inscribe (issue six)

FREE COLLECTORS EDITION

SHORT STORIES ESSAYS POETRY FEATURES PROFILES NEWS & REVIEWS

arts and literary culture, news and events in the northern suburbs of melbourne

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ARTIST KATRINARHODES ON HERINNER JOURNEY


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inSIDEFREE COLLECTORS EDITION

SHORT STORIES ESSAYS POETRY FEATURES PROFILES NEWS & REVIEWS


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ARTIST KATRINARHODES ON HERINNER JOURNEY


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Katrina Rhodes is a multi-talented painter, muralist, set-artist and interior designer who has worked around the world. Her love of the quirky and highly ornamental, of waterfowl and the Baroque style, has led her to many adventures. Katrina has had one sell-out show of her duck inspired paintings last year and is working towards another show in 2013. She paints daily, designs sculptures and interiors when she has time and thrives on her artistic community and friends from around the world.

<lb> Laura Bovey edits her children and plays with words. Christina Crossley Ratcliffe is a media junkie: retired journalist/subeditor turned freelance accredited editor and NMIT student. <pg> Philip Gray is an alien from a distant galaxy where brussel sprouts are a delicacy. <jr> Jan Robinson is an endangered species. She can be seen in the wilds of Darebin stalking sentences. <st> Samantha Thomas is a writer of non-fiction and reviews, specialising in arts and food reviews. She was born and raised in Melbourne. <jw> Jack Waghorn is an aspiring writer whose key area of focus is the horror genre.

facEbook.com/inscribenewsour TEam

Created specifically for the new-look inScribe, this work by Lucy Campbell falls firmly within what she calls a ‘mind work’ – a piece of acrylic work that signifies the power and wonder of the mind along with the beauty of human nature. Raised in coastal New South Wales Lucy moved to Melbourne to study graphic design. She specialises in surrealist landscapes and portraiture and paints with acrylic and gouache paints.

editors in chiefAshlea Shaw – NMIT

Meredith Tucker-Evans – Darebin Community

NMIT editorial and productionJan Robinson, Jack Waghorn, Phil GraySamantha Thomas, Christina Ratcliffe

Doaah Albatat, Laura Bovey

Darebin Community editorial teampoetry

Kylie Brusaschi, Ann Stocker, Nimity James

fictionShoshanna Beale, Sonia Cuni

Claudine Edwards, Athi Kokonis

non-fictionSandra Vaina, Stella Glorie

all-rounderShirl Bramich

project directorBel Schenk – City of Darebin

creative directorBrad Webb – NMIT Yarra Bend Press

www.NmIT.EDU.aU/ybp inScribe is changing and we want you to be a part of it. The new look magazine calls for fresh ideas. We’ve put together a survey so you can tell us what you want to see in your favourite local publication. By visiting www.SurveyMonkey.com/s/JGQSHT3 and giving us a few minutes of your time you will help us ensure that you get hours of enjoyment out of every future edition of inScribe.

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readers’ SURVEY

inScribe is presented by the Darebin City Council in partnership with NMIT. inScribe publishes writers and artists who live, work or study in the City of Darebin. The magazine is published twice a year by the students of NMIT and members of the local writing community. It is distributed free in Darebin and beyond. For further information contact us at [email protected]

inScribe is produced as part of the NMIT Bachelor of Writing and Publishing Yarra Bend Press live work studio activities. For more information contact us on 03 9269 1833 or visit www.nmit.edu.au/BWaP

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<ea> Ernur Anik is a secondary teacher - her stories are influenced by gothic fairytales and urban legends. <kb> New to Melbourne but Victorian by birth, Katherine Beard = Writer. Editor. Music Manager. Lawyer. Having performed poetry for the stage, writing poetry is a new stage of possibilities for Jarrod Benson. <pc-h> Phoebe Cannard-Higgins is a 22 year old from Melbourne who enjoys all things baking from sun to cakes and shares her bed with a strange assortment of small soft animals. Marietta Elliott-Kleerkoper is an award winning and published bilingual poet (Dutch-English) from Fairfield. <sg> Stella Gloire has a love (Merri Creek) hate (St George’s Road round-about, Northlands) relationship with Darebin. <dh> Dominique Hecq’s latest book of poetry is Out of Bounds (Re.press). Matt Hetherington’s new poetry collection, Eye to Eye was launched in April. <lh> L. Hewitt is an artist, songwriter and reddit addict. <jj-r> Jane Jervis-Read writes from Darebin cafes. Hartington Street was shortlisted for the Age Short Story Competition 2011. <ak> Athi Kokonis loves Darebin for food, films, retro fabric and Asian curios. Leon Shann lives in Brunswick. He has published two chapbooks: Perfect Yorkshire and Off the Menu. Stephen Smithyman is a Darebin resident whose poems and short stories have won several awards. Jaz Stutley began writing and singing at an early age. Many years later, it’s still her fave activity. <jt> Joe Toohey is the CEO of Express Media, an organisation that supports young writers. <sv> Sandra Vaina is a devoted reader, writer and contributor to the Darebin community. Kay Waters is a freelance writer and editor. Chris Beach writes educational material for ESL learners, and co-edits the literary journal Southpaw. Chanel Tang has super powers. The world doesn’t know — we just wanted to warn you. Laura Wood is an Italian illustrator currently living in Melbourne. At the moment she is completing a Diploma of Illustration at NMIT.

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Once in a while, when you’re reading through a pile of submissions, you find something that stops you in your tracks. Amazingly, this happened twice when I was looking at the submissions for this edition of inScribe. Hartington Street and Shades of Grey both impressed me enormously, and I’m very proud that we have the opportunity to publish them, along with all of the other wonderful pieces we have for you. I hope you like this new version of inScribe. We have tried to produce something that looks and feels good, is easy to read, and is something that you will want to pass on to your friends. We welcome any feedback you’d like to give us on this new design.If you’re feeling inspired after reading inScribe, get scribbling and send us something for our Summer 2012/13 edition, which is only a few short months away. Happy reading! mt-e

Working on inScribe for the past few months has been a really great experience and so much fun. The calibre of work that we received for this issue was simply fantastic and it was quite a challenge to narrow it down. I hope that the community of Darebin enjoys this brand new issue (and the format) as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it. It has been a pleasure looking at the work from some very talented people, so thank you to those who sent in a submission of any kind. Also, a big thank you to everyone who put in their time and effort to make this come alive. Enjoy! as

Meredith Tucker-EvansDarebin Community

Ashlea ShawNMIT

For a large print edition of inScribe contact: Phone 8470 8458; TTY 8470 8696; [email protected]


IF YOu ARE LIKE ME AND HAVEN’T HAD MuCH exposure to Australian literature - even after living here your whole life - Brendan Cowell’s How It Feels is a brilliant place to start. Cowell began his writing career while working as an actor on the Australian TV drama Love My Way. Cowell wrote several episodes, and his talent grew and was noticed so much that it began to take form in a coming of age novel set in Sydney’s beachside Sutherland district. How It Feels is written from a place of experience, like the novel was either incredibly well researched or at the very least, semi-autobiographical. Cowell’s protagonist Neil Cronk is your typical teenager and this story follows him from his last year of high school in Cronulla all the way through to his early thirties where the story ends. Cowell masterfully draws together all the triumphs and tragedies that come with university, love, travel and drugs. A coming of age novel purposefully written for an Australian audience, How It Feels is a brilliant first step into writing from Cowell and an excellent hold-my-hand-on-the-first-go type of book for new readers of Australian literature. You will be able to find How It Feels at your favourite High Street bookshop. If they have run out because it’s such a fantastic book, don’t worry, they’ll order it in for you! st

How It FeelsBrendan Cowellwww.PanMacmillan.com.au

How it fEELS

THE OFFIcE WAS SuSPEnDED In A STATE of wintry interregnum, to which we’d become accustomed. The last boss had disappeared in an unfathomable and eerie fog of kidnap intrigue and his jerk of a replacement was a fizzler too - found dead at his desk, ridiculous fez still perched on his head.

curses.

Tony had typed up and circulated another internal memorandum before the ambulance arrived, and a few of us took a longer than usual lunch at the Greasy Elbow. I thought Deborah P. from A and R may have brushed my knee under the table with her toe on purpose but I couldn’t be sure.

The successor chief account director had to be appointed and most of the applicants being considered for this doomed role were desperate or suicidal types with heavily ringed eyes. I attempted to discourage these poor souls by eating directly and noisily from a Pringles tube as they filed past my desk. Tony moaned “WHY??” at a portrait of our former supervisor on his computer screen, but I believe this was part of the rigorous pre-employment psychological testing that had become commonplace. lh

In issue five of inScribe, we asked for flash fiction pieces containing the following words: Elbow, knee, kidnap, eerie, tube, fizzler, wintry, curses, jerk, interregnum and fez. This is the winner!

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First you have to get him to believe,then you can take your time.Let him think about it,let fear do its job.

Then, without hesitation or rancour,steal from him, one thing at a time.Pinch the buttons from his shirt,take his epaulets. He won’t fight for themonce they’re gone.

modern miraclekaY waTERS

He’ll make his stories.Let him think there is such a thingas distance.Do not interrupt. Do not come too close.

He will want to go home.From that point, trust nothing he says.Let him go, let himopen and close his drawersto get the thing he missedso much.

Then he will turn around.Let him walk the milefor appearance’s sake.

And when he reachesthe tip of the spiral,insist now.Let him see thatyou were humouring himbecause you haveall the time in the world.

Let him beat and beatand crash and crashuntil all his feathers are gone.And then show himthe word.

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wELL TRaVELLEDrhodesrhodesSince I was young I knew I wanted to be a painter or an illustrator and I always looked for humour in my work. At the age of five, when my work was entered in a newspaper drawing competition, I got a letter back from

the editor saying my work was disqualified because they thought it was done by an adult. I got pretty upset at the time but my mother was so proud she gave me the $10 prize money anyway. So I have always drawn and I was quite good at writing, but I illustrated everything.

My father encouraged me to do graphic design and illustration, which he would get me to do for his construction business. So I had a hand in technical drawing since Year Eight. I wasn’t doing that well at school because I was so distracted by my art, so the school suggested that I leave and go straight on to art college. I got into Randwick Technical college, which had the best graphic design school in the country.

I wasn’t as good at illustration compared to the other students, but I learnt a lot about conceptual and technical design and photography. Painting was not really my strong suit, but I ended up getting work in a theatre doing sets and backdrops, and I found I picked it up pretty quickly. I think that’s because I’m quite competitive by nature, especially with the arts. I found myself really loving the medium. Then I got a job on the movie Ghostrider, assisting the chief artist, which was quite a thrill. Through him I got offered this job in the ukraine.

Darebin writer Jan Robinson joins child prodigy, Ukraine palace muralist, duck lover and former resident Katrina Rhodes on her inner journey.

At the age of five, when my work was entered in a newspaper drawing competition, I got a letter back from the editor saying my work was disqualified because they thought it was done by an adult.

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Tell us about that.

The ukrainian artists wanted a team from Australia to join them to do the baroque (ornamental and ornate style) of work in a palace. I saw the quality of the work the other artists were producing and it intimidated me. So I watched and learnt, and after six months I became assistant art director on the job.

What was the actual job?

It was painting the ceilings, walls, doing murals, plasterwork, gold leaf, baroque, and lots of figurative work in a palace. There were quite a few pheasants – that’s where my love for pheasants and waterfowl comes from.

It was very Renaissance style and I still keep working on that. Along with my interior design (that includes the baroque style and modern style) – I’ve done shop fitting, everything from record stores to bars and nightclubs and a couple of luxury homes.

I made the decision to get my own studio after coming back from the ukraine and Fiji. I thought I’d take a year off from the interior design work and see if I could learn to paint on my own terms. I just started with a piece of canvas, a few brushes, my own paints and a few ideas and it escalated from there. Two years later, I had my first show, in April 2011. It was a sellout and the response was amazing. I never thought that a first time artist like me could have such a huge response.

In regards to my journey, I think I’m just beginning and I need to continue until I become a master at what I’m doing. I’ve got a lot of persistence and a lot of discipline.

How has your journey developed you as a person and as an artist?

The journey’s rough for some people and for artists. We’re all tortured souls and quite isolated as artists. The journey for me has been interesting, but it’s also been magical because of the friendships I’ve made along the way, the countries I’ve travelled and the fact that I’ve been able to see the beauty in everything. I think this is a skill that a lot of creative people have and don’t get credit for.

I’m a dreamer … but right now, for the first time ever at thirty-seven, I feel as though I have my feet on the ground. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will have to go through the famine to find the feast. It’s about following your passion and your dream. It’s about wanting to leave something for others. I mightn’t have much to leave except some beautiful artwork and that’s all I want at this point. What I’ve created at the moment is a bit of a legacy. You just want to have an effect and a connection.


I don’t always know how to answer questions about my work because I don’t

think everything has to make sense. Just to create a feeling is

enough, it’s a good feeling.

How have some of your interior design commissions fitted into

your overall art aesthetic?

I love doing the baroque work because it is just so over the top and kind of ridiculous…

It’s just wonderful and opulent. But I’m just as happy designing something that’s contemporary

and modern, streamlined. My dream is to design warehouse apartments.

Interior aesthetics are just as important to me as painting the pictures. I believe that successful minimalism has to be smart. Just creating that energy is what I love.

For me, the biggest satisfaction is to start a project from the very beginning, then to run the project and

see it all the way through to successful completion.

What fuels you as an artist?

It’s always who I’ve been. It’s a natural thing, it’s not a choice. I just know if I wasn’t doing what I do I’d be miserable. So it’s just following who I am, just being true to myself. If I couldn’t come into my studio and paint every week I think I’d be lost as a person. I have to create every day. But what drives me with everything in my life is aesthetic.

You are painting now for a new show. Tell us about that.

I’ve done four paintings and I’m working on my fifth and I’m trying to get eighteen to twenty done.

My next show won’t be until April 2013. Where, I’m not sure. The space has to hold the art, because if the space doesn’t suit the art then the art is not going to be complemented. The last show I ran myself, I promoted it myself and I paid for it myself. So this will be the first commercial show I have next year. jr

I love doing the baroque work because it is just so over the top and kind of ridiculous…It’s just wonderful and opulent.

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walking withmy dog bymerri creekSTEpHEN SmITHYmaN

Always, in my mind, I am walking with my dog by Merri creek, along the bike path that runs from coburg Lake to north Fitzroy.

Always, she glides ahead, an elusive black shadow, dodging cyclists, dive- bombed by magpies, stopping only to sniff other dogs and piss on posts.

This is the path I walked with my wife and children, when the children were very small, in pusher, on stumbling foot or wobbling bike.

now the dog is dead, the children are grown, my wife and I live somewhere else, but Merri creek still runs under roads and bridges,

between banks covered by tea-tree and willows, debris of last year’s f loods caught in their branches, unruly relations to more recent plantings of eucalypts.

The past is a shadow that f lickers across my mind like my black dog, running along the path beside Merri creek, now in full sight, now hidden from view,

but always coming back, whether I call or not. I know she will never leave me, any more than that creek will cease its long descent from Wallan to the Yarra.

Trapped in the cabinof my head, I am

carried towards the retreatingline, the one that is found

where the ship must stop, thoughthe one behind the wheel

has no desire for land, onlythe love of the onward waves.

There is no door, but someone once gave me a key.

Beyond the two small portholeseach white day bleeds into night,

and the horizon is a hyphen between future and past.

I will live as longas there is air.

vesselmaTT HETHERINgToN

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FRESH AND OOzING WITH uRBAN COOL, Jackson Dodds is pioneering the new coffee scene. With chill beats to fill your ears, Jackson Dodds serves Allpress espresso beans ground into immediately drinkable coffee to die for. They boast a menu that is both cheap and delicious and with almost every item under $15. Their signature sandwich (which is probably the best named sandwich in Oz) The Cronulla Handshake, is an unusual but delectable blend of Turkish bread, tabouleh and Vegemite. The pace here is energetic yet relaxed, with many patrons taking advantage of the off-the-beaten-track location to sit and while away the hours, reading their favourite books and working on their laptops. An air of ambience lacking in your chain coffee houses is found here. A mix of city-fringe living and the sporadic placement of rustic style art and earthy tones is found throughout. Directly opposite the end of 112 tramline, within driving distance - or walking distance for the more ambitious amongst you - of Bell Street and the beautiful Edwards Lake, there is no excuse for not stopping in at Jackson Dodds. For amazing coffee ground before your eyes and lightning fast service, you simply can’t find better than Jackson Dodds. Hugged by an informal outdoor dining area, you’ll know Jackson Dodds when you see it, it’ll be the packed corner café covered in one of a kind street art. st

Jackson Dodds611 Gilbert Road, West Prestonwww.facebook.com/JacksonDodds

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In 1971 she was Jenny Brown, teenage poet, living with her parents in north Balwyn, finished with school and terrified of finding a nine-to-five job.

She found life in going to readings around Melbourne and was inspired by fellow early La Mama poets Garrie Hutchinson, Judith Rodriguez, charles Buckmaster and Allen Afterman. Brown’s first La Mama performance was a satirical take on a then-current ad for Rinso soap powder. (In Brown’s version the housewife of the piece becomes sexually liberated with the aid of the “new, improved” soap flakes.)

It was while reading her beloved Daily Planet she saw an ad asking for writers, and she went for it.

“I was young and idealistic and, in a way, quite up myself,” she says with a laugh. “I had a fair amount of front. ‘More front than Myers’ they used to say.” Brown went on to write poetry, band reviews and interviews, including a major piece in Daily Planet on gay liberationist Jim Anderson, arts editor of Oz Magazine, London. (Along with fellow editors Richard neville and Felix Dennis, Anderson was charged with conspiracy to corrupt Public Morals and Publishing an Obscene Magazine. The trio were eventually acquitted.)

“I also wrote about things like the origin of four letter words. It was fun, although that issue of Daily Planet was seized by the vice squad, which led to the paper’s closure. Victoria at that time was very conservative. Henry Bolte was premier and he was very disparaging about the moratorium marches. I was just one of the very many young people who were making themselves heard in different ways.”

It was a creatively strong period for Brown. Her first book of poetry Marsupial Wrestling was published. She began seeing rock band Skyhooks’ bass guitarist, Greg Macainsh. It was as the band’s phenomenal popularity was building that Brown’s

AuTOETHnOGRAPHY. THIS IS A METHOD of social research where personal experience connects with the past. It is a beautiful way of honouring and preserving the past while keeping an eye on the future. Autoethnography is a style of writing and story making Darebin resident Jen Jewel Brown is exploring with keen interest. Having recently turned sixty, Brown is just as passionate about the arts as she was when she began, forty years ago. Her career has included writing for landmark Australian music and culture magazines, signing up bands for a major record company, writing a best seller “behind the scenes” book about a rock band and being a single mother of two.

Brown’s radio documentary Paper Trail aired this year on Radio national’s Hindsight. The documentary charts the two decades that Brown worked for independent papers in the 70s and 80s: Daily Planet (later called The Planet) The Digger, Nation Review and RAM (Rock Australia Magazine). The papers no longer exist but Brown has captured small pieces of those and the lives lived through those times in her documentary.

She explains, “It’s important not to lose our history of pop culture. It is easy to be addicted to newness and change; easy to trample on and lose what has gone before.”

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inScribe’s Stella Glorie talks with Jen Jewell Brown.


book Million Dollar Riff, a behind the scenes look at the band, was published. It was a best seller.

“It was a book for the fans,” says Brown. “I told all the behind the scenes stories, and the ‘ancestry’, if you like, of the band. carol Jerrems took the photos. carol and I shared a house together in Mozart Street in Elwood.” (Radio national featured a radio documentary on the gifted photographer in May 2011 and a major exhibition of her work was featured at Heide in 2010. Jerrems died in 1980 at 30 years of age. Jerrem’s subjects were those in sub-cultures and trailblazers in the arts.)

Brown then went on to work for counterculture paper Nation Review (nR). Here she rubbed shoulders with writers Mungo Maccallum, Sam Orr (Richard Beckett), Michael Leunig and Richard Walsh. Brown herself wrote a regular column on horse racing: a surprising thing to do for a young, idealistic, poet. “Since I was 10 years old I wanted to breed the winner of the Melbourne cup. NR discovered my passion and they indulgently let me write my column.”

After two years with Nation Review, Brown travelled to Sydney where she wrote for RAM (Rock Australian Magazine). She was also co-writing songs for Renee Geyer, Jimmy and the Boys and Dragon, for that band’s O Zambezi album.

Brown went on to her first full-time job at music publishing company, McA, as a professional manager. “I loved that job,” she says. “It was fabulous. It seemed very corporate. I was amazed that I got it. I beat 30 people to get that job, including a lawyer. up until then it was all freelance work and here I was working with all of these professional writers.”

During her two and a half years at McA, Brown helped sign and worked with InXS and noiseworks. She then moved on to Mushroom Records where she worked as A&R Manager of Mushroom Records and Publishing – mainly as a talent scout.

“It was very exciting and very stressful. It was a big company,” explains Brown, “filled with big personalities and big egos. There was also lots of politics.”

While Brown concedes that Mushroom was progressive in hiring women for top jobs, she also has another take on it: “Mushroom was young and (Mushroom founder Michael) Gudinski realised if you put women in the jobs, they work twice as hard. Women will also give up relationships and will not have children for a job whereas men could have it all or r a t h e r

not have to sacrifice so much. The moment you (a woman) got clucky was when you became a work liability.”

Brown explains that ultimately she did not really “negotiate” the office politics as well as others but she still signed fabulous bands such as The church and Yothu Yindi, and worked with many more, like Paul Kelly, the Triffids and the Go-Betweens.

She then branched out to start up her own music publishing company with Polygram and made the decision to leave Sydney and return to Melbourne. However, life took her on a different path.

“In the early 1990s, Melbourne was very depressed,” she says. “So I was persuaded to relocate to Queensland, on the outskirts of Brisbane, with my partner and two children.”

Around 1998 Jen became a single mother and, having lost all of her assets, was poverty stricken and psychologically ‘a mess’. “Being a single mother away from your support network of family and friends is like a road trauma.”

To survive this, she decided to tackle tertiary education for the first time in her life. She studied painting at Brisbane Institute of Art and took a couple of media subjects. She found study and university fascinating.

“I needed to keep my brain going while wiping vomit off someone’s mouth,” she relates with a wry chuckle. “I managed to scramble through those years and come back to Melbourne and start again.”

I marvel at this courage but Brown states, “I had to.”

Brown’s next major piece of writing is her application for her PHD, a novel set in Sydney. The plot of the novel is fueled by the drowning of Brown’s cousin fifty years ago, when they were both children.

“It’s about being intimate with a particular era,’ she says. “The time, the distance. You can write about it when you are away from that place both in time and physical distance perhaps. The novel will be contemporary though. It’s about a woman in her early 20s who is a surf life saver. It’s set in Sydney, which is my old stomping ground as a swimmer.”

Like most good writers, she is not revealing too much more of her work: “If you talk too much about your work, you end up exhausting your creativity. But I am at peace with the past and I have had an exciting life.” sg

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Roderick Poole has a tree house in the back yard of his Northcote home. It’s not just any tree house; it has a series of wooden steps winding their way up through three ascending platforms, each complete with trap doors, and each a little more vertigo-inducing than the last. completed in two stages, the project was one poole took on himself. writer Joe Toohey climbed the tree to conduct this interview.

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“IT WAS PROBABLY GOOD THAT THE KIDS weren’t too involved,” he says, “because it was a bit hairy up the top.”

“Hairy” could equally describe the challenges involved in changing management at a 3000-member-strong writers’ organisation, a task Poole recently undertook as Director of the newly named Writers Victoria.

Formed in 1989 as the Victorian Writers’ centre, Writers Victoria had a long history of supporting writers in Victoria before undertaking a name change in late 2011. It was driven by multiple factors, not the least of which, Poole notes, resulted from moving into the Wheeler centre for Books, Writing and Ideas, the centrepiece of Melbourne’s bid in becoming the second unEScO city of Literature in 2010.

“conceptually it’s hard to be a centre within a centre. People mix them up, and because the Wheeler centre came in with such a bang and had a lot more promotional ‘umpf ’ than us, they tended to get the limelight.”

Ending 2011 with a new name seemed fitting in a year that was full of changes for Writers Victoria.

“We used to do quite a few events that were conversation events. They weren’t just about writers; they were about readers and about literature. The first year at the Wheeler centre we put those (events) up again and they just got trounced,” Poole laughs. “(The Wheeler centre) were getting bigger names but certainly all their events were free entry. So at the end of 2010 we looked at what we were doing and said to ourselves, “Well let’s just be about writers, and absolutely focus on the professional development and support for writers. That was the basis of putting our course program together for 2011 and it went gangbusters. We got the best attendances we’ve ever had.”

Regional writers were also a focus in 2011, with Writers Victoria partnering with 13 regional groups to deliver subsidised professional development opportunities.

As if a name change and new program weren’t enough, Writers Victoria was also heavily involved in the formation of the new national peak body, Writing Australia. This was formed in response to changing priorities at the national funding body, the Australia council for the Arts.

“A few years ago The Australia council decided they wanted to focus their funding on national programs, or programs that had national significance. They felt that wasn’t happening at the state writers’ centres, (who) were basically keeping within their state. So they made noises about defunding the state writers’ centres.”

unsurprisingly, the state writers’ centres objected, leading the Australia council to deliver an ultimatum to the state bodies.

“(The Australia council’s) response was to give the state centres a choice. Either they became what they called a centre of excellence, and specialised in some area that was of national significance, or they got together and formed a new national organisation.”

A few of the state bodies, namely Queensland, the northern Territory, and Western Australia, chose the former route, while Victoria joined new South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, and the AcT in forming a national organisation.

Poole stresses that the new body will focus on complementing, rather than replacing, the services offered by the state writers’ centres.

“I think the original image was, there would be a new writers’ centre, it would be a national writers’ centre in canberra, and be big and have staff, and

use up resources and all that sort of stuff. So what’s come about is a much flatter organisation; essentially a federation of those five writers’ centres.”

The upshot of this f latter organisation is that each state writers’ centre will take on a national project, ranging from creating a writer’s touring circuit; creating online resources; to hosting a national conference. With this increased national focus, it’s an exciting time ahead for writers of all levels around the country.

While you can’t quite see the future from the top of Poole’s tree house, you do get a panoramic view of Australia’s city of Literature. Thus armed with such an encouraging outlook, my anticipation is tempered when Poole reminds me that for all the change ahead, some things remain constant. When presented with the most common question asked of him by writers. “How do I get published?” Poole laughs. His response is simple:

“Write something really, really good.” jt

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TODAY, DEcEMBER 31, 2008, OnLY A FEW minutes from midnight, Matt is alone, lying on his back on the black, vinyl-upholstered sofa against the far wall of the living-room. Outside, the heat is still beating down on the brick walls, on the flat roof of the house, and despite the open window there is not a breath of air. There hasn’t been a breath of air for three days now. At Matt’s feet, the dog is panting noisily. It is the only sound inside except for the occasional motorcycle in the distance that makes Matt shudder. It’s as if there’s no one, absolutely no one, for miles around, but me, Matt and the dog. The silence is weighing us down as heavily as the heat, which is like a vice gripping my head.

It’s too hot to think. I get up from my chair and walk across to the sink to get some water. I fill a jug from the tap. From where I stand I can see the dog looking up. He pricks his ears forward. I fill up his bowl. I get two glasses and a straw for Matt. I do all this without thinking. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to think. When I put the dog’s bowl down he lets out a little yelp and I feel sorry for him. What would a dog like this, used to chasing chooks and killing rabbits, enjoy about the city?

Yet in a sense, even in a city such as ours, by default I feel too close to nature. I know and understand so much about it that it makes me all the more acutely aware of what I don’t know and don’t understand or don’t want to face, and because of this, I’m all the more likely to explain it away to myself in terms of the knowledge I do have. Why? I do this to make sense of the senseless.

There is a sudden clap in the air.

I am eager for explanations and instinctively think of thunder and look out the window, expecting lightning. I’m quite wrong about the causal chains connecting events, but my mind nevertheless insists on making connections, just as it insists upon metaphors as a way of getting to the truth.

The fireworks have begun. At one minute past midnight Matt is alone, lying on his back on the black, vinyl-upholstered sofa against the far wall of the living-room. He is technically one year older. As I hurry towards the window I notice the even sound of his breathing. He is breathing laboriously because of the heat. He is asleep now, or pretends to be asleep. The dog has crept closer to him. The dog and the child have grown closer together over the past year.

Outside, the night sky is wind-blown water, ablaze with arrows and asterisks zigzagging and seesawing across my field of vision. Spectacular shell bursts cross the whole colour spectrum as though through watered silk. The air is abuzz with head-splitting explosions and detonations. Silences are ominously brief. In this celestial battlefield, yes, I am dazzle-blind.

A thick cloud is pressing on the house.

I look at Matt and wonder what he sees in his dreams. His dreams are his second life, I want to believe. Matt has been looking for himself for twelve months now. So have the few friends who still visit him daily with their offerings of music, compassion, or pity. The dog keeps a close watch on the man-child. If you get too close to Matt, the dog’s eyes grow hard; his whole body becomes tense. The hair on his back bristles slightly.

After the accident, I didn’t know I still wanted to believe in anything. I thought I had dismissed day-dreams and the business of wanting when I stopped talking one year ago, overwhelmed by grief or knowing that anger and guilt ought to be kept lipped in. I can now see that all along I have secretly been waiting for answers to one question: the question of reversibility, not causality.

What if? The question is writing itself in large capital letters in my mind. I can see that I must force myself not to panic, and that it is most remiss of me to stand here like a dummy, cradling my laptop, eyes

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fixed to the embers zizzing and fizzing in the night sky. Looking out the window, not really seeing, I remember the last time I felt the panic surge in my chest like this and made up the verb ‘to ziz’ in order to avoid ‘zap’. When the surgeon frowned at my childish expression I commented on the phrase ‘leading nowhere’ that he’d just used. It was not to get back at him. At the time I had thought I was going somewhere and willed the verb ‘to zap’ out of my vocabulary. now I am here. I have been here with Matt and our dog for fifty-two weeks. It was all very well for the surgeon to say ‘let the facts decide’, but ultimately, I have to ask myself, decide what?

I have a horrible feeling of having committed something far worse than an oversight. I know that what I have done or not done stems from fear, not mere reluctance; not even ignorance. Since we left the hospital the question has existed, but remained unaddressed, and I have been guilty of acting with two discrepant minds—one that wants the blind to follow the blind; and the other that intuitively imagines or foresees, but has no desire to face up to, the facts.

The fireworks peter out in white. The sky is all purple haze. Behind me Matt is alone, lying on his back, seeing things in his dreams. The dog skittles to my side for a pat. His black and white coat shimmers in the moonlit room. He fixes his brown eyes with pinpoint pupils straight ahead, out the window.

January 1, 2008. Outside a car engine is revving. Shrill voices rise above the roaring of the engine. I can’t make out what they’re saying. Deep-down, though, I know what is going on. They’re back from their parents’ country property with food and unwrapped Christmas presents, some of them useless, but it doesn’t matter. The baby has just woken up. They even have a TV to carry up the stairs. And of course there is no parking spot in sight.

‘Easy,’ she says. ‘You stay in the car. After all, it’s only after midnight.’

‘Shut up,’ he says, for despite his baby face, he is a police officer.

Then suddenly motorbikes slip through. There is something spectacular about this, for the bikes are Harleys. They line them up at funny angles on the opposite side of the street. They take their helmets off. They bend over the body of their machines and dismount. The leader of the gang walks up to the car:

‘Do you want to do business?’

The driver of the car hops out of his vehicle. Then voices blow up like hand grenades.

Around the corner the Indian restaurant has just closed its doors for the night. The African choir has folded for the year. The band next door is packing up. People yell and kiss and giggle from across the street. Voices ebb and flow in flirtatious or quarrelling tones. Couples stream past, elated, tipsy, or just happy. A group of hooded youths waving bottles appear out of the blue. There is a scuffle – perhaps someone provoked the gang leader. Someone intervenes.

The cloud is pressing on me. The night’s embers are so close that their heat fills me with fear. Everything is so slow, and yet there’s something like flashes of lightning striking the city and its suburbs like signals blazing out all over.

January 1, 2008. The young woman and her baby on a summer’s night in the city bursting with the noise of people coming home, the teenage girl twirling her ponytail as she waits for her boyfriend in the electrified summer night, the driver of the car not arguing on the street, but getting the bath ready, the Harley-Davidsons stylishly racing off, the youths sharing a last joint before going home. My son coming home. The day after. The future taking shape.

How easy it could have been, then, December 2007, only minutes from midnight, to have said, pointing

at the night sky ‘Matt, don’t go out. There’s a storm coming.’ I could have insisted ‘Matt, didn’t you hear the thunder? Look. The dog’s hiding.’ I could have cajoled with an early present—oh, yes, only minutes from his eighteen’s birthday, with the electric guitar standing to attention. But I let the moment pass.

The motorbikes. The angry youths. The silence. A knock on the door. These are the facts I haven’t faced up to yet. These are the events I’ve been trying to connect for three hundred and sixty-five days. I know there’s no point, but my mind nevertheless insists on making connections.

Today, January 1, 2009, only a few minutes after midnight, Matt is alone, lying on his back on the black, vinyl-upholstered sofa against the far wall of the living-room. Outside, the heat is still beating down on the brick walls, on the flat roof of the house, and despite the open window there is not a breath of air. In this city gone electric one year ago while I was writing a story he was strolling down the street. The motorbikes were irrelevant. no one took any notice of the hooded youths waving bottles. He tried to help. They pushed and shoved above the revving of the engines. They blew smoke into his face. Impassive, he stood still; he could feel the chill within himself. The palms of his hands got moist with sweat. They snatched the iPod. Demanded money or the phone. The driver of the car with the baby face put his hand into the right pocket of his trousers and felt with the tip of his fingers the pocket knife his father had recently given him for christmas. The driver of the car looked away.

There was a loud clap when Matt’s head hit the footpath.

The driver of the car yelled out for all to stop. But they just ran off around the corner, waving their bottles. The bikers hopped on their machines and disappeared in a cloud. Silence settled back down on the street. The footpath was shining wet. dhIm

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I STILL cAn’T BELIEVE THAT HE’S DEAD. I get up early and walk along Hartington Street, climb over the rusty railing and look out towards the city. The sun is rising over northcote. Down below, a train speeds through the cutting. Inside the carriages are still yellow and people are going to work.

Mum looks surprised when I come in through the back door. Her stringy hair is up in a topknot and her dressing gown is tied loosely around the waist. She’s at the table with Luke, pouring milk into his cereal. He runs a Ferrari around the bowls and spills his juice. Mum doesn’t tell him off, though he expects it. She wipes the juice with a chux.

‘Have some breakfast please,’ Mum tells me. Maybe she is still angry.

Four days after it happened I caught the train out to Fawkner to see where they were going to bury him. There was a big machine there, like a bulldozer, ready to dig a hole.

‘That hole’s going to be for my friend,’ I told the driver and he made a face.

‘How could you be so sure?’ he said. ‘People die every day. I’m putting the next hole there,’ and he pointed a fat finger at an empty plot a few feet from where I stood. I took a step in the other direction.

‘I guess it could be that one,’ I said, but the driver didn’t hear me because he’d started up the engine. The machine sank its iron prongs into the earth and I watched the ground turn over. It smelt damp under there and the hole beside it went a really long way down. I put my iPod in my ears and headed back to the station.

Jamie and I grew up in Hartington Street, playing on the road above the railway. We’d race the city-bound trains or lean from our garage roller-doors, firing rounds of imaginary bullets. Jamie was good

at being shot – he’d roll from the garage with his tongue lolling from his mouth, clutching at the wound. ‘Go on without me,’ he’d gurgle, knowing full well the bullet came from my gun.

We got quite good at soccer too, until we lost the ball into the cutting. It seemed a long way down then and the trains curved fast around the bend. ‘Faster than you’d imagine,’ Mum would warn us. ‘Faster than they look.’ The incline was too steep to scramble down and it was tangled with blackberry and stinging nettles as high as our shoulders. There was an old service staircase but we promised our mums we’d never use it. So once the tracks claimed something, it was theirs to keep. The train would sweep into view and Jamie and I would watch it from the bridge above, crushing our frisbee thoughtlessly in its undercarriage or stealing the wing of our kite away on its journey towards Epping.

The staircase stoops from the top of the embankment down to the tracks. It’s rusty and you wouldn’t know it was there from the road. In the year we turned eleven we tried it out. Sitting halfway down those stairs was a good place to be. It was private – no one could hear what you were saying and no one could see you. no one could smell it if you rolled and smoked a couple of cigarettes and no one even knew where you were for a while, except for the 338 people on the 4:40 train from the city, who forgot you as soon as you flashed past their eyes.

The sound of the trains doesn’t keep me awake, even now. It’s just the opposite in fact. I think the sound of a train skating over its tracks is to me what the sound of a mother’s heartbeat is to a baby. The regularity of the warning bells and the shudder of the metal carriages comfort me when I can’t sleep. They remind me that people are still awake and moving around in the world, going from place to place, travelling home to their kids and families. When I

was younger I’d lie in my bottom bunk listening and imagine Jamie in his bed, two doors down, doing the same. Every twenty-two minutes, stretching to thirty-five, stretching to fifty. And after that was witching hour. Silence and distant cars on the road.

We went out five nights after it happened, me and Ria and Jess. Mum said it would be good for me. ‘Go Bets,’ she said. ‘See your friends.’ It made me feel bad, her being so nice, because she doesn’t know what we do. She was on the couch under the yellow lamplight with the newspaper in her lap. She smiled at me in a way that was so sad and tired, the lines on her face showing every expression she might ever make. Mum reached for my forearm and gave it a squeeze. ‘Go and be with your girlfriends,’ she said again. It made me feel bad but I went anyway.

We met at Jess’s house and caught a late train to clifton Hill. The dark streets near the freeway led the way to the warehouse. From a few hundred metres you wouldn’t guess anything was happening down there, but as you get close you can feel a sort of electricity in the air. Maybe it’s the bass, starting in your feet before it reaches your ears. Jess let out a little cry of excitement and she took my hand. Ria took the other hand and we skipped down the hill, backpacks bouncing on our shoulders. We were running fast by the time we reached the bottom.

There were already a hundred people inside and a group of our school friends were dancing near the decks. Everyone was trying to act happy. Maybe they felt it. I felt like a fat-fingered man had dug a hole inside my chest big enough for

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a train to speed through. I wished I hadn’t come. People kept sliding drinks into my hand and Ria pulled me aside into a cubicle. Ria has curly black hair and a spike through her bottom lip. Everyone thinks she’s cool and so do I. She

locked the door behind us and stood on the toes of both my sneakers.

‘This one’s on me,’ she said and I stuck out my tongue.

I had thought about whether I would do it again. I wasn’t sure if it would be an honour or a dishonour to Jamie.

One night, lying on the ground outside a party, Jamie had rolled over onto his stomach and looked at me. His face was silvery with dance-floor sweat and dew from the grass.

‘Bets, can this night please keep going and going?’ he had grinned. There was a piece of grass pressed to his cheek.

I laughed and brushed it off. We had been dancing for hours. But it did go on forever, that night. We hooked up with some older kids and got a ride out to Tullamarine, lay on the top of their station-wagon in a field and watched the planes fly over. It felt like our bodies were the planes, roaring into the black sky, wings spread and lights flashing. We watched the planes and then we drank with the older kids and Jamie passed out on the bonnet of the car. Some of them were worried. You could see they were thinking about what sort of trouble they might get into.

‘He’ll be alright,’ I told them. ‘He always is.’

now in the cubicle Ria dug a finger into her jeans pocket.

The Jamie from that night would have wanted it, I thought to myself. Jamie the inexhaustible, the hilarious,

Jamie with his white head

JANE JERVIS-READbouncing higher than all the other heads in the crowd. But that Jamie didn’t know how it had all turned out. He didn’t have the part of the story I had now. How the train came so fast and how quickly everything changed. Poor bloody Jamie was going into the ground tomorrow.

I swallowed hard and let the little thing edge down my throat. ‘For Jamie,’ Ria said, closing my chin with her hands. Water had sprung up in her eyes.

She took my hand and led me out onto the dance f loor, swinging her hips and raising an arm to the rhythm. It was like she forgot him as soon as we came out of the bathroom. People smiled at Ria because they wanted to know who she was and they stared at me because they knew who I was already. I was the girl who was there when it happened. I hated it. I just hated it. I wished I hadn’t come.

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It didn’t have the effect it usually has. My mouth went dry as a sock but that was all. I danced with Ria and Jess for a while but all the time I was thinking how thin our friendships felt without him. usually he’d be weaving among us, leaping like a rubber band and dancing with each of us, then with strangers. People loved Jamie, I’m not just saying it. Even our teachers loved him. He was naughty but none of them minded. I think he made them feel like they were in on the joke.

The bass knocked in my teeth. Beside me, Ria swung her curls around and Jess called out to some people we knew. Laser lights cut through bodies and blackness, piercing me in the eyes. My arms and legs felt huge and stiff, as if I’d never danced before. People were closing in around me and I swore I could smell that damp underground smell. It was leaking out of my pores and rising up through the floor. Another dancer crashed into me and she laughed, leant in too close and touched me apologetically with both of her hands. I shoved her off. The beats were coming faster, building to a climax and my heart was racing. I pushed my way out through the crowd.

nobody bothered me as I ran out onto the street. I wanted to go home but somewhere in my gut I knew I wouldn’t feel any better once I was there. I tried to keep my breath steady but I was hiccupping and gasping and stupid tears were starting to roll. At clifton Hill Station I pressed the green button and the lady’s voice told me there were twenty-seven minutes until the next train. I kicked at the bricks and people on the platform turned to look. I walked to the end, climbed down beside the tracks and kept walking.

I was wondering how I was going to live without him. I’m young, I told myself over and over. I’m so bloody young. Life can’t be over already. But I was wishing to God that I was a kid again, that Jamie was still a kid with me and none of this had been allowed to happen. I was wishing that my Mum


still knew everything about my life and that I hadn’t seen what I saw. I had this funny feeling that I could get on a train and go back a few stations, skip to an earlier chapter and start again from there.

The yellow lights of the station faded and the big empty dark opened up around me. There were tons of stars out now and the tracks were shining like silver snakes, leading the way home.

From Rushall Station I jumped the fence and cut through the park. Shadows hung from all the trees and I could hear the creek trickling over the rocks. I ran across the footbridge; I couldn’t bear to stop. The footbridge, long and skinny, stretching over cellophane water. Jamie and I would jump off our bikes here and hook our fingers in the wire guard. We’d reel back with our heads into the brilliant night and the scattered stars and paper-cut moon. Sometimes Jamie would let out a howl. ‘Go on,’ he’d say to me. ‘no one’s listening’. And I would try but my voice sounded tight in my throat. I wished I had what he had. I always wished it. As we left the sound of running water behind, we would look back to see the station and the streets glowing yellow and the blue city rising up behind it.

I stopped walking when I got back to the tracks. A light rain was falling. I closed my eyes and stood with my feet on the sleepers, turned my

back towards clifton Hill and willed that train to come. Speed up behind me. Faster than I could imagine. Smash all the living out of me, smash away the past – what happened and what was going to happen, whatever years stretched out in front. I didn’t want them. Why had it been me on the staircase and Jamie on the tracks? I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and clenched my fists. A trickle of rain ran into my palm. I dared that train.

near Merri station, the cutting narrows and rises up on both sides. I could have jumped off at the reserve but I kept walking along the tracks. When I heard the train coming towards the bend my feet started to run. I didn’t have time to think. I ran hard. The train sounded its horn. I made it as far as the bridge and pinned myself to the wall. Smelled piss and rain and snails. My heart stopped and then the train was roaring past me. The sound of it was deafening, the clatter and thunder. It seemed to go on forever, carriage after yellow carriage, tearing closer. There were people in those carriages, two or three in each. One of them had short white hair and the back of his head was pressed against the window. I tried to shout to him but my voice was lost. The train shrieked and leant closer. carriage after carriage. And then it was gone.

The rhythm of the train bumping over the sleepers grew more distant, like a heartbeat or a thumping bass moving away from me. Then there was a sound which was close to silence: the zang of wires overhead and the rustle of long grass. My own breath. I waited there for a long time before I turned and shakily climbed the rusty staircase. At the top, I knew, I would see my house. Mum and Luke would be asleep inside but Mum would wake up when I closed the front door. From my bed I would hear the toilet flush and the cistern fill and then everything would be quiet. I reached the top of the staircase and looked back towards the city. The sun was a greenish sliver on the horizon and my own breath was moving in my lungs. jj-rPh

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The log is spiked with red; sawteeth gnawing the wood’s bone.

As substitute for the sun, days with a bitter taste grow tipsy under the inf luence of fire.

The wavering halo sputters; The sly wood sings to itself.

in praise of fireJaz STUTLEY

Strawberriesglisten under neon light, a special from the Fresh Food People. There are no use-by-dates, sweet is the air inviting their succulent bite. Abandon yourself and buy.

Once home bathe before you try. Bloodied waters question when their succulence was first plucked, urge you to draw a knife, hack cancerous growths. You sugar-dip what’s left, bin decay; let the kitchen tap wash your bloodstained plate.

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Icy winds, skin numb…muscles braced against attackWorn, the army rests.

Alone I wanderthe barren terrain within…Alarm! Rat race grind.

WHEN WALKING DOWN STATION STREET IN Fairfield, you’ll notice an abundance of delightful shops and stores. Among them, you will come across Fairfield Books, a bookstore that is both charming and welcoming at first sight. The first thing that you’ll notice when walking into Fairfield Books is how cosy it is. At the time when I went in to have a look around, the store was quite busy, with constant customers walking in and out. I found the store to be well organised and very presentable. Its selection is broad enough to satisfy even the most avid of readers. And not to worry for all you environmentalists out there, if you don’t feel like driving to Fairfield Books, the store is only a minute’s walk from the nearest public transport, so there’ll be no excuses about making the trip.The main focus of Fairfield Books’ selection is children’s books, and I don’t think the children will be disappointed. From the classics to new releases, there was a great selection. Aside from books, the store also sells a small assortment of toys and puzzles for children. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a purchase while visiting, and left the store with a small pile of new goodies to read. The staff were very friendly, and ready to answer any questions I had. I can only recall positive memories when thinking about this store. If you’re in the Fairfield area, and feel like finding yourself a good book, then I would highly recommend Fairfield Books. jw

Fairfield Books117a Station Street, FairfieldFairfieldBooksonStation.wordpress.com

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justicePoetry finds a voice in darebin

There are many aspects of literature that people embrace. poetry has always had a loyal following, and many poetry readings are frequented by people of all ages. poetry slams are fast becoming a popular way for people to drop their inhibitions for a while and express themselves to a receptive audience.

The centre for poetics and Justice (cpJ) runs poetry readings, slams and workshops. inScribe contributor Sandra Vaina recently chatted with local resident Joel McKerrow, one of the founding members of cpJ.


Joel, how did you come to be involved with The Centre for Poetics and Justice (CPJ)?

cPJ in some sense began when we launched it in January 2011, but really had been coming together unofficially for about six months before that. In fact, I woke up one day toward the end of 2010 simply with the name “The centre for Poetics and Justice” buzzing around in my head. I took this name to my fellow poet Luka Lesson, and we began to talk about what this organisation may look like.

What role does CPJ play?

cPJ is a community arts organisation that offers workshops and education programs using performance poetry as a form of literary education, self-development and societal engagement for marginalised teenagers and for any interested people. In other words, we are a group of performance poets who see that words are strong enough to bring change to people’s lives and so we use the creative expression of spoken word as a mechanism to create that change.

What was the aim of CPJ when you first set it up?

cPJ was birthed very organically out of a community that began to form in the Melbourne Performance poetry scene around a bunch of us poets who were dedicated to this creative medium, but also wanted to use it not just for our own creativity’s sake, but to make a difference in the world. So over the last year and a half since its launch, we have tried to open people’s minds as to what poetry can look like and help people realise the effect it can have in their own life. The aim is essentially to help young people discover a creative expression that both helps them in their own formation, and help them recognise they have a voice to speak to the world.

It sounds like you’ve got a lot of work to do. Do you have anyone assisting you?

There is a group of eight of us who began the project. Within the eight there are three of us: myself, Alia Gabres and Luka Lesson who are the co-directors of the organisation. We have been setting up the different connections that we have as an organisation and co-ordinating and running the workshops in the various organisations we have worked with. There are five other facilitators who come along and help to run the workshops and performances and step up to leading them when they can.

Joel, you have refined qualities when it comes to conducting workshops and developing poetry performances. I’ve been in the audience a few times and the tone is certainly electric.

We have not only run workshops with organisations, but have also run public workshops for anyone to come to. Many people in the community have come along to these and stemming out of their connection with our organisation, become an integral part of the community. One of the community participants at our last workshop said, “cPJ workshops are not for getting together and writing a few lines. They create a way of life and a community to share it with. With the right amount of support and push, these workshops allow every participant to bloom.”

So I would say that people who get connected in with what we are doing in some sense do not come just to a writing workshop, they discover a community, our cPJ family as we have called it – for poetry is never just about the poet, it is about the community that gathers around the poet.

Where can people find you?

In these beginning stages, cPJ happens wherever we meet together. There has been no physical base for us over this first year and a half. We are very possibly going to have a space soon in the Wheeler centre, but this is not confirmed yet. In the meantime, find us online at www.cpj.org.au. sv

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SHE IS A BRIDE OF SIXTEEn, IT IS HER wedding day and she is yet to meet the groom. She feels too young to be getting married, but in the Turkish village of Askender, barricaded by mountains and shadows, caught in a time long past, she is deemed too old. She sits on her horse, dressed in traditional red, a veil of beads, like elongated fingers, are shielding her face. She is trembling from fear, shock and exhaustion but nobody can see her vulnerability. An endless expanse of bodies surround her, she cannot focus on a single one. They look the same. Vague outlines of gridded forms. She feels their disapproval.

She is not native to Askender, her village is far away, now a distant land near the sea, a place of cool breezes and salty rain; soon to be a memory. She will never see it again. A tear glides down her cheek and is caught on her upper lip, she licks it. The briny taste reminds her of the water sprays that clashed against the rocks and dampened her face -

of the wind in her unbound hair. She has promised her milk-mother she will not cry. She strives to keep that promise but her emotions simmer.

It has taken her nine days to reach this village, travelling through threatening terrain, up and down uncertain mountains, through paths rarely used. The heat was crippling but she knows it could have been worse, it could have been winter. It is unseemly that she only had Mustafa to escort her; he is over fifty years old, her father’s most trusted servant, but he is a man. Short, strong and adept with a knife. The journey on horseback did not tire him like it did her. He is accustomed to hardship. She is not.

He left as soon as they arrived.

until a year ago, before his second marriage, she had been the most precious possession her father had. He is a man of wealth, an aga, he owns most of the land in the village she was born in, and he had been a

soldier, a survivor of the war. He left the village a boy and returned a man and he had brought with him his first wife, her mother. She had raven locks, feline eyes and a smile which suggested secrets. The villagers believed he had found her in the woods, dancing beneath the stars, they believed she had woven a spell.

They did not like strangers, they did not like her.

not long after, the village endured sorrow after sorrow. The rains ceased, the crops died, the earth split from thirst and the children began to perish. The villagers suspected the workings of evil spirits, they suspected the first wife - but she died too, while giving birth, the child ripped from her body. no one but her husband mourned her.

When the rains returned the children thrived once more but the villagers had not forgotten and lived within a fear, constant and unwavering - that the darkness would return.

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As the child grew more to look like her mother, they became wary of her. Although none would treat her with contempt, she had no friends. They averted their eyes if she crossed their path and muttered prayers in Arabic, clutching the blue glass eye they all wore, to ward off the Djinn. It did not matter that she was little, that she was lonely, that she was sad.

She was very pretty with midnight ringlets and large green eyes. She would laugh and sing and entertain her father. They thought he spoiled her and that one day he would beat his knees in shame and regret, but he growled at those who dared to speak their thoughts.

It became different once the Other came and replaced her in her father’s affections. The Other was not much older than she and almost as pretty. At first she was happy but the Other did not like her and listened with eager ears as the villagers gossiped.

“I knew there was something strange in her as soon as I saw her,” the Other said to the wives and daughters, who drank sweet coffee, sprawled on her rug, and reclined on her cushions. They did not welcome strangers but they welcomed the Other and divulged the history of the man she had wed. They fed her dislike with gifts of Turkish Delight and ripened figs and they all agreed - her step daughter could not remain.

The Other, confident in her new role, allocated tasks to her unwanted daughter, tasks that even the servants would not touch. When her step daughter refused she would pinch her when no one watched. The young girl unveiled the bruises to her father and he frowned. He did not believe her and he slapped her for the first time. She did not show him the bruises that followed, she kept them concealed along with the tears she shed and the evidence of her breaking heart.

The Other had settled into the house and there was no space left for her. The Other had decided she

must leave. Her father was pleased with the Other and his attention had drifted, it would never return, he would send her away.

“Why must I go to Askender?” she asked her milk-mother quietly as the old woman braided her hair.

“You be a young woman now, you must be married.” The old woman’s hands trembled with fear the young girl did not see. The old woman was not young when she gave birth to a child who did not breathe. She grieved for that child, tearing flesh from her chest, until they brought her another. It did not matter that the mother was the woman who had darkened the village.

“But there are stories of Askender, that it is cursed, that the sun does not shine, that it lays beneath an unending cloud. They say that no one ever goes there and that if they do and stay the night that they never return.”

The old woman wrapped a band on the end of her milk-daughter’s hair, binding her hair. “I thought you no longer believed in curses or superstition?”

“I suppose I do not but I wondered why my father would send me to a place with such a reputation, to marry a boy I have not seen.”

“I will protect you do you trust me?” She smoothed her hand over the braid.

“I do trust you but I will be far away, how can you protect me from here?”

The old woman reached into the folds of her blue skirt and pulled out a thin gold chain. There was something attached to the end of it.

“As soon as I learned of your marriage I had this made. You must keep it with you at all times.” The young girl reached for it, it rested lightly in her

hand. At the end of the chain, was a glass eye the size of her fingernail. Those who were superstitious believed it protected them from the evil-eye, from bad things happening, from ill thoughts and spirits.

“But why is it green?” The evil-eye charm was always blue.

“It is not what you think it is. I had this made in likeness to your eyes. It does not ward off evil spirits; it shows you evil spirits, the ones that hide in people.”

At any other time with any other person, she would have laughed but the manner in which her milk-mother spoke made her cold. She shuddered and spoke with difficulty. “How does it work?”

“You pin it on the inside of your gown, against your skin. It will show you the aura of the ones around you. If the aura is grey, they be evil, if the aura is white, they be good.”

She took the green glass eye and promised her milk-mother she would do as she asked. It felt small in her hand.

She reached the village at dawn, beneath a cloud grave and low. She barely had time to sit, before alien women who covered their hair were preparing her for her wedding. She was a pliant doll in the hands of strangers who handled her intimately as they waxed and washed her body, tugged and fashioned her hair. They stained her palms and fingertips with henna and slipped her scarlet wedding gown over her submissive figure.

All the while she thought of the green glass eye, hidden in her bag, waiting to be pinned onto the inside of her gown. They did not let her be until the veil became a barrier, secured around her head. They tutted and clucked in admiration and she pleaded she needed to pray. When they left her


alone she pinned the end of the chain and the eye rested cold against her breast. Although she did not believe, she felt comfort in the gift.

In their eagerness they have forgotten to feed her and her head becomes light and her eyes blur; she balances precariously on her horse. The mare has rested, but nine days has proved too long and she reflects her owner’s exhaustion. The bride watches the world with shades of interrupted red, the veil tickles her nose and chin as it sways.

The drums beat and the women dance around her as a procession is formed. Her horse, guided by unknown hands, walks sluggish and unwilling towards the groom who awaits her.

It is dusk and the clouds continue to hover, the air becomes damp and cold. The procession’s progress is slow and a swirl of mist forms to envelop the bride. It is summer and she is yet to see the sun - it has set before challenging the clouds.

At a distance a blur approaches, it is hazy, it is red and she knows that it is the groom and the procession that follows him. Her stomach resists and her nerves make her nauseous, she is not ready to see him. She hears the explosion of rif les as it shatters the air, her horse neighs. She leans

forward and caresses the animal’s neck to calm her, to calm herself. The veil gapes slightly - there is a movement of grey to her right.

The beat of the drum persists.

Her head swings to the right. She sees only the outline of women who cry out and welcome the rif le. She looks back ahead, the groom is closer but she cannot make out his form. She leans forward and her veil gapes once more. There is a shade of grey to her left. Her head swings in that direction, the veil impairs her view. In frustration and fear, although it is forbidden, she lifts her veil.

Around her are the women, the ones who first met her, the ones who dressed her, the ones who brought her here but it is not them. Their faces are white, their eyes are hollow and their outline emits a smoky grey. She looks in the direction where her groom approaches and sees the darkness pushing through the mist.

Another shot is fired and her horse bolts, she lets her soar. Moving with the rhythm of the horse, she leaves the grey behind and steers towards the mountain path she has descended from. Her veil is swept behind and flaps like wings before taking f light and forsaking the bride. It lands gently somewhere behind her and is shredded not long after by hooves in pursuit.

The bride is in panic like the mare she rides, and neither see the danger. They stumble and the ground rushes to meet them. For one moment all is dark. She opens her eyes to the clouds that loom above.

She cannot move and closes her eyes once more. The second tear slides down her face, she has broken her promise.

There is a cry of agony and somebody falls to his knees beside her but she is afraid to look. A warm

hand touches her cheek softly and brushes away her tear.

“Are you hurt my bride?” There is pain in the question, in the beauty of his voice. There is longing in his words and she opens her eyes - it takes her a moment to focus. He leans over her watching with the eyes of a bird - large, round and unblinking. They move across her features in fear and yearning, terrif ied that she is wounded. “Speak, dear one, where does it ache?”

Her lids f licker until she is able to see. The white border around her groom almost blinds her but she is unable to look away.

“You are so beautiful,” she says and he laughs.

“Men are not beautiful,” he replies but he is wrong. He is beautiful, all gold and brown with eyes as black as coal. He strokes her skin beneath her hairline and it warms her limbs. Feeling returns to her arms and she feels stronger, her head finds balance. He holds her hand and guides her, she is able to sit.

There is a distant cry and she looks to see a dark swarm approach but she feels no fear bathed within his light. Her milk-mother was right, the green glass eye can see the evil that resides in others, it can see their auras. It can see the good that resides in them also. She does not care about the others and the darkness they carry, her groom is shrouded in light.

He holds her hand still and she looks down. His hand permeates a soft pale glow but the hand he is holding with such tenderness, her hand, is leaking a sickly grey. ea

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MARGERY EXAMInES HERSELF In THE mirror. She prods at the wrinkles under her eyes, around her mouth. She draws her skin back with her hands until it’s pulled tight across her face. She stares at herself. She looks weird, like a greyhound. The kids have gone for the weekend and she wonders what to do. She pushes her skin forward, her cheeks, her eyes. She looks weirder, like a pug. The lines solidify in front of her. She imagines every bad day cracked onto her face, small rivers f lowing down into the ocean that is her neck. She stares into the black holes that are her eyes. “Who are you?’ she mouths in silence, gritting her teeth to the mirror. A smile creeps across her face, f lirtatious. She winks at herself, places a hand on one hip, and swirls on the spot. Pursing her lips together she blows a

kiss to the air, and then pressing them against the mirror she opens her mouth. She slides her tongue around the cool, smooth surface of glass. unresponsive and hard. Saliva dribbles down her chin. She holds her face against the glass for a moment, kissing herself. Her ref lec-tion blurs before her. She steps back and wipes the spit away with her sleeve, and laughs. A big thunderous laugh. Her stomach contorts from the pressure. Shrill and high she laughs until tears fall from her eyes, melting into the lines, f lowing down to the sea. She wraps her arms around her middle, bending in pain, glorious, happy pain. The laughter subsides and she lifts her face once again, her body pressed against the white porcelain sink. Her face is all red and puffy now. pc-h

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WHAT DO YOu DO IF YOu AND YOuR BEST FRIEND both love music, sing and write songs, have a passion for good coffee and think breakfast is the best meal of the day? You open a café together in the suburb that is home to the largest number of creative people in the southern hemisphere. Malia and Jess started Brother Alec about nine months ago. The eclectic community of Darebin was a perfect match for their vision of providing quality food and great coffee in a hospitable atmosphere where the music was hot. Most of the staff are either musicians or ardent followers of music. “We work 60 to 70 hours a week here so it’s important that we have a good working environment. One day we happened to be all dancing to some music we were playing and when we looked up there were people standing outside on the footpath watching us. We want a good atmosphere for our customers but we need to have a good atmosphere here for ourselves.” Malia and Jess have performed gigs alongside staff members with customers in the audience. The emphasis is on community and a feeling of family. “It’s implied in the name that we are a family.” Malia was adamant that they want to be inclusive and are happy for people to set up their laptops. “We have a community table with room for a few laptops.” Brother Alec is well lit (natural sunlight), warm and cosy enough to get lost in your novel whether you are reading or writing one. The chairs are comfy and there is free Wi-Fi. While the music is a big part of the Brother Alec atmosphere it is not invasive or overpowering. Brother Alec is cosy, inviting and promises a delicious food experience. ak

Brother Alec719 High Street, Thornburywww.facebook.com/BrotherAlec

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I HAVE A cOnFESSIOn TO MAKE. WHILE in most areas of my life I consider myself progressive and open minded, I have a problem when it comes to technology. I don’t have a mobile phone, or home access to the Internet, and there is no way I want to tweet or use Facebook. As for reading e-books, consider me a Luddite. I am not a violent person by nature so have yet to take a sledge-hammer to an unsuspecting Kindle or iPad (or their advocates). As the world moves forward at a dramatic pace I have stubbornly held fast to my belief in books – real books made of paper, with a lovely cover, that you can read in the bath without the danger of electrocuting yourself.

2012 is the national Year of Reading. To mark this I asked my friends about their ways of reading, particularly on electronic readers. I normally try to avoid this sort of conversation, declaring myself a lover of ‘real’ books.

Jackie, my friend of twenty-eight years, loves technology and considers herself a minimalist. She gets rid of as much ‘stuff ’ as she can and doesn’t like owning things she doesn’t need. Yet, she has trouble getting rid of old books.

“I have books on my shelf that I haven’t touched in twenty years, except to move house, but I can’t seem to get rid of them,’’ Jackie says. “Books were really precious to me as a child but when I grew out of them I couldn’t throw them out. It would have been a betrayal.”

Jackie loves reading electronically because she no longer has that dilemma: she feels less connected to electronic books.

“I can read them; if I don’t enjoy them, I can send them off into the cloud,” she says.

Jackie finds reading on an iPad comfortable because she can adjust the lighting and the size of the type, and she can read in bed without keeping

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her partner awake. She also likes the design and the physical feel of it. It also doesn’t smell which is a bonus if you hate the smell of old books (I can’t help but notice she was stroking it and running her fingers along its edges as she was talking).

Another friend, chitra, grew up in Malaysia. Books were revered in her family. They meant knowledge, freedom and power – a way to make something of one’s life. She covered every schoolbook with contact paper, never wrote or drew in them and would have cut off her hand before dog-earing a page. chitra now has a Kindle and is very proud of it. For her it’s about saving the environment.

“nothing gives me greater pleasure then reading well written literary works. Without a Kindle how would I be able to walk around with hundreds of books in my handbag?” chitra asks. “And think about how much I save, now that I don’t need to cover my books!”

For as long as I have known Brenda, she has been making long lists of books on the recommendation

of friends and from reviews in the weekend papers. The Kindle has allowed her to feel free to buy books without the thought that she has wasted money.

“I hate the thought that I might spend $30 on something I don’t like. With the Kindle I download a sample and that makes it easier to select,” she says.

When Brenda lived in Saudi Arabia for two years her Kindle became an essential travel partner.

“It was hard to find books in English and if I was off to Egypt for a couple of weeks I didn’t want to pack three novels. It was fantastic having immediate access to almost everything,” Brenda says.

I can certainly see the sense in using electronic books for travel. I know how to pack light when it comes to toiletries and shoes, but it’s the paper that makes a heavy suitcase hard to lift onto buses and trains and drag through an airport. It’s the novels, travel guides and note books that take the space of that extra pair of shoes I might really want to pack.

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Feeling myself being dragged to the dark side, I scheduled some conversations with my ‘real’ book- reading friends.

Liz loves second-hand bookshops and their atmosphere. An avidly traditional book lover and recycler, she has no problem parting with her own purchases.

“I do love the feel of books, their smell and the marks of previous ownership. I am a very sensory person,” Liz says. “Once you have lent a book to a few people you can always drop it off at a second-hand bookstore so someone else can enjoy it.”

As if to prove her point Liz shows me three boxes of books in her car boot ready to be passed on.

Jenny, a lifelong reader and writer, also prefers print.

“I don’t ever want to read fiction on a Kindle. It’s not the same; nothing can replace a cherished book. I love the stubbornness of paper. There is a

sense of accomplishment when the books are in front of you.”

Jenny is mother to a family of three teenagers who all love their phones and computers.

“But we have a policy in our house: no electronics in the bedroom,” she says. “At the end of the day I’m in bed with a book, not a computer. I like to see them on my bedside table and on the bedspread just waiting for me.”

Jenny is pragmatic, though. When working on an article, she does most of her research online because it’s easier to follow forum threads. But that’s separate from her ‘soul food’ which comes from real books.

The idea of books as soul food is not a new concept. Does it help if the book is a solid entity instead of virtual? David seems to think so. He is studying law, is a keen reader and a collector of books on architecture.

“Electronic books feel more disposable to me,” David says. “I have my law text books on my iPad because I don’t want to carry them around. Text books become obsolete very quickly and I have no emotional attachment to them; ideas on paper seem more permanent.”

“I have a collection of books on architecture. Those are beautiful and objects of decoration,” he laughs. “They give me a sense of prestige.”

David concedes that the idea of the ‘entire collection of worldly knowledge’ contained on an iPad is a wonderful idea. He has downloaded free classics such as Moby Dick and The Count of Monte Christo but thinks he won’t read them. If he changes his mind he will probably buy them in print.

My friend Olivia remembers a university lecturer who brought a crate of different books into a tutorial and asked the students to feel, smell and look at them. This has stayed with her, and as an artist she loves the aesthetics of books. She enjoys giving books as gifts but would only consider giving e-books to friends who preferred to read electronically.

“It’s more important to buy the right book for the person. I consider where they are in their life and choose something that will match them. A friend of mine once ‘prayed’ in a meditation class, ‘Help us to choose the right books to read.’ We are so influenced by what we consume,” Olivia says.

Will real books as gifts become the equivalent of the perfumed soap that grandma gives you when you really wanted an Xbox 360 Kinect?

I still declare myself to be a lover of the ‘real’ book, but I wonder if it’s time for me to enter the new world of e-books, at least for travel and study. After all, some people do claim to be vegetarian but still eat fish. ak

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GEAR cHAnGE. LOWER THE GEAR. LOWER. As the ute slows, the bumps in the dusty road rise and fall like waves; nose up, nose down, nose down further. Heading south.

careful.

Three months of La nina rains interspersed with dry summer heat have remade this farm road; torching it then soaking it then pummeling it into a craggy trench-filled, peak-ridden path.

It’s exhausting.

She drives mindfully: belly full of the next pressed against the wheel and the one here tucked into the soft seatbelt at her side. The stubborn heat swells

her vision, and she carefully picks out the shadows in the road; the clefts where wheels might catch were she to falter.

Steady as she goes.

Her daughter’s feet are shod in tiny gumboots and they hang over the vinyl bench seat, legs sticking straight from baby hips. On the f loor underneath sits an old red esky and heavy cane basket, both full of lunch necessities for those shearing the last of the season’s ewes. Ham and cheese and tomato sandwiches on white bread, salad rolls, the last of the fruit cake, a fresh sponge with a lick of lemon icing, thermos f lasks of coffee and tea, ginger nut biscuits and tucked away underneath it all, some of last night’s chop bones for Rusty.

The little one smiles up at her mum: she is used to the southern drive, the dusty rollercoaster, already. They’ve been doing this every day for weeks now. In two-year-old boredom she sings the chorus from Old Macdonald’s Farm and her mother chimes in, knowing full well the song could continue from now until they reach the shearing shed many miles hence. until her dad comes into view, filling her vision. until he sweeps her off her little baby feet.

It passes the time.

They say time is the one constant out here. For everyone she knows though, birth and death are the constant. The growing and the harvesting. The beginning and the ending. The start and the finish. Finishing what you started. Reaching the end.

Beginning again. It doesn’t matter how bloody long it takes. Time is irrelevant. You just do it. Sigh. Maybe that’s just the drought talking. Maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s the baby, she wonders. Maybe she’s just tired from the endless driving, caring and driving and working and worrying. Maybe she’s low in iron.

Whatever.

The road is relentless. It leans and lurches and lies low, before rising and lurching again. It’s tiring. Bored, she turns on the radio, tuning in to the local ABc. It’s one of the few reliable things out here; as constant as

the weather, her mother used to say. She looks over at the little one, now asleep, rocking and rolling with the road, oblivious. She could crank it up a little if she wanted? But no. And so the road winds on and on; like the bottom of an inland sea without the water. You’re not quite sure where it begins and ends.

You can feel like you’re drowning and yet it’s only air.

It’s only a road.

Lunch goes well. The shearers eat. They seem happy. The little one wakes for her moment with dad. They’re both delighted with one another. She smiles often and wipes one face then the other with a wet napkin. cake and icing dance on chins. Everything is sticky and sweet and wet. Everyone is satisfied.

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And so they load up, back into the old ute. The esky and the empty basket; the little one on the seat with her booted feet hanging in the air; the belly pressed up tight against the wheel. And they head for home. The hour or so drive stretches languorously ahead. The little one sleeps the whole way.

Back at the main house, with its deeply shaded verandahs and burrowing rooms, she unloads, basket under one arm, daughter dangling behind. The esky can wait ‘til later. An ancient wall clock chimes, two long echoing notes that seem to reach on through to your spine and up, and up. The afternoon stretches ahead. cup of tea time she thinks, putting the keys away and the shearers’ dirty dishes in the sink. So tired.

It begins slowly, inexorably. Southbound. Her back aches; a twinge, a crink, more than a minor discomfort, right down low, right near where she sits. And then again. Again. Soon she can’t sit at all; agony sluices up and down her spine. cold hard watery southerly slipways. She waits, wonders. counts. Soon she waits no more; she calls for him, on the cB radio, on his mobile: come home now, right now. now. She calls the midwife, leaves a message, an afterthought. Just in case. Too far to worry the hospital, no maternity ward there anyway, anymore. Her daughter with the now-dirty nappy watches PlaySchool on the ABc, staring nose to screen, and will do so for as long as she can, as long as mum’s not watching.

Every minute begins anew. unrepeatable and irreversible agony. Escalating. She clutches at the benchtop, staring out the window above the sink, at the paddocks and dust beyond, holding on. The barbed wire fence curls tightly around the yard and out past sight. Another pain. Was it quicker? She can’t tell. Time is already lost to her.

He drives the truck hard, forcing the road, pushing against the gearbox, coaxing it to drive harder, push faster, harder again. The gearstick strains and

resists, and he coaxes and whispers and wishes, his voice thin, while the air hangs and rents around him. curtains of red dusty air; a play in the wings. It’s like dried blood, flecking the truck, sticky under the windscreen wipers; smearing the view.

She screams under her breath, and knows she is alone and before time. What to do? There’s a bear in thereAnd a chair as wellThere are people with gamesAnd stories to tellOpen wideCome inside

The pain. The baby is heading down now, hard. Pushing down. Down. Southward bound. Oh god. Breathe. Breathe. What to do?

She wishes hard for her mum, but old Grace is long gone. A treasured memory of Polaroid days and scones for afternoon tea. cancer. Years back. Where does the time go?

She’s losing herself in the pain now. Breathing. Panting. Excruciating. Knees apart.

Where’s the little one? Singing along, she’s okay.It’s PlaySchool…

It’s a bloody nightmare is what it is. Where is he. Where is anyone. Why now. She’s weeks bloody early. Breathe. Oh god it hurts it really really bloody hurts. She pushes against the kitchen bench in agony as the contraction screams louder. Faster this time. Push. Again.

Breathe. Where is he? She watches feverishly out the window. She can’t leave this spot. There’s nowhere else to go anyway. She bites back and pushes down; it’s

all happening so so quickly now. Sweat streams, the afternoon rolls on, and this baby is coming. Looking out the window through the fence, she sees the far-off dust of the truck, out on the edge of the world. He’s coming too.

She breathes out, pants, listens for the little one but all’s quiet except for the launch of the PlaySchool rocket clock. next is Sesame Street. She hopes the little one is watching; no time to check.

With a roar the next contraction scars her from the inside out and she pushes, standing at the kitchen sink, the window framing the truck as it races in. She pushes again, and again, and again and then must sit down. She slides down onto the cool lino floor, leans her back to the cupboard.

Can you tell me how to getHow to get to Sesame Street?

The show starts. She reaches up behind her and grasps the edge of the stainless steel sink for leverage and pushes again, pulls down, with all her heart.

All. Most. There. PuSH.

And again.

Dis is Da Count! And today’s number is …

The baby boy is born in a rush, the sweaty floor soaked with all that was within. He is too late, screaming in the door, throwing the keys, tearing at his hat and reaching for her all at once.

He scoops the baby and swings him up to her breast in one full gentle, careful arc, and her breath stills, finally finding pause.

She feels for one golden moment time standing still; being constant. The little one peers around the door finally distracted by her father’s voice, and stares. kb

29inScRIbE WINTER 2012 EDITIoN

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Do you live, work or study in the City of Darebin? Then why not submit your work to inScribe, a free magazine of arts and literary culture, news and events in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. We welcome general writing submissions of 2500 words or less as well as expressions of interest for:• Novelextracts• Fullcolourillustrationsandphotographs• Featurearticlesandessays• Comicandcartoonconcepts• Bookreviews• Writer-friendlycafereviewsFor full submission details visit:www.darebin.vic.gov.au/WritingProjectsDeadline for Issue 7 is Sunday 19 August, 2012

next time the grey shawl descendsI shall not name it loneliness grief or fearnor shall I search for a causethe weather I’m old my breast’s goneno I’ll simply say to myselfThere’s that shawl again I’ll just sit tight until it f loats offYou can hold me to that next time

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In connected sentences set in a stable climate cocoons laid out of the waves’ way is how we’d like life to unroll itself a f lat horizon-line pristine

Forgetting the sheer plunge of full-stopsthe weariness of commas the blank spaces and those swift breath-shifts blowing behind the waves which becalm in indentations with no likely transition: welcome stats

Stranded on one of those mounds of chilled words far from the hinterland with the black hole of the sea for sole perspective

There’s no way out but descent in a whirlwind of molecules contending with death for some form the way an ant dazed in an avalanche of sand its survival kit fixed on its back climbs blindly back upwards

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GO TO THE PALACE WESTGARTH; GO RIGHT NOW. Leave your dinner in the microwave. There is a fully licensed wine and espresso bar. Cooked dinners are overrated, so try an iced cake and a soda instead. Don’t use your toilet as you exit your house, use the toilets at the Palace Westgarth. They’re much fancier and the toilets are tiled in jade green ceramic gems - you’ll feel like royalty on their porcelain thrones. Make sure you admire the doors entering and exiting the Palace Westgarth; they’re much better than your front door, they’re probably older than your front door too. Installed in 1929 by workmen who knew where to put a door and what material a door should be made from. Made from one hundred percent Tasmanian Oak and imported in just for you, so you don’t have to listen to the number 86 tram rattle on by. The foyer used to be open-plan without those fine doors, until they realised it was a little bit drafty. The flooring tiles are original and still can be used to play snakes and ladders on. Join the Palace Movie Club once you’re finished sliding down the brass banister, it’s the best club you’ll ever join! You’ll get a free cinema pass on your birthday and invitations to exclusive screenings where you can dress up. You’ll get cheaper cinema tickets on regular days when you can wear your flip flops and priority access if anyone rich and famous comes to visit the cinema. You’ll get to use their fantastic comfy seats and admire the light decorations more often. If you stare long enough at the light decorations, you might see Elvis. If you don’t see any royalty or pop stars, make sure you greet the projectionist Michael in a stately way. His uncle used to own the Palace Westgarth. Michael has never done karaoke on the stage in screen number one, but he has a fine voice when it comes to the history of the Palace Westgarth. Talk to him and make him smile. He’s a friendly sort of chap and deserves to have his hand shaken by every patron. In fact, pose and get your photo with him - he’s the real king of the Palace Westgarth. pg

Palace Westgarth89 High Street, Northcotewww.PalaceCinemas.com.au/cinemas/westgarth

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PROMOTED AS ‘An EVEnInG OF ROMAncE over a glass of sparkling wine and a chocolate or two’, the Preston Library’s A Girl’s night Out with Anne Gracie promised to inspire not only my literary senses but also my tastebuds. An impressive crowd of ladies, varying in age, eagerly waited as Anne took her place of honour in the Darebin Libraries’ very plush, and very red, Reading Throne.

Anne told of the grand stories that began to fill her head when she was backpacking in exotic foreign places while on long-service leave from teaching. She used to knock romance novels as ‘not real writing’, but soon realised that romance writers in Australia are among the few able to make a full-time living from their writing. After thoroughly researching the market, Anne threw herself into writing novel submissions for romance giant Mills and Boon. It wasn’t, however, until she succumbed to Regency romance that she discovered her niche and went on to become the successful writer she is today.

Among her influences Anne lists paranormal romance and urban fantasy author Kerri Arthur and crime writers Lindsey Davis and PD James. She suggests beginning writers strive to understand their unique voice in order to find their own niche and, hopefully, market success.

A Girl’s night Out with Anne Gracie was held in March, 2012 at the Preston Library. Darebin Libraries holds many interesting events such as this throughout the year. To find out what’s on, follow the links at the website or pick up an events calendar from your local Darebin library. The Darebin Libraries’ Reading Throne was unveiled at the national Year of Reading launch at northcote Library on February 14. It is to be the focal point of library events and activities for the national Year of Reading in 2012, touring the branches, collecting famous visitors and making fans during the year. lb

www.DarebinLibraries.vic.gov.au

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