News
The call for submission for our upcoming issue, 73.2 Lyre/Liar, ends next Sunday, September 15th. Just go to the Submissions tab and upload your work. The details are below.
At the core of this issue of Southerly – its first section – is a collection of essays originating in papers delivered at The Political Imagination: Contemporary Diasporic and Postcolonial Poetries, a conference held at the City Campus of Deakin University on 12th and 13th April 2012. This collection has been edited for us by Ann Vickery and Ali Alizadeh, of Deakin and Monash Universities respectively, and is presented to our readers in the clear sense that it reflects a significant development in literary criticism, poetics, and literary theory. In the rest of the issue we present, with thanks to
It has been brought to our attention that in 71.2 A Handful of Sand, the poem And I wanted to be on page 177 has been wrongfully attributed. And I wanted to be is by Kerry Reed-Gilbert.
On Saturday June 29th, Kate Lilley and Toby Fitch will be speaking at the Apoetic Poetry Festival at the NSW Writers Centre. Curated by esteemed poet and recent Southerly blogger Peter Minter, it will also include southerly editors and blogger Ali Cobby Eckermann and Lionel Fogerty, and regular Southerly bloggers and contributors such as Corey Wakeling, Michael Farrell, Stuart Cooke, Ann Vickery, and Kerry Reed-Gilbert, as well as Kate Fagan, Astrid Lorange, and others. Please check the NSW Writers Centre site for further information
Southerly is launching its new issue, 72.3 Islands and Archipelagos. There will be readings from the writers, wine, nibbles, and fabulous good feeling. The details are below: When: Tuesday May 28th, 6 for 6:30pm Where: Common Room, John Woolley Building, University of Sydney (map here: http://sydney.edu.au/maps/campuses/?area=CAMDAR ) We deeply regret that this venue can only be accessed via stairs. RSVP: admin@southerlylitmag.com.au/ …or just turn up. See you there!
In addition to being the planet’s sole island continent, Australia is comprised of many islands: 8,222 according to Geoscience Australia, as well as many others in its external territories. Islands have been at the forefront of heated public policy regarding asylum seekers and detention, and in relation to rising oceans. So, too, the man at the centre of the fight for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights, Eddie Mabo, came from Mer (Murray Island) in the Eastern Torres Strait. Some Australian islands have been homelands for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people for millennia, while colonial culture recognised the
As well as being an editor of Southerly, David Brooks is a novelist, poet, and academic. You can see him speak at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, which is held from May 18th to 26th. Make sure you check out ‘Poetry in the Caves’, as he hosts a poetry reading in Jenolan Caves. David will also be speaking on the following panels, The Ivanhoe Hotel: Australian Creativity with Stephen Gale Philosophy and Writing with Scarlett Thomas, Damon Young and Joe Gelonesi What the Classics Teach Us with Robert Greene, Richard Gill and Alastair Blanshard You can also see Toby Fitch, our Poetry Reviews Editor,
This issue of Southerly explores some emerging ethical implications of writing. The two perspectives we wish to address are: 1) Words as a life-giving or life-taking tool: arguably the most powerful weapon we possess, language, is a reflection of our own attitude to ourselves and the rest of the world. Writing in/for the public domain, its potential impact on the readership and the ethical implications thereof compel us to constantly examine our views and language choices. 2) Writing as a moral outlet: does writing induce or supplant action in ‘real’ life? Given the pressing ecological crisis, threatening the survival and
Every contact leaves a trace. Locard’s founding dictum of forensic science can be taken to describe the complicated relationship between literature and true crime writing. As the genre of “true crime” becomes ever more prominent in Australian reading habits, its literary impact invites investigation. From Ned Kelly to Shapelle Corby, in a nation state founded in acts of dispossession, we track our way through some notable cases with an eye to the relationship between the poetic, the sensational and the everyday.