Exhume

The image shows a collage based on Johanna’s Exhume piece, featuring all 18 covers of the Bulletin in which Velia Ercole’s novel was serialised. In the middle of these pink covers is the title of the novel as it appeared stylised in the magazine. Underneath is the quote: The town and the people she hated encroached on every moment of her life” (Ercole, 29) set against a pastoral farmland background. The background is in a hazy purple on cream.

We know it has not been long since Issue 1 made its debut, but in case you missed one of its 10 contributions, we will do a weekly post highlighting one article at a time!

First up: The Plot Thickens: Reading an Interwar Serial Novel by Johanna Wiggers

exhume.substack.com/p/the-plot-t...

Text-based image on cream background, displaying the names of contributors who have written essays for Issue one of Exhume in order of publication: Jane Costessi, Neo Xia, Amanda Tink, Julia Garas, Jess Cook, Tara East, Ash McIntyre and Tenille McDermott.

A big thank you to all our Issue 1 contributors and readers! We’ve shared some final reflections on putting together Exhume’s inaugural issue over on our Substack: exhume.substack.com/p/thank-you-...

Text based image displaying a quote from Tenille McDermott’s Exhume piece “ChatGPT in Deep Time” on a cream background with an abstract green border. It reads: Across its intertwined stories, The Hummingbird Effect explores how we, as humans, sit within the broader context of deep time and the nature of our connectedness across time. With our short individual lifespans, we sit inevitably at a distance from the vastness of geologic time; so, too, do neural networks sit at a remove from the human experience of time.

We can’t believe that Issue 1 is coming to an end!
We're going out with a bang: In “ChatGPT in Deep Time”, Tenille tackles some big themes: deep time, artificial intelligence, storytelling, and the human experience. Live now on exhume.substack.com

Text-based image on cream background. Under the green and blue heading “Exhume Issue 1: Meet our contributors” is the name Tenille McDermott, highlighted in green. To the right is an image of Tenille, captured mid-interview, holding a microphone, notes and a book.

Text-based image on cream background featuring an introduction of Tenille: Tenille McDermott (she/her) is a writer and PhD candidate exploring the intersection between time, narrative, and machine-generated text. She is the co-editor of Sūdō Journal, and the co-host and co-producer of the podcast Edits & Annotations, a project of the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing. She was the recipient of a 2025 Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre Fellowship and longlisted for the 2025 AAWP/Westerly Life Writing Award.

Text-based image on cream background advertising Tenille’s Exhume piece. Under the heading “Issue 1” is the title “ChatGPT in Deep Time: Technology and Temporality in Kate Mildenhall’s The Hummingbird Effect. Underneath, on a blue background, is the book cover of The Hummingbird Effect which is light blue and features yellow wings.

Tomorrow, we will be posting the last piece of Issue 1: “ChatGPT in Deep Time: Technology and Temporality in Kate Mildenhall’s The Hummingbird Effect” by Tenille McDermott.

Text-based image of a pull quote from Ash’s Exhume piece entitled “The Author is Dead. Long Live the Witness: Why Climate Fiction is an Ethical Act, Not Just a Story” displayed on a cream background with a green abstract border. The quote reads: By weaving scientific ideas into human-scale stories, these novels work on us emotionally as well as intellectually. Fiction, then, becomes a kind of ethical experiment: an invitation to feel differently, and perhaps to live differently, in the face of ecological crisis.

Now live on our Substack: “The Author is Dead. Long Live the Witness: Why Climate Fiction is an Ethical Act, Not Just a Story” by Ash McIntyre

exhume.substack.com/p/the-author...

Text-based image on cream background. Under the green and blue heading “Exhume Issue 1: meet the contributors is the name Ash McIntyre. Next to that is an image of Ash eating a bowl of pasta at a restaurant.

Text based image on cream background which reads: Ash McIntyre (she/her) is an academic and artist with a PhD in Literature from the University of Newcastle, where she currently lectures. Her research explores the intersections of literary ecocriticism, Anthropocene fictions, and literary activism, with a keen interest in interdisciplinary approaches that extend into soundscape ecology and gender studies. Ash is fuelled by a three-coffee-per-day limit, the endless promise of her towering 'to read' pile, pasta, and a resting attitude of over-enthusiasm for her work.

Text-based image advertising Ash McIntyre’s Exhume piece entitled “The Author is Dead. Long Live the Witness: Why Climate Fiction is an Ethical Act, Not Just a Story.” Underneath are the book covers of James Bradley’s novels Clade and Ghost Species, as well as Inga Simpson’s The Last Woman in the World an The Thinning on a blue background.

Live tomorrow: “The Author is Dead. Long Live the Witness: Why Climate Fiction is an Ethical Act, Not Just a Story” by Ash McIntyre

exhume.substack.com

Text-based image showing a quote from Tara East’s Exhume piece on a cream background with a green abstract border. It reads: Across these two works, Arnott offers a way to reimagine fairy tales and mythologies in the Australian landscape. However, he does not simply overlay this existing land with familiar European tales, instead, he has drawn upon the tradition to create his own, unique fairy tale works that are both surprising and inventive.

Tara East’s “Magical Navigation: Writing Magic into the Australian Landscape,” which explores Robbie Arnott’s use of magic and fairy-tale elements in Flames (2018) and The Rain Heron (2020), is now available to read on our Substack.

exhume.substack.com/p/magical-na...

Text-based image on cream background. Under the green and blue heading “Exhume Issue 1: meet the contributors is the name Tara East highlighted by a green circle. Next to the name is an image of Tara, wearing blond, shoulder-length hair open and glasses, glancing to the left.

Text based image on cream background, reading: Tara East (she/her) is writer and researcher at University of Southern Queensland where she teaches creative writing. Her research has appeared in The Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, and Writing from Below. Her fiction has been published in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, SWAMP magazine, October Hill Magazine, and TEXT Journal. She is also the author of the mystery novel, Every Time He Dies.

Text-based image advertising Tara East’s Exhume piece entitled ““Magical Navigation: Writing Magic into the Australian Landscape.” Underneath the title are the book covers of Robbie Arnott’s Flames, featuring a whale and a rat on a cream background, and the cover of The Rain Heron featuring blue feathers on a light blue background. Both covers are displayed on a dark blue background.

Live tomorrow: “Magical Navigation: Writing Magic into the Australian Landscape” by Tara East. In it, Tara offers a compelling reading of Robbie Arnott’s Flames (2018) and The Rain Heron (2020) as examples of original fairytales that create an alternative, magical version of Lutruwita.

Why books burn - Mirela Cufurovic Mirela Cufurovic ponders historical and contemporary book burning, and outlines the catastrophic ramifications of epistemicide.

Some bleakness and worry for the future, but also a reminder to appreciate our access to the digital archive in Trove.
www.griffithreview.com/articles/why...

Spent the morning re-visiting this beautiful piece from our colleague Mirela, leading me to big thoughts about books, the purpose of writing and reflecting, the enduring power of cultural memory.

text-based image featuring a cream background and green abstract border displaying a quote from Jess Cook’s Exhume piece entitled “Haunted and Haunting” and reads: The Kinder-gothic imagination exposes the contradictions of the liminal state of childhood, through which everybody passes. By exploring the darkness as well as the light, being- and growing-in-the-world might just make a little more sense.

Now live on our Substack: “Haunted and Haunting: Chaosmos, the Gothic, and Disintegrating Binaries in Reece Carter’s Tales from Elston-Fright Series” by Jess Cook.
exhume.substack.com/p/haunted-an...

Text-based image on cream background. Under the green and blue heading “Exhume Issue 1: Meet our contributors” is the name Jess Cook and a selfie of Jess wearing round glasses and smiling widely.

Text based image on cream background which reads: Jessica Cook (she/her) has a doctorate in literature and an insatiable love for stories, especially children's fantasy fiction. She lives in joyful chaos in a fairy tale gum forest in Queensland where she reads, writes, wanders, drinks coffee, and cares for a menagerie of animals and children. She teaches literature at the University of Southern Queensland, and has had creative works published in WQ, SWAMP, and soon in The Orange & Bee.

Text based image advertising Jess’ Exhume piece entitled “Haunted and Haunting: Chaosmos, the Gothic, and Disintegrating Binaries in Reece Carter’s Tales from Elston-Fright Series.” Underneath are the three covers from the series featuring colourful illustrations of undead children on a blue background.

Coming tomorrow: Kinder-Gothic (need we say more?). In “Haunted and Haunting,” Jess Cook reads Reece Carter’s middle-grade fantasy series Tales from Elston-Fright through a Gothic lens and examines how Carter creates spooky spaces in which children’s subjectivities form, and binaries break down.

Text based image on cream background with green abstract border displaying a pull quote from Bianca’s Exhume piece “Text and Testimony” which reads: In highlighting the influence of environment and circumstance, Gorrie and Thunig expose the ongoing impacts of colonialism as a system of power to be reckoned with in the conversation about sexual violence.

"Text and Testimony: Australian #MeToo Memoirs" by Bianca Martin is now live on our Substack:
exhume.substack.com/p/text-and-t...

Text based image. On a cream background, the heading: “Exhume Issue 1 Meet our Contributors” is displayed in green and blue. Underneath is the name Bianca Martin and a selfie of Bianca, smiling and wearing glasses.

Text based image on cream background reading: Bianca Martin (she/her) is a PhD candidate at James Cook University and a previous research fellow with State Library of Queensland. Her research areas include life writing, sexual violence, community representation, and unconventional modes of writing and publishing. She has been published in a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, M/C Journal, and Writing from Below. She is the creator of the long-running perzine Rut Zine and editor of Exhume.

Text based image on cream background advertising Bianca’s Exhume piece entitled “Text and Testimony: Australian #MeToo Memoirs.” It depicts the covers of Black and Blue (2021) by Gunai/Kurnai author Veronica Gorrie and Tell Me Again (2022) by Gomeroi author Amy Thunig on a blue background.

Tomorrow, another must-read essay is going live. In it, Bianca Martin situates two memoirs by Indigenous Australian writers as examples of collective testimony through a #MeToo lens: Black and Blue (2021) by Gunai/Kurnai author Veronica Gorrie and Tell Me Again (2022) by Gomeroi author Amy Thunig.

Kate Mildenhall’s fast-paced thriller The Hiding Place skewers middle-class pretensions

📚 REVIEW: In The Hiding Place, the hollow ethics of Kate Mildenhall’s characters are exposed as exploitative and mercenary.

Libraries have bounced back after COVID. Here's how they did it Public libraries in Australia are experimenting with inventive ways to attract new members — but a lack of funding means they must do more with less.

Yay Libraries (also fund libraries! they do so much beyond books—they really are about collectives)

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

The 5 stages of the ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing

Academic publishing now shows the same decline that has hit social media and online marketplaces.

The #EWF26 Artist Call-Out is now open!✨

We're back with online and in-person events from 10-18 September, and we want YOU to be part of it!

So, hurry to our website for full details and apply: emergingwritersfestival.org.au/artist-call-...

Closing 6 Feb 🗓️

Text-based image featuring a pull quote from Julia Garas’ Exhume piece entitled “Memory and Manus Island.” With an abstract green border, the following quote is displayed on a cream background: No Friend but the Mountains gives agency back to refugees imprisoned in Australian detention centres by prioritising a place and identity that is not given space in the national narrative. It also challenges the insular settler imagination of Australia.

Julia's piece is now live: exhume.substack.com/p/memory-and...

Text based image with a blue heading underlined in green, reading Exhume Issue 1: Meet our contributors. At the bottom of the image is the name “Julia Garas” and an image of Julia, who is smiling and wearing a brown shirt.

Text based image which reads: Julia Garas (she/her) did her PhD at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia where she currently works as a sessional academic. Her research areas include contemporary Australian literature and television, national memory, national identity and decolonial theory. She has been published in Limina Journal and is a regular book reviewer for Westerly.

Text based image advertising Julia’s Exhume piece entitled “Memory and Manus Island: Reading Refugee Resistance in No Friends But the Mountains.” Underneath is an image of the books cover featuring a black and white close up of Boochani’s face, displayed on a blue background.

Happy new year, everyone!! We’re back tomorrow with the first essay of Issue 1 Part 2!

Julia Garas reads Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend But the Mountains (2018) as an example of refugee resistance writing and places it in conversation with a history of Australian refugee detainment.

Text based image showing a pull quote from Amanda Tink’s Exhume Piece, entitled “Portrait of the Autist Erased. Which reads: The erasure of Murray’s autism, though not acceptable, was perhaps understandable in 1974 when “Portrait of the Autist” was published. Fifty years on, there is an urgent need to question this attitude and ask: who does it serve?

Amanda’s “Portrait of The Autist Erased” is now live on our Substack!

Thank you to everyone who followed Part I of issue I. We will be back with Part II on 6 Jan!

Text-based image with the heading “Exhume Issue 1: Meet the contributors.” Below is the name Amanda Tink, highlighted in green, and a black and white photo of Amanda.

Text based image displaying the text: Dr Amanda Tink is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UniSA Creative, University of South Australia, and Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University's Writing and Society Research Centre. She is a proud disabled person with research interests in Australian disabled authors, crip poetics and memoir, and the Nazi genocide of disabled people. Her PhD thesis "Never Towing a Line: Les Murray, Autism, and Australian Literature" details how Murray's autism and his experiences of being disabled influenced his poetry.

Text-based image which feature the heading “Issue 1.” Underneath it says, “Read Amanda’s Exhume piece: Portrait of the Author Erased.” Underneath, on a blue background, is the cover of Les Murray’s Collected Poems, which features a black and white photo of Murray sitting in a chair.

Before we take a short break over Christmas, one more brilliant essay will be posted on our Substack tomorrow. In it, Amanda Tink revisits the poems of Les Murray through an autistic lens.

ANU Press Coming Soon. Cover image of Australian Journal of Biography and History: No. 10, 2025

The latest issue of 'Australian Journal of Biography and History' explores overlooked lives that challenge Australian identity, from writers and diplomats to Aboriginal leaders and educators, revealing stories of risk, conflict and unconventional lives.

Register: doi.org/10.22459/AJB...

Text based image featuring a pull quote from Neo’s Exhume piece “Flesh and Cog,” which reads: Ireland shows how our flesh becomes the primary battlefield for both oppression and, ultimately, resistance. Reading him today, it’s clear his critique was prescient. He was diagnosing our current struggle half a century early: the conflict between our physical selves and the abstract logic of data.

You can now read Neo’s fascinating exploration of David Ireland’s The Industrial Prisoner (1971) and A Woman of the Future (1979) on our Substack!

exhume.substack.com/p/flesh-and-...

Pretty stoked that we hit 100 subscribers on Friday which is just AMAZING! We had no idea how this project would be received and we’re so grateful for everyone who is taking the time to read and engage with these pieces 💗

Text based image featuring a pull quote from Neo’s Exhume piece “Flesh and Cog,” which reads: Ireland shows how our flesh becomes the primary battlefield for both oppression and, ultimately, resistance. Reading him today, it’s clear his critique was prescient. He was diagnosing our current struggle half a century early: the conflict between our physical selves and the abstract logic of data.

You can now read Neo’s fascinating exploration of David Ireland’s The Industrial Prisoner (1971) and A Woman of the Future (1979) on our Substack!

exhume.substack.com/p/flesh-and-...

Text based image which reads: Neo Xia (he/him) is a PhD candidate at RMIT University. His research areas include science fiction cinema, the film industry, and sci-fi film culture, with a particular focus on topics related to cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk. He has been published in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Southern Semiotic Review, Somatechnics: Journal of Bodies – Technologies – Power, Cinephile: The University of British Columbia's Film Journal, and NiTRO + Creative Matters.

Text based image which features the title of Neo’s Exhume piece: “ Flesh and Cog: David Ireland’s Bodily Critique of a systemised World. Underneath are two book covers of Ireland’s The Industrial Prisoner, and A Woman of the Future on a blue background

Text based image. Under the title “Exhume Issue 1: Meet the contributors,” is the name “Neo Xia” and to the right a selfie of Neo in anelevator, wearing glasses and a leather jacket.

Another Exhume piece will go live tomorrow!

In “Flesh and Cog” Neo Xia makes a case for revisiting the work of David Ireland, who critiqued the commodification of the body in the 1970s in ways that resonate with the algorithmic abstraction of our cultural moment.

Melbourne poet Pi.O performs in front of the Melbourne offices of Meanjin during the Save Meanjin protest, 11 September 2025. Behind him, a man in jeans holds up a sign that covers his face. The sign reads, "Purely on financial grounds".

🚨JAS 49.4 now available 🚨

JAS editors: "the intellectual mission of #Meanjin lives on beyond its pages, and we commit JAS to similarly challenging and extending the nation’s mental life."

Thank you to @beneltham.bsky.social for permission to use the cover image.

tinyurl.com/yphjfn38

#OzStudies

Isobelle Carmody is one of Australia's most beloved writers. In episode 7, she chats to Bethany about how the industry has changed throughout her career, how she keeps track of the worlds she creates, and what it’s like to have other people write PhDs about your work.

www.pod.link/1793719696/e...