AustLit

'Every day I eat my breakfast, pat my 16-bit dog, and leave behind the pixels that look like a log cabin, ready for the great digital outdoors. Today it's raining, so I don't have to water my regenerative corn stalks before I pick their ears for shipment. !at's handy, because I need to hike into the mountains and find pink-haired Nina who likes potatoes.' (Publication abstract)

'Four teen girls behind me on the bus are discussing how they'd like to die. Usually, on my commute, I'd be partaking of a true crime podcast, in which hosts tell stories of women whose agency has been stolen for all time. These chicks, though, speak with total conviction when agreeing that, if they absolutely 'had' to die, crashing a red Lamborghini would be the primo way to go. Millennial Thelma and Louise, you make my heart soar. I keep listening - it's hard to not to - and reliving that adolescent capacity to be aspirational, cynical and palpably earnest, all at once. When you're dying to be heard, and no one's listening. Of all the conversations I've overheard in my life, this is fast becoming a favourite.'  (Publication abstract)