You died last Tuesday, while we were both sitting on the couch watching a YouTube clip about hummingbird cake. When I think about it, it’s possible you actually died during the recommended video afterward: Super easy beginner’s guide to peanut praline.

It took just under two hours to drive to the beach because there were two breakdowns on the M5. We were all melting into the leather seats. At one point Dad began to complain about the drive and Mum told him it wasn’t even midday so he better not start. Then she said, ‘You’re smoking again?’

The wasp lies by the window as if to beg elegy or apology for the ease with which I smashed its wings. I pretend not to notice & the next day, there are two of them.

He reaches for the bottle (the cheapest red, for old times’ sake) and pours himself another glass. I realise he’s trying to close the distance between us, the single piece of empty space in this voguish Italian spot he’d been recommended. But I’ve said the wrong thing. The distance will remain.

There are close to 14,000 refugees held indefinitely across Indonesia. Most of them live in open Community Detention Centres, while the rest are fully destitute, living the community without any kind of support. In the city of Makassar, hundreds of them live in one particular street.

Private investment funds now have optimal conditions for entry into the new social housing market, with minimal capital expenditure, guaranteed market rent, a not-for-profit managing the tenancies and full control of the assets after 10 years. Governments have created a social housing market that delivers dividends to private capital, dressed up as a solution to the deepening housing crisis.

With closures to strip clubs, brothels, massage parlours and independent work deemed illegal, the world’s oldest profession was forced to reanimate its identity in the online sphere. But what does this rapid shift to OnlyFans mean for workers who fell through the cracks, those who need to stay faceless, or those who don’t possess self marketing and admin skills or have access to resources, let alone excessive lingerie collections and high quality cameras?

For our final plea we have an update from one of our resident dogs, Elsie: It’s been a long year for everyone and I, Elsie the official online magazine dog, am no exception. How long was it? I went from looking like this: To looking like this: It’s been a long year, yet we carry […]

Since 1954, Overland has been at the avant-garde of poetry publishing in Australia, featuring aesthetically and politically challenging work by a diverse range of poets, while unearthing new poets. In more recent years, the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets and the Nakata Brophy Prize have furthered Overland’s commitment to fostering […]

By subscribing to Overland, you’re also supporting our daily online magazine. This has a different rhythm to its print sibling: it has more immediacy, and usually makes room for shorter pieces, but it aspires to the same critical and political outlook. It also allows us to create more opportunities for emerging writers to get published, […]

As one of the nation’s oldest progressive literary institutions, Overland has been part of the intellectual and creative fabric and output of Melbourne for over half a century. Overland was first established in 1954, under the auspices of the Realist Writers Group in Melbourne, with Melbournian writer and activist Stephen Murray-Smith as the first editor-in-chief. […]

Hello friends,  Sit back and relax. The weekend edition of Subscriberthon’s got you sorted. For your reading pleasure we have Dženana Vucic’s aching memoir ‘A teology of folding, and of dying‘, Mykaela Saunders’ Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize 2020 winning piece ‘Choice cuts‘ and our favourite cartoonist Sam Wallman’s take on swimming in the Yarra. We’ve also created our very […]

Welcome to the 2021 Overland Subscriberthon – the week where we share great literature and give away prizes every day!

Thank you 2021 sponsors! You’ve made a huge impact on the future of literature in Australia.

Dan Ilic from the podcast A Rational Fear made headlines over the past weeks for placing billboards attacking the Coalition’s climate policies. His ‘JokeKeeper’ campaign has received gushing praise from many commentators, with Jane Caro suggesting that Ilic be made Australian of the Year and comparing him to child sexual assault survivor Grace Tame. While […]

Something replaced my mother. I knew it when I first saw them standing over the sink, their eyes glassed over like marbles. They looked the same, had the same dye job and thick fish-eye glasses. They sounded like her, even moved like her, my mother, somehow, but off. The night before, she’d left for dinner with her girlfriends, to drink wine and complain about husbands and come home so late the night became morning.