kill your darlings - issue 22

N E W F I C T I O N | C O M M E N T A R Y | E S S A Y S | R E V I E W S

Kill your darlings

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Kill Your Darlings

PO Box 271, Seddon West Victoria, 3011, Australia

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com

Kill Your Darlings 22, 2015

Publishing Directors Rebecca Starford and Hannah Kent

Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Starford

Editor Brigid Mullane

Deputy Editor Hop Dac

Online Editor Veronica Sullivan

Online Deputy Editor Samantha Forge

Interviews Editor Gerard Elson

Marketing Coordinator Briony Kent

Editorial Assistants Meaghan Dew, Ashleigh Hanson

Published by Kill Your Darlings Pty Ltd

This collection © Kill Your Darlings 2015

ISBN 978-0-9941638-7-5, ISSN 1837-638X

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission

of Kill Your Darlings. The views and opinions expressed by individual authors are not necessarily

those of the editors.

Cover illustration: Guy Shield

Design and layout: © Kill Your Darlings

Kill Your Darlings accepts unsolicited submissions.

Please visit the website for all guidelines.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through

the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.


5 Editorial

COMMENTARY

9 Death Trends | Hashtag Activism and the Rise of Online Grief

Gillian Terzis investigates how social media affects grief and the ways

we mourn.

25 In Search of Lost Sleep | Through the Fog of Fatigue

Eleanor Hogan searches for a cure to the insomnia that has dogged her for years.

45 The Anzac Myth | Holocaust Denial and the Birth of the Australian Nation

On the centenary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, Tim Robertson looks at an often ignored element of the Anzac legend.

Jessie Cole recalls an unexpected encounter.

71 The Privilege of Starvation | On Art and Creative Writing Courses

Omar Sakr looks at the myth of the starving artist.

83 A Conscious Choice | Remaining Childfree in an Uncertain World

Diane White speaks to people who choose to remain childless for environmental reasons.

95 The Importance of Being Hairy | Waxing, Shaving and Other Unnecessary Thrills

learns to accept his hirsuteness.

CONTENTS


FICTION

105 Those Who Know We Are Here | Jessica Au

123 The Race | Sonja Dechian

INTERVIEW 137 Gerard Elson in Conversation with Nick Cave

REVIEWS 167 No Such Thing As Monsters | Shirley Jackson and the Unspeakable Everyday

Carody Culver revisits Shirley Jackson’s seminal short story, ‘The Lottery’.

181 Words, Flesh and Tech | Contemporary Literature and Our Future Selves

Rachel Hennessy looks at intimacy and anxiety in the recent novels of Dave Eggers, Michel Faber and Margaret Atwood.


EDITORIAL

Welcome to Issue 22 of Kill Your Darlings. As we go to print, the arts community is reeling from recent

cuts to Australia Council funding. As proud recipients of Australia Council funding, Rebecca Starford and Hannah Kent have penned an open letter, which helps illuminate the issue. I encourage you to read the letter on our website and sign the petition.

In this issue we celebrate everything that Kill Your Darlings does best – made possible by the support of our funders and our readers – promoting great, Australian writing.

In this issue’s lead feature ‘Death Trends: Hashtag Activism and the Rise of Online Grief ’, Gillian Terzis looks at the changing ways in which we experience and publicise grief. On the back of the outpouring of public mourning for the murders of Jill Meagher, Masa Vukotic and Stephanie Scott, Gillian looks at what it means to grieve online, and examines if public grief is ever a real impetus for change.

Elsewhere in Commentary, Tim Robertson looks at the Armenian genocide and our blind spot in the Anzac legend. Omar Sakr examines the myth of the starving artist, and how the perception of the writer as a tragic figure creates barriers to the actual creation of art. Eleanor Hogan battles with sleeplessness in her inquisitive look


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at insomnia, while Diane White interviews people who have chosen to be childless for environmental reasons. We have a moving piece of memoir from Jessie Cole and a humorous look at hairiness from Ara Sarafian.

In Fiction, the issue features a new story from Jessica Au entitled ‘Those Who Know We Are Here’, and we also have an extract from Sonja Dechian’s upcoming short story collection, An Astronaut’s Life.

In Interview, we were lucky to secure an extended interview with Nick Cave. In this illuminating discussion, our interviewer and Nick Cave cover everything from song creation to Miley Cyrus to dolphin penises. It’s funny and frank and an absolute pleasure to read.

In Reviews, Carody Culver revisits Shirley Jackson’s lauded short story ‘The Lottery’, and looks at the horror within, while Rachel Hennessy looks at the depiction of human intimacy in Dave Eggers’s, Margaret Atwood’s and Michel Faber’s latest books.

Happy reading!

Brigid Mullane | Editor


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‘Social media is by nature performative, it’s a marketplace in which we

publicly jostle for ranking and approval.’


| 9

DEATH TRENDS

Gillian Terzis

In the days leading up to April 29, my social media feeds

were dominated by scores of doleful messages imploring

Indonesian President Joko Widodo to extend clemency to

the condemned Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan

and Myuran Sukumaran. Some held candlelight vigils

and uploaded them to Instagram. Others chose to use a

memespiration-like graphic with the text ‘Because I’m

not the person I was 10 years ago and neither are they’

accompanied with the hashtag #IStandForMercy, and posted

it on Facebook. An emotionally-charged video – set to a

plaintive piano melody – also did the rounds, in which local

celebrities pleaded with the prime minister to ‘bring these

boys home’ and ‘show some balls’ – platitudes that were in

tune with the country’s broader emotional barometer but out

‘Social media is by nature performative, it’s a marketplace in which we

publicly jostle for ranking and approval.’


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of step with the realpolitik of foreign relations. Indeed, a few

actors solemnly declared that ‘the time for diplomacy is over’.

More haunting, at least for me, was the image Sukumaran

had painted of a bleeding human heart, which was signed by

all nine prisoners awaiting execution.

Our constant connection to the news and to the

opinions of others means that grief can easily become a

viral phenomenon. I was in Jakarta on the day Chan and

Sukumaran were transferred to Nusa Kambangan, an island

off the southern coast of Java that is home to four active

prisons, most of which were built by the Dutch before

Indonesia’s independence. It’s where former president Suharto

imprisoned political dissidents and communist sympathisers,

many of whom were left to languish for years, and where

high-profile offenders – terrorists, drug traffickers and the

like – await their death by firing squad. When, a few days

later, I’d heard through journalists in Jakarta that two coffins

had arrived at the Australian embassy, it was hard to imagine

a trajectory other than the one that would cause us distress.

I dreaded the execution, but I also dreaded the ensuing

response and the hectoring op-eds to come. ‘We do not need

to spare feelings for fear of being seen as arrogant westerners

or hold back because Australia is so far from perfect – witness

our treatment of asylum seekers, witness the outrage of phone

tapping the former Indonesian president’s wife,’ Gay Alcorn

wrote in a highly emotive op-ed in The Guardian, before

calling for a Bali boycott. I shared Alcorn’s horror over the

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kill your darlings - issue 22

Documents