Tegan Webb Pip sits on the wave-shaped jungle-gym and waits for the concrete to kick in. But something else has kicked in first, and Pip is annoyed, because she can’t figure out what it is. It’s heavy, in the way that concrete is, but heavy is not how concrete makes her feel. Concrete makes her…

Kathryn Reese I had been so long tonguing at flowers—bluebells, honeysuckle and the potted pink cyclamen—no one was surprised when I started into the forest. The truth is, the marigolds by the garden gate left me dissatisfied. All pollen and borders and bitterness. The butterfly bush whispered to me of wild, damp places and the…

Jack Anthony When I came to, on the first day of my mission, I was alone and falling apart. For a few moments, my entire experience of existence was reduced to heat and sound. Engines roared and heat billowed dangerously beneath me. I shook so violently, my surroundings were only blurs and numbers to me.…

Seth Malacari For the record, we sit in the shade of the peppermint trees. The branches hang low, dark green leaves cocooning us in. Wind blows the clouds to paint-swatch streaks above us, but down here it is calm and smells sweetly of summer. Are you ready? Tell it from the beginning.  It was summer,…

Etta Farnan Nights like this always made Deipara think the clouds had hands. They hung adamant around her dangling legs. This same cirrostratus veil could listen, and ze’d been playing her tearful, late-night songs on zir mum’s old panpipes. If the clouds did have hands, then they delighted in clutching Deipara hard between fists of…

A.R. Henderson My mother was a wanderer, always chasing something the way the night chased the day across the sky. A glimpse of white sails out the window told me when she was on her way home. The briny wind whispered joy and promise as it stirred the pages of her books. I took one…

by Reizor I love to watch you grow;Mycological miracle thriving in a radioactive pile.Let’s crack a space to decay in together.Let’s grow into each other,Become something unbecoming.A networked mycelium mat,a bio organic internet of thingsTwo fruiting bodies of the same interconnected mass of life,Devouring the bones of their broken habitatMaking room for new, more radical…

by Rae White my white wing stretched overyour shoulder, my arm wreathedaround your waist. beneathearth isn’t the place for creatureslike us. but your treesare sunburned and my sky is redwith rain, so our new homeis smaller and darker than before. camp stove kettle is chirpingand tea bags sit waitingin cups. our new home is busierthan…

by Sascha Stronach Terau Farm used to grow half the colony’s wheat. That’s what made it first an objective, then – as it changed hands again and again and again – a target. If it could not be held, it must be denied to the enemy.  Fire alone wouldn’t do the job, it would merely…

Jes Layton (he/him, she/her) is a writer, illustrator and arts worker living and working on Wurundjeri Land. He is the current co-CEO and Executive Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Jes’ written and illustrative work can be found at SBS, Junkee, Voiceworks, Kill Your Darlings, Archer, The Big Issue and scattered elsewhere online and in…