I ’ve quoted Nietzsche before: “Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with [their] blood.” Writers, artists and poets, we bleed our words. We can’t not. Nearly two years ago I fell into online discussion with Thuy On about the pitfalls of courtship in our age. On my side,…
Author: DashM
Writer, artist, nerd.
Update: Saint Petersburg, Self, S*x
It has been too long but in this time, I have been again to Saint Petersburg. I hoped, rather optimistically, to edit Birch in-situ, but instead spent time finding new ways of experiencing the city that informed most of my writing. I remember a moment of panic on the Sadovaya canal, the first morning I…
Review: The Shining Wall | Melissa Ferguson
The Neanderthal (UK: /niˈændərˌtɑːl/; Homo neanderthalensis) is the extinct species we Homo sapiens shouldered out of existence some 40,000 years ago. Melissa Ferguson’s The Shining Wall imagines their re-emergence as a servile class in a bleak future world. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy of this extraordinary example of…
A new world: The Dangerous Bride | Lee Kofman
It is a glorious, frightening, changing time. I’ve found myself seeking out words to describe the sensuous, the sinewy, the indelibly physical. I returned to the eroticism of Anaïs Nin – that complex, tumultuous, passionate woman I discovered in my teens – and in the process, was directed by Walter Mason to The Dangerous Bride…
New writing: Daphne
New story online now thanks to Baby Teeth, a brilliant new arts journal based in Wollongong, NSW. For me, this was a far more experimental piece in both structure and content, inspired by true, horrific events. Please note the content warning for sexual assault and violence. I’m grateful and honoured Daphne saw the light. Read it HERE….
Lindqvist and King: Horror and catharsis
Dear Mr. Ajvide Lindqvist, I find myself wanting to see your arm, to verify if there is an ‘X’ scarring it, carved by a monster of a policeman. Seeing this scar, I think, might convince me of the existence of horrors beyond this world. In this year of firsts, I was lucky enough recently…
No justice in truth: My Name Is Revenge / Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Truth. History. Genocide. As an authority figure in Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s My Name is Revenge says, we know how “contentious various narratives can be.” These are the words of a principal to a student, young Vrezh, expelled soon after. Vrezh’s misdeed? He tried to bring to the attention of the school faculty events relating to…
Reading and Taxidermy and Meanjin
This year. This maddening, sometimes wonderful year. I am so thrilled to share a short piece I’ve written for Meanjin – an incredible Australian literary magazine I’ve read and followed since uni. This is a happy tick on the writerly bucket list. I’ve dreamed of my writing being published by Meanjin, and this blog post as…
The Big Issue: Happy-stream-of-consciousness-entry-may-delete-this-later
March 2018: I remember sliding an envelope with two copies of a short story called Roadkill Hour in the mail slot of the post office at Helensburgh, imagining ways I could imbue the package with luck. June 28 2018: “Your Story ‘Roadkill Hour’ has been shortlisted” It was a bad day, without disclosing reasons why,…
By Any Other Name
On tentative little tiptoes I’m overjoyed to share that one of my weird short stories has been accepted for publication in a very cool (and meaningful) publication – but more to come about that later. It’s a precious ray of light in a year I keep euphemistically referring to as “challenging.” As part of the…
Dasha Maiorova 