Here is a poem from craft by Pete Haydon, published by Rainshadow (an imprint of Clouds of Magellan). craft is a book of poems about the making of boats, the losing of boats … poems that circle around small craft and the sea, with occasional forays into the darker deeps.

Feeling the curve

Nothing is straight, nor will be straight;
Design abhors a straightened line.
Draw it straight and life will curve it
Till it’s true, a true line.
A true line is sweet;
A sweet line is curved.
Feel its flank, 
a living thing,
That slips its subtle way
Through water’s almost nonsense,
Intuiting some meaning,
Held a flashing second,
Lost, recombined a million times
In the time it takes to tell.

Pete Haydon is a writer and musician. He is the author of the play The Crime of the Modern Mariner and lives in Aireys Inlet, Victoria.

Buy craft from Blarney Books, Booktopia

A great way to spend the Winter Solstice – 21 June at the Pride Centre with Q-Lit. Selling and giving away, creative conversations with emerging writers and passionate readers.

Sprucing up the website a little. Visit the revised page for Michael Bernard Kelly

Also, a page for Bent Street – we’re making pdfs available of issue 1-2017 and 2-2018.

Poetry and images by Guy James Whitworth. Never Held A Gun (Rainshadow, 2025)

Amazon. The Bookshop.

Here is the hardback case cover …

Champagne at Three: The Story of a Trans Mining Engineer by Jill Blee

ISBN: 978-1-7637356-1-3.

Having lived the first half of her life as male, Rebecca Norton sought medical intervention to become a woman, only to find that those whose support she longed for could not, or would not give it. Born in Ballarat, her career took her from the mining industry in Mount Isa to a range of jobs in remote parts of Australia and the world.

Jill Blee was educated at Sacred Heart College, Ballarat. She completed a Diploma in Applied Chemistry at the Ballarat School of Mines. She completed a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie University in 1990 followed by a Master of History while at the same time completing  a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of Western Sydney (1995). In 1999 she returned to Ballarat to complete a PhD at Ballarat University, now Federation University, on the Irish in Ballarat in the Gold Rush Era.  She is the author of the historical novel The Pines Hold Their Secrets, The Liberator’s Birthday, and her semi-biographical novel, Brigid, as well as writing several commissioned histories. She still teaches history.

Contact: jillblee1@gmail.com

Available now from Booktopia and other online outlets.