Edwina Preston pays tribute to the humble letter: from literary love letters to philosophical lessons to cherished family heirlooms. Letters impart lessons, reveal character – and are a form of art.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Friday essay
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More than 30 years ago, Lola was raped during the Bosnian war, but she still awaits justice. Her story illustrates the difficulty of holding war criminals to account – a problem Ukrainians face today.
Since the 1980s, Australia’s housing market has become a ‘closed shop’ that expands the wealth of existing home owners and investors. Alison Pennington traces the changes – and suggests another way.
Across Australia, there are memorials to white people ‘killed by Natives’. But there is a silence about what led to these attacks, or the reprisal massacres that typically followed.
ParentsNext requires the parents of very young children to perform monitored activities in return for Centrelink payments. Eve Vincent talks to single mothers about ‘the indignity of investigation’.
Love and intimacy are valuable for wellbeing at every age. But for older people, especially those in aged care, intimacy can be complicated. Carol Lefevre explores, through real life and fiction.
Bob Hawke spent 24 years married to his second wife, Blanche d'Alpuget, whose canny 1981 biography helped make him ALP leader – and one of our most beloved PMs. Chris Wallace tells their story.
How are Wikipedia pages about contentious events put together? Heather Ford discovered a hotbed of passion, a rotating pack of editors and a struggle for power behind its mirage of neutrality.
At nearly 90 years of age, Cormac McCarthy is striking out in new artistic directions.
It has become an Aboriginal campfire classic. Kids in American inner-city public schools sing it in choir. Chris Gibson unpacks the mystery and enduring appeal of The Church’s Under the Milky Way.
As a young child, Amy Thunig, a Gomeroi/Gamilaroi/Kamilaroi woman, moved with her family to be near her father, who was incarcerated in Adelaide. It was a difficult time, but he has taught her much.
No other living horror writer has enjoyed Stephen King’s literary longevity. His monsters have lingered in the popular imagination, and that of our author.
In October 1942, Errol Flynn was one of the world’s biggest movie stars. When two teenage girls accused him of rape, his trial became a public spectacle and an insight into sexual double standards.
Romance fiction has a reputation for being conservative, but in reality it is an innovative and uncontrollable genre.
In 1972, 5 women – Helen Garner, Claire Dobbin, Evelyn Krape, Yvonne Marini and Jude Kuring –spent 5 months workshopping a play. Frank, angry and explicit, it was a beacon of 1970s women’s liberation.
After Anita Lane died, former collaborator Nick Cave said she “despised the concept of the muse but was everybody’s”. Meera Atkinson highlights her achievements – with help from those who knew her.
Koalas are often regarded as cute but dumb: slow, sleepy and incapable of change. But they have been known to approach humans for help. And maybe they have been set free by their remarkable diet.
Reliance on the support of others after an accident showed philosopher David Newheiser the power of solidarity. We need a similar sense of communal connection in our approach to COVID, he writes.
In 1881, a Pacific Islander woman brought here to work on a sugar cane plantation ran away. She was violently retrieved by her employer. Her story sheds moving light on a dark history of exploitation.
Old women remain the butt of jokes; they are some of society’s most marginalised people. But age also invites us to become our most authentic selves, writes Carol Lefevre.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
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University of Newcastle
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Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland
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Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University
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Emeritus Professor of Media and Culture, Griffith University, Griffith University
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Lecturer, Deakin University
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Associate Professor (adjunct) in Creative Writing, Flinders University
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Professor of English, Flinders University
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Joanna Mendelssohn is a Friend of The Conversation.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Geography, School of Law and Society, University of the Sunshine Coast
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Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Sessional academic, Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature, Macquarie University
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Fashion historian, Edith Cowan University
