Published in Overland Issue 241 Summer 2020 Uncategorized Great dividing range William Fox I would like to try to find it again, this time without laminated map, without compass worn like a whistle. I hated school camp up to when group 3 snowballed off a ridge track into an accidental valley: grotto-secret, enclosed but vast, like the concept art for a Gaia spaceship, a bucolic colony inside a toilet roll. This was ours. There was even a hut. The sun seemed only to eye over the lip, casting everything – muscular backpacks, unbelievable teenage hair, a monstrous dynamic between the weakest kid and everyone – into the light of bed before school: a rich paleness, stretched over privacy, (what you possessed, and what possessed you) for much longer than time thought possible. The country kid dropped twine in a rivulet, never caught a thing; didn’t care. The bully read the hut guestbook but never thought to scrawl all over it; had an odd respect for what’s inaccessible. The nicest boy started to gather the bits and pieces he needed to prep for tea. He did so smilingly, as you learn the nicest people tend to do. I watched lost snow clumps survive on blowy braziers of grass. I dreaded a full night in redback bunks. An arcing breeze knew I wanted mum. Our valley was not there to judge. Read the rest of Overland 241 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year William Fox William Fox lives in Melbourne. His work has appeared in various places, including Overland, Meanjin, Southerly, Island and the Best Australian Poems series. He completed a PhD in Australian poetics at Melbourne University in 2007. More by William Fox 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 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 3 February 20233 February 2023 Fiction Fiction | Romeo and Juliet II: Haunted rentals Georgia Symons The hauntings are actually quite flamboyant here, though. Yeah, come in, come in. Not like my friend Moya’s house—it just has a tool shed that sometimes isn’t there and that’s it. So boring. Yes, you can keep your shoes on. 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 2 February 20233 February 2023 The university Deadly word games: universities and defining antisemitism Nick Riemer In a few weeks, Vice-Chancellors will be discussing a request by a group of federal politicians to endorse the latest weapon in Zionists’ longstanding bid to suppress criticism of Israeli apartheid on campus—the highly controversial definition of antisemitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Their decision will constitute a watershed moment for universities’ already somewhat threatened credibility as centres of independent analysis and truth-telling.