Issue 6 continues our proud tradition of publishing unique, fresh, relevant voices.

In fiction, these voices are potently female: in an excerpt from her upcoming novel, Double Happiness, Rochelle Siemienowicz explores the manifest pleasures and pitfalls of polyamory; Zoe Karpin, in her short story ‘The Removalist’, shows a young migrant woman trying to embrace her feminist ideals, questing intelligence and body’s sensuality all at once; while Leone Gabrielle, in her darkly lyrical avant-garde piece ‘Safe House’, depicts her heroine’s struggle to vanquish a particularly female experience of fear.

In non-fiction, Nadia Niaz offers a movingly personal account of her initiation in the languages of Persian, Urdu and poetry, while her own debut collection of poetry, The Djinn Hunters, is reviewed by Deeksha Koul.

To round it all out, two legends of Australian arts and letters, Anna Couani and Peter Lyssiotis, discuss their collaborative process, as well as their artistic and literary influences.

Then there’s our acclaimed and maverick feature poet, Ouyang Yu, with his charged and challenging poetic discourse, beginning with all that is fake to what makes one ‘totally un-English, non-English, and even anti-English’.

We are particularly thrilled to have poems by Nedim Türfent, a Kurdish poet and journalist who spent 2000 days in a Turkish prison for unjust charges. His poetry speaks authentically to shrapnel existence and is translated from the Turkish by Hidayet Ceylan and Matt Hetherington. Another poet who has incurred grievous injustice is Taiwanese poet, Pek-êng Koa, and we’re honoured to have his translated poem by C. J. Anderson-Wu.

And there’s more exciting international poetry with the multi-award-winning Romanian poet, Ioana Vintilă translated by renowned poet and editor, Clara Burghelea; new work by Theodora Vagioti in Greek with her English translations.

Naarm-based Helena Spyrou provides a poignant tribute to the extraordinary filmmaker, Anna Kanava. From Darug land, Filipino-born, Harold Legaspi, provides a deft weave of multi-language.

Among The Chaos is with Dr Lucy Van, who shows us the space where she sits and finds her magic with words.

Kalliope X