Overland Journal

The role of the committed writer in an unfree world - Overland literary journal No, the committed writer is a movement writer. I mean that the committed writer knows that they know very little, and that the way to remedy that ignorance is through solidarity with people in struggl...

“The committed writer is a movement writer … The committed writer knows that they know very little, and that the way to remedy that ignorance is through solidarity with people in struggle.”

For PEN Melbourne, André Dao on how a writer can make the world more free.

Issue 259 is now here. Available for purchase now: overland.org.au/product/curr...

This comic elegantly puts it all together, making abstract things concrete and seemingly remote things urgently relevant. Fantastic work

Huts - Overland literary journal With the hut as his base, Heidegger would set out on walks where he would collect water from a well and think philosophically.

Bloody hell - how good's this?! I missed it some months ago: Chris Fleming on "Huts" (Heidegger's, Wittgenstein's, Adorno's* (* "the last philosopher who would be caught dead in a hut"), Kaczynski... In @overlandjournal.bsky.social overland.org.au/2025/08/huts/

We are very excited to announce the arrival of Overland No. 259. Now available for purchase in our online store. If you are already a subscriber, keep an eye out for your copy in the mail! overland.org.au/product/curr...

Trying really hard not to make a comic about critical minerals - Overland literary journal I'm trying really hard not to make a comic about critical minerals. 'Cos I know, my mum tells me, "it just doesn't resonate". Unless it's a personal story, critical minerals seem too far removed from ...

In our latest piece for @copower.bsky.social, the wonderful Sofia Sabbagh tries really hard, and ultimately fails, not to make a comic about critical minerals.

We are excited to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize. Head here to read more about the authors! overland.org.au/2026/03/anno...

We are excited to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize. Head here to read more about the authors! overland.org.au/2026/03/anno...

We are thrilled to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Head here to learn more about the poets! overland.org.au/2026/03/anno...

Between past and possibility: Ernest Thalayasingham MacIntyre (1934 – 2025) - Overland literary journal Reading Australia from Lanka and Lanka from Australia, MacIntyre is an artist who made new cultural and social landscapes visible — spaces that Lankan Australians might take as a springboard for our o...

“Reading Australia from Lanka and Lanka from Australia, MacIntyre is an artist who made new cultural and social landscapes visible.”

Suvendrini Perera remembers the playwright Ernest Thalayasingham MacIntyre, who died in December at the age of 91.

Too sick, too hard - Overland literary journal In January 2020 as the Commissioner to the historic Victorian Royal Commission into the Mental Health System was working away, I was sitting inside the padded seclusion room of the psychiatric ward at...

“I write in the hope that the psych ward I do visit next, if that unfortunate day comes, is a reformed one, a changed one and one that treats its patients with a level of dignity and respect not always seen in the past.”

Jarni Blakkarly on the broken promises of mental health reform.

This will only take you five minutes (or less) and it helps us tremendously! Have a squiz: tally.so/r/vGyqVg

Spring’s ember - Overland literary journal I saw your face obscured / thirty-eight degrees / dead grass on the hill beneath the spires / when I returned the day after you left / when I returned did you decide

“I saw your face obscured / thirty-eight degrees / dead grass on the hill beneath the spires / when I returned the day after you left / when I returned did you decide”

From our latest #fridaypoem, SPRING’S EMBER by Elysha English.

Introducing our inaugural readers' survey. Help us do the best by you, and go into the running to win a prize! Head here: tally.so/r/vGyqVg

The hostility of public spaces - Overland literary journal Despite this, I’m still determined to experience things that attract crowds. Some of life’s richness after all — be it through food, culture or escapism — is found on busy streets. Disabled people in ...

“Who were these spaces built for? I ask often myself. Because this famously liveable city seems to favour those able to remain regulated within it.”

Phoebe Thorburn on the hostility of public spaces.

Colonial authoritarianism did not start with Chris Minns - Overland literary journal On 10 February 2026, a crowd gathered a Surry Hills police station on Gadigal Country. It was a snap action to protest against the police brutality of the day before.

Colonial authoritarianism did not start with Chris Minns: in her new comic, Eav Brennan weaves the testimonies of friends who participated in the Herzog rally at Town Hall with the recent history of the attacks on the right to protest in NSW.

Magere - Overland literary journal The story of my ancestors was written in the marks on our bodies and told around meals cooked in an underground oven then shared with the rest of our people over laughs.

“The story of my ancestors was written in the marks on our bodies and told around meals cooked in an underground oven then shared with the rest of our people over laughs.”

So begins MAGERE, a new story written and illustrated by the wonderful Dorell Ben.

A silent discipline: why we all need to hold the line against deportations to Nauru - Overland literary journal As we watch Immigration and Customs Enforcement lay siege to communities in Minnesota — detaining and disappearing neighbours, parents and children while terrorising their allies — we should remember ...

“The selective punishment of one group of migrants or refugees is not an incidental feature of our migration regime: it is its central organising principle.”

Sanmati Verma, Josephine Langbien and James Clarke on the new wave of deportations to Nauru.

On the misuse of Cultural Safety - Overland literary journal Since its original formulation and application in the health sector in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1980s, Cultural Safety has been subject to wide reinterpretation. Its entry into institutional life m...

“I argue that the use of this term must not be dislocated from Indigenous critiques of settler colonialism.”

Ruth De Souza on the misuse of Cultural Safety.

12 minutes - Overland literary journal If you sit still and quietly in a natural environment for twelve minutes, then the animals there will go back to how they were acting before you arrived.

If you sit still and quietly in a natural environment for twelve minutes, then the animals there will go back to how they were acting before you arrived: a new poster by the inimitable @samwallman.bsky.social.

Juice and the politics of anxiety - Overland literary journal Recently longlisted for the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize, Tim Winton’s latest novel, Juice is not — as Winton himself and critics have described it — hopeful and a “creative projection of ‘wondering…’’”...

“When it comes to fiction, then, I am arguing that the anxiety that provoked the writing of Juice is incited by, not detached from, capitalism and power, and no less dangerous than what Winton describes as apathy.”

Daniel Ray on Tim Winton’s JUICE

Holding the line: how Kokatha Custodians took on multinationals in the Woomera Prohibited Area — and won - Overland literary journal Andrew Starkey knew the fight to protect Indigenous cultural heritage couldn’t be fought via the usual channels of justice. Instead, the Starkeys took Saab Australia to the Australian National Contact...

“This is the story of what this win means — not just for the Starkeys and the Kokatha people, but for the global arms trade and the corporate actors operating on Indigenous lands.”

Miriam Deprez on how Kokatha custodians took on multinationals in the Woomera Prohibited Area.

Massive glacier collapse compilation vol 9 - Overland literary journal we are pointing at anything / that flickers, flowers, and beats / our hearts, the trees, and the stars / all set to be slaughtered / in the Anthropocene™ we have set / as revenge for the exile

Our Summer Program concludes today with MASSIVE GLACIER COLLAPSE COMPILATION VOL 9, a brilliant new poem by Lach Valentine. Generously supported by our friends at @copower.bsky.social.

Balm of hurt minds - Overland literary journal In the small hours, the world below Gabriel’s window began to swell with life but he took no notice. He had long learned to tune out the screech of traffic, the mechanical whirr of the going-home trai...

“But Gabriel was not alone, no matter how far his woolly thoughts stretched, and how eternal time felt.”

Our Summer program continues with the first Friday Fiction for 2026: BALM OF HURT MINDS by Claire Cao.

The anxieties of a singular usage of parenthesis: a brief observation of a “fireside tale” that is a novel - Overland literary journal The gothic valorisation of colonial legacy is complete, the purification ritual completed, and moral responsibility abrogated. What does this mean for the bracketed social comment? That social convent...

“And so ends an obscene, morally violent and deceptive novel.”

In what may be Overland’s most Summer read ever, John Kinsella engages in a masterful, labyrinthine (and parenthetical, elliptical …) reading of Hawthorne’s THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES.

We've lost Meanjin, a situation that was completely unthinkable until it actually happened. Don't think we won't lose more. It's quite clear there are people who don't care what they destroy for political gain. Literary culture in this country is already frayed. Don't let it come apart entirely.

In addition to supporting Palestinian writers like Randa Abdel-Fattah, and authors and artists who withdrew from AWW in solidarity, spare a thought for the "little" magazines like @overlandjournal.bsky.social, who have relentlessly stood up for Palestine and have been comprehensively defunded for it

If we don't have places like @overlandjournal.bsky.social who will publish dissenting voices, writers who make the hard and uncomfortable arguments, unapologetic left-wing positions, and who do the work of helping writers find their voices, we don't have literature in this country

Universities and the arts after Bondi: from definitions to “ambient antisemitism” - Overland literary journal The Adelaide Festival’s decision to dump Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from its upcoming Writers’ Week gives us a grim foretaste of the Australian cultural landscape in 2026.

“The Adelaide Festival’s decision to dump Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah gives us a grim foretaste of the Australian cultural landscape in 2026.”

David Brophy on “ambient antisemitism” and the institutional mechanisms for curtailing protest and political expression.

On the need for a renewed democratic universalism - Overland literary journal If we’re to emerge from this awful spiral, in which one form of identitarian chauvinism spurs the next, we’ll only do so on the basis of a very different politics: one that takes for granted the abili...

If you haven't read @jeffsparrow1.bsky.social's article for @overlandjournal.bsky.social yesterday on the politics of what's happened in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, let me recommend you do so now.

overland.org.au/2025/12/on-t...