AustLit

'Once a year in Broome, locals and tourists gather on Carnarvon Street to wait for the dragon. Adults keep cameras poised, while kids look down the road expectantly, hopping with impatience. The drums start, then the cymbals. They bang and clash together in time, and people cheer as the music gets closer. Finally, the dragon comes into view. His large head is adorned with colourful pompoms, his white teeth bared. His bright scaly body bobs up and down to the beat of the drum as he snakes his way around the crowd. Inside the dragon costume (affectionately dubbed Sammy the Dragon) are fifteen men sweating in the humid dusk, holding poles to keep the cloth body up. Their human legs move the dancing dragon through the crowd and down the Chinatown strip.' (Publication abstract)

'My little brother has never seen snow, and I think that he should while he's down here. Mum was the one who suggested it first, which was pretty typical. She was never a blankets-and-hot-Milo mum. Her answer to most of our problems was to throw us out in the cold and hope for some sort of hypothermic system reboot on our part. Our gangly, pale bodies were weak to begin with, and I bet the last thing she wanted to do was to worsen matters by coddling us, or being seen as overparenting. I don't care if it helps or not because my brother should see snow either way...' (Publication abstract)