Overland Journal
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
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Overland Journal – radical Australian literature and culture since 1954 overland.org.au
“Wianamattas’ emus are a testament to the importance of caring for even the ordinary parts of our living world—the parts that we take for granted.” As part of our series supported by
@copower.bsky.social
, Andy Mason goes searching for Sydney’s last “wild” emus
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Over the back fence: in search of Sydney’s last “wild” emus - Overland literary journal
Everybody knows there used to be emus all over Western Sydney. It’s called Emu Plains, for flip’s sake.
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/over-the-back-fence-in-search-of-sydneys-last-wild-emus/
2 days ago
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In the final hours of our Subscriberthon, our brilliant co-editors Evelyn and Jonathan have an important message for you. Head to
overland.org.au/shop
or
overland.org.au/donate
today.
8 days ago
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For the last day of our Subscriberthon we have set aside something *very* special: a gallery of stunning portraits of Palestinian activists by Tia Kasambalis, with an introduction by Tasnim Mahmoud Sammak. Here’s PORTRAITS OF RESISTANCE.
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Portraits of resistance - Overland literary journal
Tia’s Portraits of Resistance are a radical break from this assault against being a Palestinian settler in Australia. In these drawings we meet Palestinians, young and old, who found themselves holdin...
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/portraits-of-resistance/
8 days ago
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LAST CHANCE! We're wrapping things up over here, which means today is your last chance to win BIG. Today's prize pack is looking pretty gorgeous, and don't forget you're still in the running to win either of our major prizes, too! Head to
overland.org.au/shop
now to enter!
8 days ago
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We have put a lot of effort recently in making available the entire archive of OVERLAND’s 70+ year history. In that spirit, on the penultimate day of Subscriberthon we bring you this previously unpublished interview with historian Humphrey McQueen on state violence and the arming of the police.
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Back when they armed the police: an interview with Humphrey McQueen - Overland literary journal
In this interview with Rock Chugg, commissioned some twenty years by then-editor Nathan Hollier for a monographic issue that didn't eventuate, Australian historian Humphrey McQueen discusses the armin...
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/back-when-they-armed-the-police-an-interview-with-humphrey-mcqueen/
9 days ago
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Good morning! It's the second-last day of our Subscriberthon, and the prizes don't stop coming. Head to
overland.org.au/shop
today to support us and go into the draw to win!
9 days ago
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“We live in an oligarchy, but with this humidity it feels like a dictatorship.” On Day #5 of Overland’s subscriberthon, we bring you “Force posture agreement”, a new poem by Miroslav Sandev.
overland.org.au/2025/11/forc...
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Force posture agreement - Overland literary journal
The men of Darwin have all taken their rottweilers / out for a walk at the same time. / For our protection. Like Pine Gap: / all those big white eyes that scan / the darkening horizon. / The eyes stay...
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/force-posture-agreement/
10 days ago
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On the third last day of our Subscriberthon, the prizes just keep coming - head to
overland.org.au/shop
today to support us and go into the running to win some amazing prize bundles!
10 days ago
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On day #4 of Overland's Subscriberthon, we bring you two reviews of books about Palestine: by Yahia Lababidi on ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS and Norman Saadi Nikro on DAYBREAK IN GAZA.
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Two reviews: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This and Daybreak in Gaza - Overland literary journal
Yahia Lababidi and Norman Saadi Nikro review thew new book by Omar El Akkad and collection edited by Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller.
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/two-reviews-one-day-everyone-will-have-always-been-against-this-and-daybreak-in-gaza/
11 days ago
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Subscriberthon Day Four is upon us... today we have a prize pack that's ridiculously good - books, download codes, doubles passes, trinkets, treats, and tea! Head to
overland.org.au/shop
now to go in the running to win!
11 days ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Dean Spade
11 days ago
Thank you to
@zahrastardust.bsky.social
for this beautiful review of Love in a F*cked-Up World in
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
. "Soft and fierce, utopian and practical, inscribed with beauty and strength, Love in a F*cked Up World is both an intervention and a guidebook."
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“Revolutionary promiscuity”: loving one another in a f*cked up world - Overland literary journal
Soft and fierce, utopian and practical, inscribed with beauty and strength, Love in a F*cked Up World is both an intervention and a guidebook, offering real pathways towards collective, abundant and m...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/revolutionary-promiscuity-loving-one-another-in-a-fcked-up-world/
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Jennifer Mills
11 days ago
Renewed my subscription to
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
for another year. Always essential reading. Please subscribe/donate if you can -
overland.org.au
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Overland - Overland literary journal
https://overland.org.au
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Mel Campbell
12 days ago
I love the perspective shot Sam uses in the final frame of this comic
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"We work at the most automated port on planet Earth. Our job description is literally "assisting automation"." On day #3 of Overland's Subscriberthon, we bring you — who else? — the great Sam Wallman.
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When you're a nail, everything looks like a hammer: working at the most automated port on planet Earth - Overland literary journal
We work at the most automated port on planet Earth. Our job description is literally "assisting automation".
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/when-youre-a-nail-everything-looks-like-a-hammer-working-at-the-most-automated-port-on-planet-earth/
12 days ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Eloise Ross
12 days ago
It's
#Noirvember
and also the
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
Subscriberthon! Here's a piece on the joys of themed viewing I wrote for Overland a few years ago, plus a reminder to: watch noir and support great independent publications.
overland.org.au/2022/11/noir...
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Noirvember at the movies: on the pleasures of personal curation - Overland literary journal
Watching noir all month, in its many transcontinental variants from the past eighty-odd years, really is a fantastic thing to do. I’m finding connections between films that aren’t obvious, or that mig...
https://overland.org.au/2022/11/noirvember-at-the-movies-on-the-pleasures-of-personal-curation/
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The third day of our Subscriberthon is here! Today we have gifts from Kill Your Darlings, Voiceworks, UQP, and a very generous Readings voucher - plus, every day you go into the running to win a major prize! Head to
overland.org.au/shop
to subscribe or donate today!
12 days ago
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“I say let flesh caress metal. Make it syrupy. They can’t stand up for themselves, I have to lend a hand. Yes, that’s correct, I like that about the job.” On Day #2 of our Subscriberthon, a brilliant new story by Claire Stendell.
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The dumb bike: tenderness as the ramification of arcane physical labour - Overland literary journal
I wouldn’t say it’s an important job. I wouldn’t even say it’s a job that makes much sense at first. I’d describe it more as having the virtue of simplicity, of being relatively easy to do as long as ...
https://overland.org.au/2025/11/the-dumb-bike-tenderness-as-the-ramification-of-arcane-physical-labour/
14 days ago
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Day two of our Subscriberthon is here to ring in November! Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed or donated so far - your support means the world to us. Head to
overland.org.au/shop/
or
overland.org.au/donate/
to go in to the running to win our Day Two prize pack!
14 days ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Jeff Sparrow
15 days ago
I’ve got a piece up at @OverlandJournal about Gaza and colonial Australia as part of Subscriberthon. Take out a sub and show your support!
overland.org.au/2025/10/stra...
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Strategies of colonial denial: the case of Palestine and Australia - Overland literary journal
Australians shouldn't be surprised at the social and psychological mechanisms that have enabled the Gaza genocide, since similar techniques facilitated the violent dispossession of Indigenous people i...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/strategies-of-colonial-denial-the-case-of-palestine-and-australia/
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We're back for another annual Subscriberthon! Head to
overland.org.au
to check out the full list of prizes, and subscribe, renew or donate today to be in the running to win!
15 days ago
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“All of this is to say that, in TIANANMEN SQUARE, the past becomes a character in its own right.” Tony McKenna reviews Lai Wen’s new novel.
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The horror of what is to come: Lai Wen’s Tiananmen Square - Overland literary journal
Is there an irreconcilable dissonance between the national and the global in Tiananmen Square? It is difficult to say, and each reader will have to come to their own conclusion. In any case, this is ...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/the-horror-of-what-is-to-come-lai-wens-tiananmen-square/
17 days ago
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“At a time when on-screen violence is commonplace and eyes begin to turn shamefully away, only a select few mediums continue to resist desensitisation. Poet Omar Sakr and artist Safdar Ahmed employ two of them.” Nalini Jacob-Roussety reviews THE NIGHTMARE SEQUENCE — supported by
@copyright.com.au
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The art of resistance: The Nightmare Sequence by Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed - Overland literary journal
At a time of growing apathy, when on-screen violence has become commonplace and eyes begin to turn shamefully away, only a select few mediums continue to resist desensitisation. Poet Omar Sakr and ill...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/the-art-of-resistance-the-nightmare-sequence-by-omar-sakr-and-safdar-ahmed/
19 days ago
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“Tamsen Hopkinson’s THE WISHING WELL picks apart the mistranslations in Te Tiriti/the Treaty of Waitangi, to make audible the dangerous mistranslations of our present.” A long, fascinating conversation between Briony Galligan and Rosie Isaac on art, language, history and place.
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A coin is a mistranslation: Tamsen Hopkinson’s The Wishing Well - Overland literary journal
The Wishing Well picks apart the mistranslations in Te Tiriti/the Treaty of Waitangi, to make audible the dangerous mistranslations of our present. It remakes language, history and material phenomena ...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/a-coin-is-a-mistranslation-tamsen-hopkinsons-the-wishing-well/
22 days ago
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“Nearly four out of five of Australia’s critical mineral projects sit on Indigenous lands”. For
@copower.bsky.social
, Noa Wynn examines the Yindjibarndi claim for damages to land and how green colonialism is repeating old injustices.
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Colonialism's new Gold Rush: how 80 per cent of Australia's critical mineral mines exploit Aboriginal land without true consent - Overland literary journal
This fight over the Pilbara mine is not an isolated spat — it hints at a much larger problem. A new study finds that nearly four out of five of Australia’s critical mineral projects sit on Indigenous ...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/colonialisms-new-gold-rush-how-80-per-cent-of-australias-critical-mineral-mines-exploit-indigenous-land-without-true-consent/
24 days ago
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“But we would do well to remember what broke the power of the original feudalists: peasant uprisings yoked to the workers’ movement.” Ben Brooker reviews Cory Doctorow’s ENSHITTIFICATION.
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What to do when your internet is beginning to smell: Cory Doctorow's Enshittification - Overland literary journal
We would do well to remember what broke the power of the original feudalists: peasant uprisings yoked to the workers’ movement. Together we can disenshittify the internet, which means, as Doctorow ass...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/what-to-do-when-your-internet-is-beginning-to-smell-cory-doctorows-enshittification/
26 days ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Rae White
29 days ago
I loved writing this poem about soft trans-queer resistance, the beauty of T4T love, and the everlasting nature of spirals and gender fuckery. I’m thrilled it’s found a home in Overland 🥰🏳️⚧️💖
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
overland.org.au/2025/10/spir...
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Spirals exist in nature and have always been here - Overland literary journal
On any given day they could be trying to legislate / that you’re not a woman. / On any given day we could be spooning in bed / archival as ammonite / the cats mirrored as new fern’s Fibonacci beside u...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/spirals-exist-in-nature-and-have-always-been-here/
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“On any given day we could be spooning in bed archival as ammonite” Our latest
#fridaypoem
is SPIRALS EXIST IN NATURE AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE by Rae White.
overland.org.au/2025/10/spir...
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Spirals exist in nature and have always been here - Overland literary journal
On any given day they could be trying to legislate / that you’re not a woman. / On any given day we could be spooning in bed / archival as ammonite / the cats mirrored as new fern’s Fibonacci beside us.
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/spirals-exist-in-nature-and-have-always-been-here/
29 days ago
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“As Gaza became the fulcrum on which an entire world order is poised, our task became more foundational. To speak the truth. To centre the voices and experience of Palestinians.” Marilyn Garson on the challenge of creating new institutions for Jewish anti-Zionism
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Building a vision for Jewish anti-Zionism - Overland literary journal
Resistance is relational. It flourishes in the spaces between us, where we make and recognise commitments. It is no small thing to institutionalise a principled, global practice of Jewishness. It ensu...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/building-a-vision-for-jewish-anti-zionism/
about 1 month ago
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“The goal of funwashing is to humanise its subjects — but what happens when you attempt to funwash things that weren’t human to begin with?”
@martynpedler.com
on showing the softer side of killer robots.
overland.org.au/2025/10/kill...
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Killer robots can dance, too - Overland literary journal
Promoting Phantom as having multiple functions foregrounds the notion that it’s a tool that can be used for good or bad — for fun-having or death-dealing.
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/killer-robots-can-dance-too/
about 1 month ago
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“There is nothing further to report at this time. And I remain forever, haunted by maps.” Our brand new
#FridayFiction
is LANDSCAPE FREAKOUT #3: OUR EARTH IS NOT WHAT WE THINK by Karen A Johnson.
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Landscape freakout #3: Our earth is not what we think - Overland literary journal
Many would consider the map an artwork but as an intuiter, I resisted that temptation; I needed to see it as the tip of an iceberg. I needed to dive and resurface, dive deeper and so on.
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/landscape-freakout-3-our-earth-is-not-what-we-think/
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Mark L.Y.
about 1 month ago
My essay in Overland! In it, I argue that our understanding of students' GenAI use must be situated in the anti-intellectual and anti-youth cultures of our time, which has told them that neither they nor their education matters. (1/2)
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We meant to say this essay was generously supported by
@copyright.com.au
! Not the person we credited by accident.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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“We still live in an age where migrant sex workers are portrayed as gullible and weak damsels in distress, rather than struggling, disadvantaged women just playing the cards they have.” Natalie Feliks on Operation Inglenook and its echoes of the ICE raids in the US.
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Australia's own ICE raids: A look at Operation Inglenook - Overland literary journal
Racially-motivated raids, trans women being placed under male confinement without trial, and police-sanctioned sexual abuse are not exclusive to foreign countries or the Trump administration. They are...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/australias-own-ice-raids-a-look-at-operation-inglenook/
about 1 month ago
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“School is no longer an environment where the active, positive presence of students is encouraged, or where the knowledge gained and labour performed within are valued.” Mark Yin on the context behind the carceral responses to AI cheating.
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AI “cheating”, anti-intellectualism and the carceral - Overland literary journal
Using GenAI is not a morally neutral act. And yet, from a criminological perspective I feel uneasy at how we understand its transgressiveness. After all, moral transgression, fault and blame are compl...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/ai-cheating-anti-intellectualism-and-the-carceral/
about 1 month ago
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“Soft and fierce, utopian and practical, inscribed with beauty and strength, LOVE IN A F*CKED UP WORLD is both an intervention and a guidebook, offering real pathways towards a collective, abundant and more radical futures.” Zahra Stardust reviews Dean Spade.
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“Revolutionary promiscuity”: loving one another in a f*cked up world - Overland literary journal
Soft and fierce, utopian and practical, inscribed with beauty and strength, Love in a F*cked Up World is both an intervention and a guidebook, offering real pathways towards collective, abundant and m...
https://overland.org.au/2025/10/revolutionary-promiscuity-loving-one-another-in-a-fcked-up-world/
about 1 month ago
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For
@copower.bsky.social
, a brand new comic by Eav Brennan on South Australia's algal bloom and the “waves of death” threatening our seas.
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South Australia's algal bloom - Overland literary journal
It all seems pretty bleak. On a scale that's hard to comprehend. But giving up is a disservice to the victims and a betrayal to the survivors, who need us to stop the offshore gas, seismic blasting, a...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/south-australias-algal-bloom/
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Clare Strahan
about 2 months ago
Thanks
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
for publishing our letter.
overland.org.au/2025/09/stat...
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Statement in support of Meanjin’s future - Overland literary journal
We write in support of the University of Melbourne Creative Writing program and call on the University of Melbourne to protect Meanjin and the incalculable cultural wealth that it offers us all. The u...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/statement-in-support-of-meanjins-future/
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Save Meanjin
about 2 months ago
Wow. What an essay by Eli McLean for
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
: "I had started to feel over the last few months that the ever-watchful eye of the university panopticon was sooner or later going to cast its gaze on our publishing activities"
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“I do not need to name all the names of poets doing this in “Australia”, because Australia doesn’t exist.” A brand new, extended essay on geography and poetry by John Kinsella.
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There is no geography: a poetics of wordlessness (a response to Longfellow, anthologist) - Overland literary journal
So, let’s no longer call it place and let’s think outside of time. The refugee being ignored or ostracised, or drowning in one of the oceans of the world set up as divisions of place and space, knows ...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/there-is-no-geography-a-poetics-of-wordlessness-a-response-to-longfellow-anthologist/
about 2 months ago
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“If we’ve learned anything from the recent slew of Zionist attacks on culture in Australia, it’s that institutions — mainly universities — are often a poisoned chalice for writers and editors.” Deputy editor Eli McLean on the closure of MEANJIN.
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“No Guernicas, no sacred places”: On the closure of Meanjin - Overland literary journal
Australia’s literary culture depends for its life on its journals. Literary journals are not just clearing houses for pithy snatches of commentary and readable middlebrow fiction — they’re incubators ...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/no-guernicas-no-sacred-places-on-the-closure-of-meanjin/
about 2 months ago
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Sara Cheikh examines the envoy’s report on Islamophobia and finds that it “does not chart a path toward justice simply because it failed to place Australian Muslims’ grievances within the power mechanisms that created them in the first place”.
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Where the envoy’s Islamophobia Report fails Muslims - Overland literary journal
Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, released his report, entitled A National Response to Islamophobia, last week. Below is where I believe it has failed Australian Muslims.
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/where-the-envoys-islamophobia-report-fails-muslims/
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Overland Journal
Tash
2 months ago
I wrote about shark nets and a very niche part of Sydney history from the other side of the fence (pun intended) for
@overlandjournal.bsky.social
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“Historian Bill Gammage’s warning that “fences on the ground make fences in the mind” ring in the ears as shark nets are erected along Australia's coastlines each year.” For
@copower.bsky.social
, our own Natasha Seymour on Australia’s neverending “shark era”.
overland.org.au/2025/09/fenc...
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Fences in the sea: Australia’s neverending “shark era” - Overland literary journal
Historian Bill Gammage’s warning that “fences on the ground make fences in the mind” rings in the ears as shark nets are erected along Australia's coastlines each year. The legacy of Sydney’s 1930s sh...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/fences-in-the-sea-australias-neverending-shark-era/
2 months ago
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“you know it's about to get gnarly when the lichen is fused with the asphalt” Our latest
#fridaypoem
is EFFORT by Eliana Gray.
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Effort - Overland literary journal
I walk down the road five minutes / to get the good mandarins / which are also the cheap mandarins / they’re small and there's an air pocket / between the pith so the skin / gives way beneath my thumb...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/effort/
2 months ago
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“A name once whispered across the industrial north, Jenny Greenteeth has declined into print, into kitsch.” David Renton on the history of a cautionary creature of folklore, pointing “to the world we have made and could yet unmake.”
overland.org.au/2025/09/jenn...
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Jenny Greenteeth, reluctant monster - Overland literary journal
A creature of places, not of books — that’s how we should understand Jenny Greenteeth. She once belonged to specific, forgotten, sites: the cold, dark, moorland Black Pool on the way to Butterdon Hill...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/jenny-greenteeth-reluctant-monster/
2 months ago
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An open letter by GPs for Palestine to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
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An open letter by GPs for Palestine to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners - Overland literary journal
It is hard to capture the breadth and ferocity of the assault on Gaza, with every conceivable aspect of Palestinian life decimated by the Israeli military campaign. As healthcare workers, our ethics c...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/an-open-letter-by-gps-for-palestine-to-the-royal-australian-college-of-general-practitioners/
2 months ago
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“Do not be deceived by the ‘humanitarian’ label given to this militarised organisation. All funding to this militant group must be withdrawn and the organisation disbanded.” Amy Neilson on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and aid turning to murder.
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When aid turns to murder: necropolitics in Gaza - Overland literary journal
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) launched in May 2025 to the horror of the humanitarian community. Experienced providers of aid recognised immediately that there is absolutely nothing humanitari...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/when-aid-turns-to-murder-necropolitics-in-gaza/
2 months ago
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“I didn’t get far through my call centre de-escalation training but telling someone they might punch you seems like the opposite of de-escalation. I look at him again, trying to listen to his feelings.” From IN MY PANTS, a new story by Ismene Panaretos.
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In my pants - Overland literary journal
We’re sweating. There’s so much bodily fluid in this room that the two of us together could’ve fixed the millennium drought. He’s in his forties. Or he could be nineteen. Kind of hard to tell with the...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/in-my-pants/
2 months ago
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Since our very first issue Meanjin and Overland have been comrades, mates, rivals, and drinking buddies. The UMP board’s decision is a shockingly myopic act of cultural vandalism which will grievously harm the Australian literary community.
2 months ago
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“With an inflated sense of its renewed mandate, Labor seems poised to concretise its anti-democratic potential.” Giacomo Bianchino on Australian politics and the end of government by consent.
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Labor and the end of government by consent - Overland literary journal
Even though the election was won on the ground of domestic economic concerns, and the incompetency of the Liberals, it was treated as a sanctioning of this new soft authoritarianism. Since then, Labor...
https://overland.org.au/2025/09/labor-and-the-end-of-government-by-consent/
2 months ago
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