticed flaws. I dismissed this, but they were right. Before, if a book left me restless, dissatisfied, annoyed, I would simply close it and move on. Now, I know what is wrong, why I, the reader, feel short-changed. 3 First published in Overland Issue 228 22 November 202131 January 2022 Writing Precarious words Jennifer Mills Eight years ago, I wrote a short piece for Overland called ‘Pay the Writers’. I was fed up with being asked to work for ‘exposure’. It was a time when a lot of writing work was moving online, and this work was often unpaid. Writers were at risk of losing our incomes entirely. If anything needed some exposure, it was the working conditions of freelancers.
