This piece discusses death, dying and grief.

First broadcast on 11 December 2017​

The doctor talks about ‘active dying’; ‘non-active dying’; ‘range of life’; ‘treatment options’. We speak in months, weeks, days. He’s professional and factual. ‘Three to nine months,’ he says. The cancer has stolen everything from mum and now her body is betraying her on every level: because she’s not ‘actively dying’ she can’t go to the hospice, and because she won’t recover she can’t stay in hospital.

I’m unsure what ‘active dying’ is. I think: ‘If I can’t have forever, I’ll take nine months.’ I begin steeling myself for the worst: only three months. Before leaving, the doctor says mum can return home with community health support. Dad follows him out of the room to ask more questions.

Mum starts crying (the only time I see her cry while she's dying). ‘I can’t wait so long,’ she says, ‘it’s too much pain; why won’t they let people die when they want.’

Everything inside me stops. My mum’s a tiny bundle held together by the flimsy hospital gown. Breathing is so painful that they’ve put her on oxygen. Here she is, right next to me, bracing herself for Her worst: nine months. My wanting nine more months feels selfish.

Between mum’s terminal diagnosis and her passing was six weeks: six of the longest and shortest and worst weeks of my family’s lives.

Recorded 25-28 August 2017
First broadcast September 2017

‘Distant Voices’ is a non-linear soundscape that captures the texture, emotion and feel of QPF2017: it takes you there. The three-acts: Fractured Voices; Muted Voices; Healing Voices, honour the 2017 theme, and pay tribute to the writers, activists and poets of this continent and beyond. Recorded across the QPF’s four main days, ‘Distant Voices’ weaves together our shared stories of isolation, curiosity, understanding and resilience.

Thank you to everyone who performed at the 2017 QPF, it’s a shame I couldn’t fit everyone in.

Order of appearance:

• Shannon Ruska
• Ali Cobby Eckerman
• Quinn Eades - “Monday, June 27, Going First”.
• Clozapine Clinic
  • Tim Heffernan
  • Benjaman Freighter
  • Alise Blayney
  • Stuart Barnes
  • Verity La editor/poet Michele Seminara
• Andy Jackson - Part 2 of “Each Map of Scars”
• Ellen Van Neervan
• Sashim Park Owins
• Writing Through Fences: Poetry and Displacement – “Through the Moon” performance
  • Featuring:
    • Hani Abdile, Juan Garrido Salgado, Janet Galbraith
• Voices of Colour open mic event at the Brisbane City Library
• WrICE Writers immersion and Cultural Exchange writer:
  • Martin Villanueva
• Omar Musa
• Sara Holland-Batt
• Hera Lindsay Bird
• Tusiata Avia (NZ)
• Kiri Cooper
• Courtney Sina Meredith (NZ).
• Mark Doty.
• And we finished the piece as we began, with Quinn Eades’ beautiful “Monday, June 27, Going First”.

Music:

• Love for Sale – George Benson Quartet
• Successionist - Part 2 of ‘Each Map of Scars’ (by Rachael Guy, Andy Jackson & Leonie Van Eyk), music by Kristin Rule and Rose Ertler.
• Cello Before Time – Joseph Burgess
• Diary – bangarra
• Sunshrine – James Blackshaw
• No Lines and Audio Forensic (dub) - High Pass Filter
• Mapnduma – Music Can Rise Above Tyranny

4ZZZ’s ‘Brisbane Line’ and 3CR’s ‘Stick Together’ talk to Elena Jeffereys from Respect Inc. (QLD) and Jane Green from Vixen Collective (Victoria) about sex work and how these collectives organise in a space which has legal barriers faced by no other group of Australian workers.

First broadcast on 11 June 2018​

The legal status of sex work in Australia is convoluted, not because of any inherent complexity in the work itself, but because of myriad discrepancies between state and territory jurisdictions, and the countless legal and regulatory contradictions within state laws themselves.

First broadcast 20 December 2018

The National Rugby Sevens Championship is an annual rugby union event that includes senior and junior teams in men’s and women’s divisions. Competitors include national Indigenous representative teams, state- and territory-based teams, and representatives from the Australian Armed Services and Australian Universities. In 2018 the Championship was staged on Turrbal Country (Ballymore stadium) in Meanjin (Brisbane) from December 7 until December 9. Listen to intrepid Reporter Alan (aged five) interview his older Cousin, William, who was representing the national Indigenous under 17s team. A big thanks to William for doing this interview straight after finishing a game. William is Wiradjuri and Alan is Dja Dja Warrung.

Brisbane-based writer Bri Lee’s memoir Eggshell Skull is her story through the Australian legal system, as a policeman’s daughter, law student, judge’s associate and complainant. Eggshell Skull is a fierce memoir, and its haunting appraisal of modern Australia illustrates how ‘justice’ looks very different — depending on who you are and where you’re from.

It was a sweltering January in Brisbane, and day one of my new job as a judge’s associate at the Queensland District Court. I had finished law school at the end of 2014 and returned to my home state in the new year after two months of travelling around the United States, eating hotdogs and drinking Budweiser. New stretch marks at my hips were itchy from my fast increase in weight over the holidays. Sweat was soaking into the underarms of the shirt I’d ironed that morning. Things were off to a bad, and late, start. I took a deep breath and knocked on Judge’s door. He looked up and gave me a big smile. He invited me to take a seat and I remembered how nervous I’d been a year earlier, sitting in the same chair for the job interview. But as we chatted I also remembered how much we’d laughed together, how much I admired his lack of pretension.

Bri is the founding editor of Hot Chicks With Big Brains, and her work has been published in The Guardian, Griffith Review, Broadly, i-D and VAULT Magazine. She also appears on ABC Radio and often gives talks on writing, law, feminism, fashion, pop culture and art. In 2017 Bri was one of Griffith Review‘s Queensland writing fellows. In 2018 she received a Commonwealth Government of Australia scholarship to work on her second book at the University of Queensland.

She was also the inaugural Kat Muscat Fellow (in 2016). The Kat Muscat Fellowship honours writer and editor Kat Muscat (1990–2015). A stone-cold scallywag, Kat was a formidable writing talent who taught all those she touched how to love with kindness and empathy. Her writing embodied Defiance, Feminism and Empathy. The Muscat Family and Kat’s former employer: Express Media, publishers of Voiceworks magazine (Australia’s pre-eminent youth-focussed literary journal), established the Fellowship to support young Australian female-identifying and non-binary writers and editors.

Kat Muscat edited Voiceworks magazine (2012–2013) at the ripe old age of 21; volunteered with the magazine for years before becoming editor; and was involved in the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the National Young Writers’ Festival and TINA. She also blogged and wrote for the likes of The Lifted Brow, Junkee, Lip Magazine, Scum, Pitch Bitch, Stilts, Feminartsy, Kill Your Darlings and Seizure Online.

Eggshell Skull is Bri’s first book (the first of many) and it’s fitting that it was the first project supported by The Fellowship, because Eggshell Skull embodies everything Kat, The Fellowship, Express Media and Voiceworks stands for. It launches at Avid Reader on Wednesday May 23, 2018, and is published by Allen and Unwin. You can read an excerpt of Eggshell Skull in the Good Weekend and read more about Bri on hercanberra.

Find out about the Kat Muscat Fellowship
Read more of Bri’s work

If you feel like you need to speak with someone at any time about anything:
Lifeline: free confidential 24-hour support on 13 11 14; nightly online crisis support chat — lifeline.org.au
Grief line: free confidential phone service 12pm to 3am seven days on 1300 845-745 (National – Landline Only); online counselling service — griefline.org.au
Suicide Call Back: phone, video, online counselling 24/7 on 1300 659-467 or suicidecallbackservice.org.au.

“The smoke got thicker and darker and then it seemed to be coming from everywhere, swirling around until it blackened the entire town.”
— The Coal Face by Tom Doig

In February 2014, the open cut coal mine surrounding Hazelwood Power Station caught fire and burned for forty-five days — that’s over 1000 hours; one-and-a-half months; six weeks. The town of Morwell, home to 14,000 people, is less than half a kilometre from the mine. Over 100,000 people live within 20km of the mine. Carcinogenic brown coal ash fell as far away as Warragul (50km) and Sale (60km). This was a huge industrial; environmental and public health disaster. Melbourne is 152km away, that’s a two-hour drive.

In one sense you have to ask, why was a power station, that burns coal to produce electricity, built in the middle of a coal mine, that’s made up of the highly flammable stuff being burned by the power station to make electricity; but on the other hand it makes sense, right? If the power station’s right in the middle of things, there’s need to transport that shit too far.

Initially, when the mine and station were privatised in the 1990s by the Kennett Government, the company paid a bond of about $12 million. The mine owner, formally GDF Suez, now ENGIE, is one-third owned by the French Government. It was formed on 22 July 2008 by the merger of Gaz de France and Suez, and traces its origins to the Universal Suez Canal Company founded in 1858 to construct the Suez Canal. Since 2008 merger, the French State holds about one third of the company.

Coal is good for humanity.
— Tony Abbott and Malcolm Roberts (neither know what they’re talking about)

Experts estimate the rehabilitation cost at the ‘normal’ end of the mine’s life would be about $250 million, but since the 2014 fire a number of studies have revealed the cost to be more like $750 million — meaning the true cost is over 70 times the original bond. And that’s assuming everything goes off without a hitch. The Centralia Coal Mine (Pennsylvania), has been burning since 1962, and it’s suspected the deliberate burning of trash in a former strip mine ignited a coal seam. Then there’s ENGIE’s plan to dump 740 billion litres of water into the mine to turn it into what is known as a ‘pit lake’. This could see the Morwell River being diverted for at least seven years; could cost as much as $440 million; and would need more water than Sydney Harbour. ENGIE wants to take the water (for free). To date, no one can say if the water will become toxic, and no one knows what impact such toxic water may have on the surrounding land and water table.

Just two to three hours from Brisbane are two contentious mines being pushed onto the people of Acland and Oakey (about 178km from Brisbane — approx. a two-and-a-half hour drive), and onto the people of Kingaroy (about 212km from Brisbane and a three-hour drive). Both places grow food.

The proposed New Acland Mine (New Hope Group) has already consumed the town of Acland. It just doesn’t exist any more; it’s not even a ‘ghost town’. The buildings are gone and the only things left are the roads and the ANZAC memorial, which used to be in the middle of town.

The proposed Kingaroy Mine (Moreton Resources Ltd: MRV), sounds a lot like the Hazelwood mine. MRV wants to build a mine to within 1km of the town. The Kingaroy Concerned Citizens Group is contesting the mine, not least because it will impact negatively on winery tourism, the observatory, the water table and farming land, but because MRV, like Adani and POSCO in the Galilee basin, has form. Previously known as Cougar Energy Limited, MRV has already left Kingaroy residents to deal with the environmental consequences of a failed experimental underground coal gasification plant.

By the time it’s got to the stage where it’s quite dramatic, the company’s gone, the mine’s gone and the groundwater systems are destroyed
— Jim McDonald, catchment expert and farmer (RN Breakfast 13 July, 2017)

In The Coal Face (2015) and Hazelwood (2019) Tom Doig reveals the decades of decisions that lead to the 2014 fire, and gives an intimate account of the blaze during the dark weeks that followed. These two books are urgent and immediate accounts of one of the worst health and environmental disasters in Australia’s history. Let’s hope the QLD Government learns from the mistakes of others the past and works adamantly and tirelessly on behalf of the QLD people and citizens to ensure it doesn’t repeat them.

The following piece discusses death, dying and grief.

“There were flies in the kitchen, cane toads in the driveway, golden orb spiders in the Camellia and mosquitoes in the window blinds. Currawongs, butcher birds and magpies sang and shat in the frangipani tree while lizards hunted on the pool tiles. At night possums crawled along the brush fence and bats fought over greenish bananas — everything but my brother was alive.”

— Elspeth Muir Wasted
Published by Text 

In 2009 Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother Alexander finished his last university exam and went out with some mates. Later that night he drifted alone to the Story Bridge, put his things on the walkway and jumped 30 metres into the Brisbane River. Wasted is an intense memoir that weaves biography and reportage into a narrative that’s confronting, honest, generous and warm.

Wasted exposes how the marriage between Australia’s larrikin stereotype and ‘drinking as pastime’ (rather than accompaniment to other activities) creates a culture that normalises excessive drinking. This runs especially deep for those of us who can see ourselves in Elspeth’s descriptions of drunken days and nights. The familiarity of such stories — not benign, prosaic or mundane — explain how Alexander’s drunken escapades were viewed by friends and family as mischievous behaviour from a good-hearted bloke up for a laugh. The problem with a society normalising such drinking is that we struggle to identify problems until a tragedy happens — which, as we all know, is too late.

In 2015 it’s estimated 5,785 Australians aged 15 and over died from alcohol-attributable causes. Cancer was responsible for 2,106 (36%), with injuries, cardiovascular diseases and digestive diseases the next leading causes (about 1000 deaths each: 17%). Further, breast cancer and liver disease were the biggest killers among women. Among men, liver disease and bowel cancer were the most common killers. Hospitalisations averaged about 400 a day, with alcohol dependence (21%), falls (12%) and alcohol abuse (10%) the main causes.¹

In light of these numbers, overall rates of alcohol-induced deaths have declined compared with 20 years ago; such deaths declined significantly in the 2000s after peaking in the late 1990s (stabilising between 2013-2017); and alcohol consumption has decreased over time: the current rate of 9.4 litres per capita compared with 13.4 litres in 1974-1975.² While this indicates Australians are drinking less than in the past, culturally there’s still an issue. Every week one person between 16 and 25 dies in an alcohol-related incident. One in five Australian drinkers drink 75% of all alcohol consumed in Australia. Twenty percent of us drink eighty percent of the alcohol consumed.² Wasted joins the dots between a bottle of wine with dinner and getting so drunk that blacking out and memory loss is commonplace, and through personal confession Elspeth depicts an Australian culture addicted to alcohol in more ways than we’d wish to admit. In 2017 the alcohol-induced death rate (1,366 deaths) was the highest since 1997 (1,156 deaths).²

For Elspeth to write so honestly about the grief and trauma of losing her brother is, of course, fearless — as is confronting Australia’s drinking problem head on. Reflecting on the loss of her brother, she exhibits candour without self-pity: ‘I wasn’t sure if I was crying because I had to or because I was acting, trying to emulate normal sadness.’ Like all of us, Elspeth has multiple inconsistent desires; and even while conflicted, her wishes are relatable — none more so than her need to give Alexander’s death meaning.

Wasted is, at times, sublime — I hear, smell, taste and feel Brisbane in Wasted’s opening paragraph; yet at other times is so very difficult to read — the recounted drunken stories are so familiar that I’m there. Alexander didn’t want to die, and he didn’t need to. ‘His death was a waste,’ Elspeth writes. Wasted is a clear and obvious portrait of a sister’s grief that brings to light the darkness that happens when we drink. I’d like to thank Elspeth for sharing her brother’s story with us.

Links and references

If you feel like you need speak with someone at any time about anything:

• Family Drug Helpline: 1300 368-186. Operates a free confidential support line 24/7.
• Youth Substance Abuse Services: 1800 014-446. Youth support advocacy service that provides free and confidential support.
• Counselling Online: 1800 888-236. Operates free drug and alcohol counselling 24/7.
• Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800. Operates any time, any reason.
• Parentline: 1300 301-300. Operates 8am-10pm, seven days, QLD and NT.
• Lifeline: 13 11 14. Operates a free confidential 24-hour support line and a nightly online crisis support chat.
• Griefline: 1300 845-745. Operates a free confidential phone service from 12pm to 3am, seven days (National – Landline Only), and an online counselling service.
• The Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659-467. Operates phone, video and online counselling 24/7.
• DrugInfo: 1300 85 85 84. Information line.

References

1. Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute
2. From the ‘Deaths dues to harmful alcohol consumption in Australia’ (Australian Bureau of Statistics) and ‘Apparent Consumption of Alcohol Australia report (2016-2017)’.

In the past 40 years (1979 to 2019) Australia’s population almost doubled (14.51mil to 25.26)

• Alcohol-induced deaths declined during the 2000s, after peaking in the late 1990s — reaching a low of 4.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2012 (4.5/100,000).
• Alcohol consumption has decreased since 1974/75. Current rates are 9.4 litres per capita compared with 13.4 litres (1975).
• Alcohol-induced deaths stabilised between 2013-2017.
• Overall alcohol-induced deaths have declined when compared with 20 years ago.
• However, an alcohol-induced death rate of 5.1/100,000 was recorded in 2017 (1,366 deaths), which was the highest since the peak in 1997 (1,156 deaths).
• This change is specifically marked for women, who have recorded their highest rate of alcohol-related death at 7/100,000.

The battle for Australia's tropical rainforests

In December 1983 a small group of local Daintree residents formed a peaceful protest when the Douglas Shire Council, with the support of the Bjelke Petersen State Government, commenced work on a road from Cape Tribulation to Bloomfield in Australia’s tropical north east, about two hours north of Cairns. As an aside, Bjelke Petersen was the longest-serving Queensland Premier (1968–1987); was vocal in calling for Whitlam’s sacking in ‘75; and was openly antagonistic towards the new federal Labor Government (1983–1996). In opposition, Bob Hawke had, in part, campaigned to stop the Franklin Dam in Tasmania. On July 1 1983 the High Court ruled that the Federal Government can legislate on issues if such legislation is necessary to enforce international treaties. This decision and the Hawke Government’s halting of the Franklin had implications for the Daintree.

Known as the Cape Tribulation–Bloomfield Road, or the Bloomfield Track, the road was slated to go through one of the last remaining areas of tropical lowland rainforest in the country (Wet Tropics), and traverse the recently declared Cape Tribulation National Park. The road had been proposed a number of times previously, so the idea wasn’t new, but the move by Council to begin construction right before the Wet caught many by surprise. The initial action halted construction, the police moved in and protesters were arrested. Council’s decisions and the protest actions set off almost a year-long dispute, and the small blockade soon escalated into a full-scale confrontation, which came to be known as the Daintree Blockade.

Those opposed to the road said it would bring unwanted development to an area of high environmental significance. Those in favour saw it as a way to speed up such development. Conservationists literally put their bodies on the line, by maintaining vigils up trees and burying themselves up to their necks in front of the ‘dozers. The blockade included a national campaign to educate people about the exceptional nature of the Daintree Rainforest. The campaign lasted close to ten years, brought ongoing national and international attention to the issue and resulted in the area being World Heritage listed on December 9, 1988.

The Queensland Government initially opposed the listing and took the issue to the High Court to try and stop it, but that was unsuccessful. According to UNESCO the Wet Tropics covers less than 0.2% of the continent, but contains 30% of the marsupial species; 60% of bat species; 25% of rodent species; 40% of bird species; 30% of frog species; 20% of reptile species; 60% of butterfly species; 65% of fern species; 21% of cycad species; 37% of conifers; 30% of orchid species; and 18% of Australia’s vascular plant species — and is home to the Cassowary. It’s clearly ecologically and scientifically significant, if not downright essential.

The road was completed in 1984 — as an alternative to the inland Mulligan Highway — and connects Cape Tribulation to Cooktown. It’s only partially sealed so can be impassable after heavy rains.

Bill Wilkie — a Mossman-based writer and independent publisher — has been researching the Daintree Blockade for over four years. Drawing on over 80 interviews; personal letters and firsthand accounts; newspaper reports; and previously untapped archives, The Daintree Blockade: the battle for Australia’s tropical rainforests is the defining account of those battles. And 4zzz’s Steve Stockwell was on the scene. Many of 4zzz’s reports helped inform Bill’s book.

The Daintree Blockade is available now. To order copies or for more information about the Daintree Blockade itself visit www.daintreeblockade.com.au or go to The Daintree Blockade Book Facebook page. You can read and hear more about the protest on FNQ local ABC Radio; on the Cairns Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC) website; and on the UNESCO World Heritage Convention site.

In 2015 Australia lost vibrant writer, editor and activist Kat Muscat at the age of 25 (1990–2015). A stone-cold scallywag, Kat was a formidable writing talent who taught all those she touched how to love each other better with kindness and empathy. Her writing embodied her personal mantra: Defiance, Feminism, Empathy.

It’s tempting to see the terminology we’re raised with as correct, or at least harmless. Casual ignorance is for our grandparents with their stereotypical fondness for out-dated racial slurs. However, individuals who normally err on the side of political correctness seem unaware (and sometimes unconcerned) that the word pr*stitute is a slur; that the term perpetuates harmful stereotypes and assumptions; and that, no, ‘just kidding’ doesn’t give you a free pass.
— Kat Muscat, Junkee 2014

Together, the Muscat Family and Kat’s former employer: Express Media, publishers of Voiceworks magazine (Australia’s pre-eminent youth-focussed literary journal), established the Kat Muscat Fellowship, a national award supporting young Australian female-identifying and non-binary writers and editors. Fellows are challenged to explore bold subjects, think deeply and critically about the world we live in and the culture we consume, and to reflect and build on the crafts of writing and editing.

The inaugural Fellowship recipient in 2016 was Brisbane-based writer Bri Lee. Back in April 2016 4zzz interviewed Bri about how she felt about the upcoming 12 months (you can listen back to that interview here). Bri is founding editor of Hot Chicks With Big Brains; has participated in SafARI 2016 festival in Sydney; has contributed to Zanita Studio and The Writers Bloc websites; and has written for The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.

Recently the 2017 Fellow was announced as Melbourne-based author Fury. As Bri’s tenure ends (and another stage of her career begins) 4zzz caught up with her — this time at House Conspiracy in West End — to check in on how her project has progressed with the Fellowship’s support in the past twelve months.

Kat Muscat edited Voiceworks magazine (2012–2013) at the ripe old age of 21; volunteered with the magazine for years before becoming editor; and was involved in the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the National Young Writers’ Festival and TINA. She also blogged and wrote for the likes of The Lifted Brow, Junkee, Lip Magazine, Scum, Pitch Bitch, Stilts, Feminartsy, Kill Your Darlings and Seizure Online.

Kat’s nearest and dearest, closest colleagues and friends say it best. Read Aldolfo Aranjuez’s tribute to Kat’s spirit here; read Geoff Lemon’s ‘Hey, Kat’ here; and read Amy Grey’s ‘Missing Kat Muscat’ at Pesky Feminist.

For more information about the Kat Muscat Fellowship go to www.expressmedia.org.au, and for more information about Bri Lee’s work go to hotchickswithbigbrains.com

You can read an excerpt of Bri’s debut memoir Eggshell Skull in the Good Weekend and read more about Bri on hercanberra. Find out more about the Kat Muscat Fellowship here, and read more of Bri’s work here.

If you feel like you need to speak with someone at any time about anything:
Lifeline: free confidential 24-hour support on 13 11 14; nightly online crisis support chat — lifeline.org.au
Grief line: free confidential phone service 12pm to 3am seven days on 1300 845-745 (National – Landline Only); online counselling service — griefline.org.au
Suicide Call Back: phone, video, online counselling 24/7 on 1300 659-467 or suicidecallbackservice.org.au.

This piece discusses mental illness, death and dying, and may contain content that some people find disturbing. If you need help please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Sonia Orchard’s third book Into the Fire is a beautifully written and deceptive page turner, that’s also difficult to read at times. It follows Lara, Alice (Lara’s best friend) and Crow (Alice’s partner). The novel begins a year after Alice’s death in a house fire; and while Lara is trying to get her head around it all, she just can’t come to terms with the loss. Logic says there’s no more she could have done, but she can’t escape the feeling that she’s somehow to blame.

For large tracts, this novel saunters — not meandering or purposeless, but with an understated self confidence, and as Lara’s, Alice’s and Crow’s shared past is revealed, unsettling truths are unearthed, allowing both writer and reader to intimately explore the politics of power and womanhood, and to reflect on guilt, friendship, motherhood and love.

Into the Fire is about looking for answers and truth, and investigates how all of us deploy personal ‘narrative’ and ‘biography’ as survival strategy. As Lara unravels what she believes to be an uncontested past between the three of them, she’s confronted by a shared history that is not so much a set of agreed-upon and concrete events, but more a pile of messy and intangible stuff. She begins questioning her memories and second guessing her decisions, and ultimately her pursuit of answers exposes uncomfortable truths about all three of them. Without giving too much away, Into the Fire does not shy away from dealing with some dark themes. I’ll leave the last word to Louise Swinn (Sydney Morning Herald) who sums the novel up best:

Into the Fire is a superbly crafted novel; the pacing of the plot allows for a psychologically unnerving unravelling, like a slow thriller – almost a whodunit. Orchard makes a mockery of the phrase ‘difficult second novel’, expertly showing how easy it is to be blindsided by the charm of an egoist.

Sonia Orchard is a freelance writer and creative writing teacher, and alongside Into the Fire she is also the author of Something More Wonderful (her 2003 memoir), which was an Australian bestseller, and The Virtuoso, her first novel, which won the 2009 Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction. Into the Fire is published by Australian publisher Affirm Press, and is available at bookshops or online at affirmpress.com.au.

If you feel like you need to speak with someone at any time about anything:
Lifeline: free confidential 24-hour support on 13 11 14; nightly online crisis support chat — lifeline.org.au
Grief line: free confidential phone service 12pm to 3am seven days on 1300 845-745 (National – Landline Only); online counselling service — griefline.org.au
Suicide Call Back: phone, video, online counselling 24/7 on 1300 659-467 or suicidecallbackservice.org.au.

The annual Kat Muscat Fellowship develops young female and feamle idenifying writers and editors from around Australia.

The Fellowship offers professional development up to the value of $3,000 for an editorial project or work of writing by a young person and aims to continue Kat’s legacy and further develop the future of defiant young Australian women. Bri Lee, recipient of the 2016 Fellowship says:

The Kat Muscat Fellowship changed my entire career trajectory. It helped me secure a literary agent, which led to my signing with Allen & Unwin. More importantly though, it allowed me to pay two incredible mentors who helped me draft my manuscript and navigate the complexities of the writing life. I would not be the writer I am today without the Fellowship.

The 2017 Fellow, Fury the Poet, similarly acknowledges the Fellowship’s value.

A writer’s work is often solitary, so having a voice in my ear affirming, challenging, encouraging and guiding me has given me strength to develop faster and with more confidence as a writer… That, for me, has been the real gift.

Kat Muscat was a brilliant young mind of the Australian writing community, whose formidable talent was demonstrated through her incisive writing and perceptive editing. Kat was an integral part of Express Media for many years, before becoming Editor of Voiceworks from 2012 to 2014. Throughout her 10 years with Express Media, Kat helped to shape the career of young writers and editors from all around Australia.

The current list of Fellows is Bri Lee (2016), Fury the Poet (2017), Ana Maria Gomides (2018) and Liana Skrzypczak (2019).

Kat Muscat edited Voiceworks magazine (2012–2013) at the ripe old age of 21; volunteered with the magazine for years before becoming editor; and was involved in the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the National Young Writers’ Festival and TINA. She also blogged and wrote for the likes of The Lifted Brow, Junkee, Lip Magazine, Scum, Pitch Bitch, Stilts, Feminartsy, Kill Your Darlings and Seizure Online.

Kat’s nearest and dearest, closest colleagues and friends say it best. Read Aldolfo Aranjuez’s tribute to Kat’s spirit here; read Geoff Lemon’s ‘Hey, Kat’ here; and read Amy Grey’s ‘Missing Kat Muscat’ at Pesky Feminist.

Find out more about the Kat Muscat Fellowship here. You can read an excerpt of Bri’s debut memoir Eggshell Skull in the Good Weekend, read more about Bri on hercanberra and read more of Bri’s work here.

If you feel like you need to speak with someone at any time about anything:
Lifeline: free confidential 24-hour support on 13 11 14; nightly online crisis support chat — lifeline.org.au
Grief line: free confidential phone service 12pm to 3am seven days on 1300 845-745 (National – Landline Only); online counselling service — griefline.org.au
Suicide Call Back: phone, video, online counselling 24/7 on 1300 659-467 or suicidecallbackservice.org.au.

Image Credit
Photo by Sergiu Nista on Unsplash

This piece is about Awesome People doing Awesome Things, but bear with us, you have to get through a bit of context first, which is, unfortunately, idiots saying idiot things.

Image Credit
Tim Sharpe and Laser Beak Man: https://laserbeakman.com/

Image Credit
Cover from the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market

Image Credit
Photo by raphael beutel on Unsplash

Image Credit
Photo by Roman Manshin on Unsplash

Image Credit
Illustration by Public domain vectors on Unsplash

Image Credit
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Image Credit
Photo by Aneta Hartmannová on Unsplash

Radio Progreso in Honduras
Radio Progreso is an award winning radio station with over 60 years reporting on human rights, social exclusion and defence of the territory.