AustLit

'When S. and I started to talk, the directions were endless, and sympathetic. What passed between us, over coffee and chai, in emails, in text messages, were the names of authors, books, artists. We were both mapping, many cartographies laid over each other, human and non-human. Struck by the ways the same ground could be covered again and again, never fully covered, uncovered, recovered. The Shards.' (Introduction)

'During a recent conversation, a friend and fellow writer asked what I considered to be my greatest literary strength. I am grateful for her patience, because I definitely didn’t arrive at a speedy conclusion. The question—though a simple one—had me stumped. I reflected on my writing across various genres, media, periods of growth and learning. Was there a collective throughline? What gave my work its pulse – its own unique pitter-pattering palpitations? What made all those words worth writing?' (Introduction)

'Some writing teaches you possibility. Possibility in a number of ways: seeing yourself reflected in a body of work, echoing familiar words, places, or ideas; some writing is a lesson about form, or acts as an overall object to aspire to. When I picked up a copy of Lemons in the Chicken Wire by Alison Whittaker, I saw for the first time a young queer Aboriginal woman subverting the form of poetry in a way that resonated with me. Yet Alison’s writing followed a lineage of other Aboriginal poets, and from reading her work I went on to find Samuel Wagan Watson, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Lionel Fogarty. These significant discoveries alongisde Lemons showed me how lyrical poetry could be reshaped in Aboriginal ways, encouraging and challenging my own writing. It felt like insurgency into Western ways of reading and writing.' (Introduction)