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y separately published work icon Sydney Review of Books periodical issue  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... June 2017 of Sydney Review of Books est. 2013 Sydney Review of Books
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Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2017 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
An Anthropocene Tale and Its Writer, Lucy Sussex , single work essay

'‘I won’t live to see it, but you will!’

'If spoken now, these words might be addressed by a baby boomer to a millenial. In fact they were said to me some thirty years ago. The speaker was the Australian novelist and critic George Turner. He was a small, wiry, olive-skinned man, his eyes merry behind square bifocals. Despite the warning, his tone was light and ironic. There was nothing nasty about the remark, rather a commitment to telling the truth. For some novelists, the stance could seem unbearably pretentious, or self-aggrandising. For Turner it was neither. He was a kind man in person, and gentlemanly in his manners, although he could also be ferocious, particularly when attacked.' (Introduction)

A Kaleidoscope of Experience, Kate Middleton , single work essay
'The first poem by Peter Boyle I ever read happens to be a useful precursor to the work he does in Ghostspeaking. The poem is ‘Nine ways of writing an American Poem’, which appeared in the book What the Painter Saw in our Faces (2001). In this poem, Boyle mimics different trends in American poetics, ranging from radical plainness (as in, ‘If you put/ your hand/ in fire/ it hurts’) to experimental poetics (‘Open paratwang/ of helio-/ trope in/ door-/ way/ en-/TRANCE). The nine variations of this poem inhabit a wide array of voices and modes, and show a metamorphic voice at work. Within these variations, Boyle gives a broad performance of different poetic gestures and postures. Since reading that poem, I have become acquainted with Boyle himself, while students studying at the same institution.' (Introduction)
Going To The Silences, Maggie MacKellar , single work essay

'A long time ago, after the publicity had finished for my first memoir When It Rains and while I was still brimming with writing confidence and no real direction I dreamed what my next book was to be. Woken by a willie wagtail calling outside my window I reached for the notebook on the bedside table. With eyes still sticky with sleep I scrawled down the details of the extraordinary walk I had just taken with Miles Franklin.' (Introduction)

8 Turner Street, Redfern, Anthony Macris , single work autobiography

'I was reluctant to try share house living again; being thrown out of the Abercrombie Street house had affected me more deeply than I thought. My room in the Harold Park Hotel wasn’t a viable option either. It wasn’t the quality of the room that was the problem. When I first went to check the place out I’d braced myself for pub squalor, but to my surprise the room had been recently refurbished, in cheap synthetic everything, it was true, but at least it was clean and new. But apart from the bed there was hardly any furniture, not even a bar fridge, and even though the weather was mild, the milk I bought for my cereal – which I was just about living on – curdled overnight. Also, the pub was next to one of Sydney’s major racetracks, and it was impossible to study over the booming PA. I’d sit at the floor at the end of the single bed, surrounded by piles of library books on topics ranging from the cinema of Luis Buñuel to intermediate French grammar, unable to block out the voices of the race commentators. These delivered near stream-of-consciousness monologues that built to frenzied climaxes made up of the winning horses’ names – Sea Peony, Rusted Sunset, Achilles – manically repeated over and over again.' (Introduction)

Elemental Mysteries : This Water : Five Tales by Beverley Farmer, Susan Lever , single work essay

'When she began publishing fiction in the 1980s, Beverley Farmer was part of a rising generation of women writers adding their voices to the record of Australian life. She was seen as a woman of modern multicultural Australia who had married one of the new Greek immigrants and experienced the contrast of cultures between Old Europe and modern Australia.' (Introduction)

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