Memoir
It’ll Be Back One Day
Every time I walked through that gate, I’d marvel at the pawpaws, bead trees, palms, bromeliads, and magnolias that surrounded me, noting the difference in heat from the street to the carport.
Read now
The Hillarys House
It was set high in the northern coastal suburbs of Perth. The neighbourhood, Hillarys, had been a suburb for less than twenty years; before that, I don’t know.
Read now
What’s It Going To Be, Hon?
My apartment is part of a council housing estate, which means it’s one in a honeycomb of 260 versions of itself.
Read now
Down In The Valley
I’ve returned this year, like I do every Christmas, to my parents’ home on a busy street in Lenah Valley, Tasmania.
Read now
Burning The House
You’re on the decking of our Christmas Hills house, the Yarra Valley stretching out like patchwork between your knees.
Read now
Four Grey Walls
There is nothing uniquely ‘Canberra’ about our apartment. It is a generic yellow block, built in the ’90s, with a manicured yard and a body corporate that sends us letters we never read.
Read now
Living Things
While the city flooded, one of the timber stilts holding up my mother’s house uprooted.
Read now
Antipodean: Rental Application Section B (ii) – Previous Residence
All the cat-rearing guides warn against relocating a feline.
Read now
Triangles: The Holey Trinity of Possible BPD (Part 4)
Part Four: the Holey Trinity of Relieving, Reinforcing and Restarting.
Read now
Lost At Sea: Katowice, Poland
I am standing in the middle of a vast rural expanse in Oświęcim, Poland. I’d travelled by way of a rickety cab from Katowice, where I was staying. You may know Oświęcim as Auschwitz.
Read now
Triangles: The Holey Trinity of Possible BPD (Part 3)
Part Three: Companions
Read now
Triangles: The Holey Trinity of Possible BPD (Part 2)
Part Two: the Kids Aren’t Alright.
Read now
The Grade: Tim ‘The Rig’ Riggins
Reviews of life and stuff.
Read now
Triangles: the Holey Trinity of Possible BPD (Part 1)
Part One: Triangles.
Read now
Lost At Sea: Contact with toad water
It’s a peculiar thing to know exactly where you are all the time, but not to know if you like or dislike it.
Read now
Meeting Janette Turner Hospital
It’s five minutes past our scheduled interview time and there’s no sign of her.
Read now
Meeting Julian Barnes
I wish I could say that I fell in love with Julian Barnes because of the immaculate quality of his writing, but instead my reasons are shamefully superficial.
Read now
Accidents & Emergencies: Boofhead
My brother got his head glued back together when I was nine.
Read now
Meeting Martin Amis
Back in Manchester, the Americans are swapping stories about their trips and sorting through souvenirs.
Read now
Accidents & Emergencies: Becoming Liam Neeson
Did you know you can buy a kitten off the Internet for $25?
Read now
Meeting Jane Austen
Four years ago, I set out on a pilgrimage in search of Jane Austen.
Read now
Accidents & Emergencies: Fish and Chups
I’ve always imagined my voice to be rich like oak or Bill Gates.
Read now
The Grade: Best Melbourne Eats for Under a Tenner
Although my days as a student are over and I no longer study menus with the same eye for ‘great value’ (or rather, ‘the least for the most’) I still love eating cheap.
Read now
Weather Systems: Storms over Brisbane
There’s a rite of passage every Brisbane resident experiences and comes to cherish: storm season.
Read now
Grow up, stupid: Small mysteries
At the beginning of May my brother called me at work to ask if I’d been entering children’s competitions under false names.
Read now
The Grade: The Real Housewives of Melbourne
For a while I was completely hooked on the Real Housewives of Melbourne.
Read now
Weather Systems: Singapore
My family and I moved to London when I was ten. We spent one day and one night in Singapore on the way.
Read now
Grow up, stupid: Celebration injuries, in reverse order
Important hints and tips on how to be an adult.
Read now
The Grade: Four Winters in Melbourne
This winter will be my fourth in Melbourne. When I first arrived, I didn’t know winter very well, beyond my experience of westerly winds, bright skies, and duffle coats in Toowoomba as a kid.
Read now
Heading North: Long Distance Running
Two weeks seems like not enough time to really miss someone, but really I missed you from the second your mouth left mine.
Read now
Dungeons, Dragons, and Superman
When I was seven I was very shy. In report cards there were always comments like, ‘Michael is a bright boy, but he really needs to speak up more in class.
Read now
The Grade: Karate & Getting Engaged
Last year two things happened that changed life quite a bit.
Read now
Archaeology
I find a Japanese toy from the 70’s when I am digging under my dad’s house. Just three parts of a robot bird. It is called a Micronaught.
Read now
Grow up, stupid: How to eat soup in hotels with your mother
Retire, after spending the day at Soveriegn Hill’s historic Goldrush Town, to your hotel for dinner.
Read now
Curtain Skirt
One of the first things I made was a skirt from my bedroom curtains.
Read now
Three Costumes
When I was young I liked performing on stage. While now I shy away from it at any cost, then I liked it a lot.
Read now
The Invention
Children are pretty dumb and lame, because they can’t even drive cars and are freakishly short.
Read now
Mothers & Fathers: Love is a couch on fire
My mother and father furnished their Queensland home with remarkable thrift.
Read now
Love is like a Ferris wheel
In 1989, 1990 and 1991 I wrote three poems titled ‘Love is like a Ferris wheel’ in my poetry diaries.
Read now
Red Pleather
My parents love to travel. Even now, they’re somewhere in the Gulf of Carpenteria, swiping flies and uploading photos of their campsite.
Read now
Mothers & Fathers: The List
I’ve got this list. Unlike most lists, it wasn’t conceived to restore daily order to my life. This list is part of a far greater exercise in futility: the quest to arrive at a personality.
Read now
Sparrow & Other Stories
A few months back, on a day where I was at my most doubtful, my most fearful and claustrophobic, an airmail envelope arrived.
Read now
The Grade: Legs
Once, I saw a segment on A Current Affair that chastised a middle-aged woman for wearing mini skirts.
Read now
Pitching Machine
My father is shorter than I am, about 5’10”, and muscled the same way I imagine an old sailor to be muscled.
Read now
Grow up, stupid: How to do it (sex)
Like literally everything else in your life, base your initial understanding of sex on FRIENDS.
Read now
The Grade: The 2013 AFL Premiership Season
My footy year wrapped up watching the grand final on a small pub screen in Julatten, a one-street town northwest of Cairns.
Read now
Grow up, stupid: Being poor
First of all, before anything, make sure to grow up not fully understanding the value of hard work.
Read now
Celebrity: Four Encounters
Came runner-up in the Nudgee Junior College poetry competition in year seven.
Read now
Portrait 4: My grandmother at 80
I was raised by women or spent a lot of time with women in my family. I never knew my grandfather, only my grandmother without him.
Read now
Portrait 3: My brother at 24
My younger brother and I spent a long time living together in a house without parents, maybe almost a decade. Maybe this was too long for us to do this.
Read now
Portrait 2: My father at 26
My father had studied photography and thought he’d be a photographer, but then that hadn’t exactly panned out.
Read now
Portrait 1: Myself as a teenager
My father had studied photography and thought he’d be a photographer, but then that hadn’t exactly panned out.
Read now
LADDAAY LIFE
My boss’s dandruff looks exactly like white quinoa flakes. When I am cleaning the shop in the evenings, I think about vacuuming his scalp.
Read now
Okay, Cupid, bring me a dream, Sandman style
Three days ago I finished signing up to OkCupid. I’ve had it with Plenty of Fish. I concede that my friend was right when she said that POF is full of ‘psychopaths and punctuation abuse’.
Read now
How To Wild Card: Befriend Your Crush’s New Boyfriend
Before starting, cultivate your infatuation with this woman over at least six months, or longer.
Read now
Batman, Virgin or Serial Killer
It seems that online dating is not for the faint-hearted. A friend of mine described it nicely as an ‘ever-escalating game of chicken’.
Read now
The FNQ Connection
I am reviewing and deleting my 15 or so matches when I spot a familiar face in a profile picture. His screen name contains the letters FNQ.
Read now
Disturbing Dermot and the Stripper
It’s 9 o’clock on Friday night and we’ve found ourselves outside Club Minx on Elizabeth Street.
Read now
How To: Grow Up (A Beginner’s Guide)
Invest in an array of cookbooks. Include books for vegans and books about low-sugar foods. Share salad recipes via email with friends.
Read now
Things I brought home: In the end I didn’t have them
Six weeks after coming home from India.
Read now
Things I brought home: Two dresses
On Nguyen Duy Hieu, the road that runs right up the middle of Hoi An, there’s a tailor shop called Sun.
Read now
The first poem I wrote was a little book
I can’t really remember when I first wrote a poem that I consciously called a poem, but when I was about three and four I used to make these little books.
Read now
The first poem I wrote was a haiku
Mum points to the large cardboard box in the corner of the living room. Bulging with papers, folders and ring-binder plastic-sleeves, all of it yellowing and musty.
Read now
The first poem I wrote had three wishes
I remember asking one of my cousins to help me write a poem when I was about 7.
Read now
We have guests: My Mother, the Perfect Guest
My mother packs for trips six weeks in advance.
Read now
We have guests: Playing Host
Senjuuin is a Buddhist temple on top of a mountain between Nara and Osaka in the southern part of Honshu, Japan.
Read now
The First Time Series: Space & dinosaurs
On my first day of school Mum walked me across the grass playground to the pale yellow weatherboard Queenslander sitting on the edge of the teacher’s gravel driveway.
Read now
Tim buys a suit
I bought a suit last week. The suit is burgundy, slim-fit, and its kind was worn by my celebrity crush on the red carpet, once.
Read now
Tim lives at home
I’ve been having thoughts about moving out, lately.
Read now
Tim falls in love
The night before I was due to submit this piece, the guy that I have been dating told me he couldn’t see me anymore.
Read now
The Prophecy Series: Reunion
One Saturday afternoon Nanna was sifting through the cupboard, and came across that set of pictures. They were in a box of stuff from a McDade family reunion Pa had gone to years ago.
Read now
Tim goes to work
It occurred to me recently that I have had eight employers in the last financial year.
Read now
The Sea Series: Crab pots
My uncle pulls the writhing silver fish up from the water and drops it in the bottom of the boat.
Read now
The Sea Series: Fishing rod
My little brother doesn’t like to put his head under the water. My cousins are trying to teach him to duck when the waves grow too tall.
Read now
Sam gives tips on talking about your novel
If you decide to be a writer, you are going to want to tell people.
Read now
Sam hands out assignments for the Class of Regret
As a writer, you have to accept that most things you write will make you cringe like hell about a year down the track.
Read now
Sam shares his recipe for a short story
A writer has to write. Every now and then you are going to have to pull yourself together, draw on all of your shitty experiences and horrible trains of thought, and then you will have to write words and fit them together and call it a story.
Read now
The Recipe Series: Lasagne
I am somewhat familiar with culinary experimentation. After my parents divorced my siblings and I began to stay with Dad on the weekends.
Read now
Sam explains how to play backstory
Writers are a breed apart. We are fuelled on troubles and fun is our Kryptonite.
Read now
The Recipe Series: Rissoles & Gravy
Nanna stands at the laminate bench and cracks an egg into a pyrex bowl full of mince. She removes her rings, and sinks her fingers into the cold meat.
Read now
The Pilgrimage Series: Reunion
There are definitely moments from my school days I could happily forget: woodwork, piss splash, Mr Kollar, the walkathon, the certificate I received on assembly for ‘letting my poetic juices flow’.
Read now
The Pilgrimage Series: Game Day
Game day. A slow start to the morning but with definite purpose in mind. Mum and I would go to Windy Hill, and Robin and Dad to Footscray.
Read now
The Brothers & Sisters Series: Favourites?
I sometimes wonder who got the better deal, my brother or sister or me.
Read now
The Summer Series: Oh summer. You are a jerk.
There are always signs that you have come. The middle knuckle of my left hand and the skin behind my right knee inexplicably flare up with dermatitis.
Read now
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens series: Part III
Growing up in a household of six children with all of us crammed together, my sister playing Alanis Morissette down in the garage, my younger brother sleeping in the walk-in wardrobe, my older brother eating food from the plate in front of me, I’ve grown up with a very relaxed understanding of personal boundaries.
Read now
The Jack’s in Germany series: Part III
When I was fifteen I went to Germany on a school trip for a month with two of my best friends Ellen and Kate, and ten other students.
Read now
The Jack’s in Germany series: Part I
I was born on the second of January. The significance of this day for my brothers, and possibly for my father as well, is that Michael Schumacher was born the day after.
Read now
The Pub Series: Part IV
On the southern bank of the Clarence, corner of Through and Skinner Streets in Grafton, is Walkers Marina Hotel. The pub looks proudly over the big wide river and out to Susan Island.
Read now
Jason Reed tells us what it’s like to be halfway there
In high school, I was super horny. I had lots of friends who were girls, but no girlfriends.
Read now
Tessa Klein finally tells us what ‘gunch’ is
I moved to Brisbane on my mother’s 47th Birthday. I gave her a small, newspaper-wrapped parcel after we unpacked the car. She took off the paper and started to cry.
Read now
Sam Maguire talks writing whilst drunk
Everyone knows great writers are great substance abusers. Drugs and alcohol go hand in hand with writing like cheese goes with tomato sauce on your lazy mother’s packed lunch sandwiches.
Read now
The Brisbane Series: Part IV
I grew up in Mackay, a town where sugar cane ran rampant across hillsides. Brisbane meant waking at 4am, leaving the dogs behind and driving to a servo where I would invariably eat hot chips.
Read now
The Brisbane Series: Part II
That first summer we lived with two photography students in a rickety old Queenslander in the hills of Auchenflower and there was a hills-hoist in the sloping back yard and spiders big as paper plates hanging in curtains from the pistachio tree at the bottom of the hill.
Read now
The Brisbane Series: Part III
We came down the range in a white Commodore. Mum and Dad in the front, and Tom and me in the back eating salad sandwiches with beetroot-stained white bread.
Read now
The Brisbane Series: Part I
When I moved to Brisbane my Nonna pushed a fifty dollar note into my palm and grabbed my face with both her hands.