AustLit

'Things are pretty hectic right now. There’s a lot to do, and there’s a lot to think about: what is happening and what might happen. Yesterday I watched a literary event online while I did housework. It was a warm and joyful discussion, with five writers located across different continents, but the highlight for me was a remark made by host Alvin Pang, who said, ‘For some reason we are uncomfortable about being confused’ – or something very like that, I was washing up as I listened and had to dry my hands then search for a pencil and paper to write the quote down.' (Introduction)

'Christopher Raja’s memoir, Into the Suburbs: A Migrant’s Story, takes readers on several kinds of journeys: from India to Australia (and later, back again); from the city into the suburbs; from childhood through adolescence to adulthood; and from ignorance and naivety to understanding and acceptance. Raja’s memoir has a limited narrative focus, with most of its 185 pages devoted to a seven-year period of Raja’s life between 1986, when his family emigrated from Calcutta to Melbourne, and 1992, his first year at the University of Melbourne. Nevertheless, the memoir deals with a wide range of subject matter, including immigration, belonging and unbelonging, cultural differences, racism, violence, adolescence, father-son relationships, exile, grief, sex, class, religion, masculinity and healing.' (Introduction)

Author's note: INSTRUCTIONS TO THE READER:

• The different parts of this intervention into the essay may be read in any order in homage to Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus (1980).
• It may also be diverting for the reader to apply alphabetical and/or numerical filters so as to read each author’s entries as discrete components, thus 1,2,3,4 etc (Francesca Rendle-Short) and A,B,C,D etc (Peta Murray).
• A randomising instrument may also be applied for the experience of the essay willy-nilly.
• The reader need feel no obligation to keep paragraphs or indeed sentences intact.

'Henry Savery wrote the first novel published in Australia and he ended his story by slitting his throat ‘from ear to ear’ in a Port Arthur prison, convicted of returning to forgery to make ends meet. Another famous Henry once advised all budding Australian authors to flee for London or ‘study elementary anatomy, especially as applies to the cranium, and then shoot themselves carefully with the aid of a looking-glass’. When I worked at the University teaching creative writing, my friend and fellow scribbler Martin Edmond, who had the excuse that he was born in New Zealand, used to come in and lecture the wide-eyed innocent undergrads that ‘writers are the true proletariat’, which I took to be a romantic way of trying to scare the smart ones straight, but those sweet babes hardly ever got the message.' (Introduction)

'I’m letting our succulents die. I was the only one keeping them alive. So I’ve forced myself to stop. I read in a book that a vital stage of healing for those who have sustained trauma is letting go of the caretaker roles they find oppressive. I have deleted from my calendar the reminder notification that says ‘water plant’. When I see the pots I force myself to look away, and resist the compulsion to run to their aid.' (Introduction)

'For all the talk about western Sydney, has anyone decided where it begins and ends? Most would agree that it’s some way west of the harbour bridge, somewhat east of the blue mountains, and that wherever its boundary, there would be no ocean view. Before a time when ‘area of concern’ or ‘LGA of interest’ entered the parlance, you might have thought of the boundaries of western Sydney as somewhere between undrawn and imagined depending on your frame of reference. Before July 2021, maybe the closest anyone came to convincingly forming a consensus was the half-joke of the ‘Red Rooster Line,’ but it has become clearer now, hasn’t it?' (Introduction)

'The soft pastel-pink cover of Allee Richards’ debut novel features a helmetless young woman in a short green dress riding a pushbike, her dark hair blowing in the breeze. From her carefree demeanour and the title, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a self-help book full of hokey affirmations about finding beauty in ephemeral moments. Small Joys of Real Life is, however, more nuanced and complex than this first impression might suggest.' (Introduction)

'And so when he began to travel for his studies, the boy found his mobility offered him a vantage point from which to relate to people and place. The boy would commute every weekday of his teenage years to and from his suburban home in the southwest and his selective school in inner city Sydney. After his final class of the day, he would catch the school bus to Central, the train from Central to Bankstown Station, and another bus from Bankstown to home. These trips, without which his formative years could not be related, took him farther and farther afield, on various detours, and into contact with different people each time such that these journeys offered him their own education. In this way, as he began asking for more from the world, the boy came to learn about proximity and distance.' (Introduction)

'Mum has been gardening, a hobby since her teaching days in Atimonan. She stops at my window, peering up from beneath the wide brim of dad’s Akubra hat, to ask if I can help her log onto a Zoom meeting with her fellow sisters from Handmaids of the Lord. She spots a tarot deck on my bed.' (Introduction)