We’ve got a short ISSUE this month, exploring the theme of FILM! We’ve got a killer podcast, one of our editors made a short, and we’ve got tons of good photography on there too. AND I made these posters from these three photos off Flickr. 

Enjoy!

ISSUE Magazine 6: The Addiction Edition is out, and here are my contributions to it this month: Nothing so big as a thimble, nothing so small as the weight of your guilt, the latest instalment for my column A Contract’d Life. In it I struggle with the concept of addiction and its thorny branches - sin, shame, vices, secrets - and out of it came my first attempts at blackout poetry. It was an interesting challenge, but I can already see all the ways in which I could do it better next time.  ISSUE Podcast 006 - this month I got roped in to fly solo on our monthly podcast, and I sat down with writer and social worker Petra Gimbad as we talked about addiction - specific to her experience working with street youth in Kuala Lumpur, but also in the abstract and universal sense. Petra was quite intimidating because she knew so much more than us but she never seemed to falter at even my dumbest questions, and was so well-spoken and patient.  This month’s poster! Which is a scan of a photo I took with my film camera on my Sydney trip earlier this year. It’s off an art installation by Jason Wing in a Chinatown laneway. I have a few versions that has Nat and Cass under it. In fact, Cass is also in the photo I used for my column image - you can sort of see her peeking through the bamboo. 

ISSUE Magazine 6: The Addiction Edition is out, and here are my contributions to it this month:

  • Nothing so big as a thimble, nothing so small as the weight of your guilt, the latest instalment for my column A Contract’d Life. In it I struggle with the concept of addiction and its thorny branches - sin, shame, vices, secrets - and out of it came my first attempts at blackout poetry. It was an interesting challenge, but I can already see all the ways in which I could do it better next time. 
  • ISSUE Podcast 006 - this month I got roped in to fly solo on our monthly podcast, and I sat down with writer and social worker Petra Gimbad as we talked about addiction - specific to her experience working with street youth in Kuala Lumpur, but also in the abstract and universal sense. Petra was quite intimidating because she knew so much more than us but she never seemed to falter at even my dumbest questions, and was so well-spoken and patient. 
  • This month’s poster! Which is a scan of a photo I took with my film camera on my Sydney trip earlier this year. It’s off an art installation by Jason Wing in a Chinatown laneway. I have a few versions that has Nat and Cass under it. In fact, Cass is also in the photo I used for my column image - you can sort of see her peeking through the bamboo. 

A CREATIVE PROJECT I AM INVOLVED IN THAT MAYBE YOU COULD CHECK OUT, PLEASE, THANK YOU

Last Monday, my friends Lutfi and Al (joined by their friend Atiqah) launched the inaugural issue of their blog-for-young-creatives, ISSUE Magazine. The theme of the first ISSUE is Loss, which (I hope I’m correct in saying this) was possibly motivated by the podcast they did with me where we talked about the difficulty of turning personal and painful experiences into writing, into art, into work. This was in relation to my yearlong Honours project writing about my mother’s death and the neverending ripples of that event.

The podcast was done in March when ISSUE was just a gleam in their eyes, a somewhat rushed affair in a room of Al’s house, an hour before I had to head off into the depths of KL for a friend’s wedding. 

When it became something more, Al sent me an email, not only telling me that this idea of theirs had become (or was to become) a fully formed thing, but that I was a part of it in some way and that they wanted me to continue being involved. 

And so, not only can you hear my Valley Girl accent (so, like, um…I speak in questions?) on the podcast on loss, you can also read the memoir essay I wrote as part of my coursework last year, titled I Am Answered, and hopefully in future editions (the next ISSUE is slated for July, the theme: Self Discovery) read a monthly column by me. 

It’d be lovely if you could check out both things, or even just click over and take a gander at this thing Lutfi, Al, Atiqah and all the other contributors have put together. They’d love to hear from you, and so would I!