📣 We're getting a new website! 🎉
westerlymag.com.au is temporarily down while we get our makeover, but not to worry: we'll be back soon!
Thanks for your patience and see you shortly 💙📚
Take a deep dive into the 2025 winner of the Tasmanian Literary Awards' People's Choice Award on the Editors Desk!
Here's our #review of 'Ways to Say Goodbye' by Anne Kellas! Reviewer Jackson calls these poems 'beautiful and comforting yet somehow unsettling'.
Read ➡️ shorturl.at/uh7AX
#AusLit
What better than a long weekend to slow down and do some reading? We’ve trawled through our archive to compile for you an Easter reading collection spanning from 1988 to 2020.
Read it here: shorturl.at/S3TYO
Remember: you can read past issues of Westerly for free on our website!
#AusLit
Read our #review of 'Ladies' Rest and Writing Room' by @kimkellyauthor.bsky.social!
Set in 1920s post-war Sydney, Kelly 'challenges dominant national narratives' in '[a] story of true connection and love between young women as they navigate the impacts of the world around them'. shorturl.at/AvC3l
@donnamcameron.bsky.social's 'The Rewilding' is our latest #bookreview!
Reviewer @wattswrites.aus.social.ap.brid.gy writes that this book 'portrays a world on the edge, a world of last chances, and the countless opportunities that are still worth fighting for'.
Read here: shorturl.at/GX9sT
#AusLit
📣 There's something new on the Editor's Desk!
@jennyhedley.bsky.social reviews 'Wall' by Jen Craig! (Zerogram Press). Shortlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award, Hedley writes 'Wall' is 'a masterpiece: a battering ram of words whose force I did not wish to relinquish'.
Visit: shorturl.at/F73eI
This week @islandmag.bsky.social's incoming poetry editor Tim Loveday reviews 'Appreciation' by Liam Pieper for our Editor's Desk!
To read Tim's review of this satirical piece of metafiction, visit: shorturl.at/SFwhO
#AusLit #bookreview #satire
We’re excited to be kicking off book reviews on the Editor’s Desk for 2026 with ‘That Galloping Horse’ by Petra White (@shearsmanbooks.bsky.social)!
‘[...] a showcase of free verse poems expressed with often chillingly beautiful intensity'.
Read it here: shorturl.at/X7IOC
#AusLit #bookreview
We have amazing news! Westerly Online Special Issue: Archive Reflections (OSI17) just dropped and is free for all to enjoy!
This one's guest edited by former Westerly Editor, Catherine Noske. Download it here: shorturl.at/7kZh8
#AusLit #LitMag
This week's #bookreview was the winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature 2024, 'Chinese Fish' by Grace Yee (@giramondobooks.bsky.social)!
'This is breathtaking sophistication that still manages to keep its feet on the ground and remain accessible.'
Read it here: shorturl.at/Q3N11
#poetryreview
🤩 Who’s ready for a weekend of amazing Talks and Workshops? 🤩
Whether you’re attending our Academy Day, the Market Day or both! Our team has lined up a fantastic program full of insightful talks and engaging workshops.
🎟️ Click to get your tickets! -> events.humanitix.com/host/perth-c... 🎟️
🤿 Dive into the #WesterlyMag archive with us!
From Westerly 13.2: Young Writers Issue, enjoy ‘Soldier, Soldier’, a poem written by one of Australia’s finest poets, Gwen Harwood, writing as one of her many alter egos, Timothy Kline. This issue was published in 1968.
Read it here: shorturl.at/Thb7F
New #bookreview!
'Monument' by Bonny Cassidy (@giramondobooks.bsky.social) 'is a complex contribution to the project of truth telling about Australia’s colonial past, and a sweeping insight into the histories of our colonial past, understood on a familial scale'.
Read it here: shorturl.at/DqG2U
Only 2 more sleeps to the launch of Westerly 69.2!
We're so excited to share this wonderful new collection of writing with the world. Please join us for an evening of readings, nibbles & excellent conversation in beautiful Walyalup 🎉🥂
RSVP in-person or attendance via live-stream: shorturl.at/78gZF
The launch of Westerly 69.2 is in 3 days!
Please come and celebrate with us 🎉
There are still some spots left for in-person attendance at the Fremantle Library on Thursday 1 May at 6pm!
Can't make it in person? Please join us via live stream.
RSVP here: shorturl.at/78gZF
#AusLit #LitMagLaunch
Dive into the Westerly archive with us!
We’re excited to share a new work from a past issue every week, beginning today with a collection of three poems by Clément Marot, translated by Randolph Stow, from the very first issue of Westerly Magazine published in 1956.
Read it here: shorturl.at/tMvQH
📣 Presales for Westerly 69.2 are live! 📣
Featuring new work from writers and artists across WA, Australia and the world, 69.2 showcases a range of contemporary #poetry, #fiction, #nonfiction and, for the first time, #comics, with a piece from WA artist Nina Dakin.
Find it here: bit.ly/692Presale
✨ Westerly 69.2 cover reveal! ✨
‘Untitled #11’ (2023) is by photographer Emma Phillips. It comes from a collaboration in Issue 69.2, 'The River as Bloodline', between Emma, Paul Collis, Jen Crawford, Wayne Knight & Paul Magee.
RSVP for 69.2's launch on 1 May at Fremantle Library: shorturl.at/78gZF
Have a read of our review of 'The Swift Dark Tide' by Katia Ariel!
Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize, reviewer Fiona Wilkes calls it 'a miracle of poetry, memoir and essay'.
Read it here: shorturl.at/N8CSi
#AusLit #lifewriting #memoir #StellaPrize #bookreview
'Hello Keanu! A poetry anthology' edited by Emily Sun and Sarah Yeung, is this week's #bookreview!
Reviewer Jenny Hedley writes that this anthology is 'an echoing chorus which meditates upon deeper issues of justice and equality, with a measure of hot sex'.
Read it here: shorturl.at/1mzpg
#AusLit
Jenny, this is amazing!
Read @bodilyofferings.bsky.social's review of Kate Larsen's fascinating debut poetry collection, 'Public. Open. Space.'!
Ellie writes that this book 'is a conversation as much as it is a poetry collection'.
Read it here: shorturl.at/Oil
#digitalpoetics #poetryreview #bookreview #litmag #auslit
Read Lisa Collyer's review of Jerome Masamaka's 'Under The Tattered Roof' (Centre for Stories/Red River Press) on our website!
Lisa writes that the message in this ecopoetry collection is 'clear and eloquently communicated: the climate emergency is the apocalypse. Now'.
Read here: shorturl.at/Jg3sO