Pilled to the gills: Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson’s Conspiracy Nation - Overland literary journal The question that Conspiracy Nation implicitly raises isn’t why people believe in conspiracy theories but rather why people have stopped trusting official narratives. But what do we do with this knowl...

“When we call something a conspiracy theory, what work are we doing? Who benefits from that designation?”

A masterful review of CONSPIRACY NATION by our own Cher Tan. Part of a series of critical essays supported by @copyright.com.au.

These old hands, they are still growing - Overland literary journal It was an old house meshed in an unrelenting grid of brick and weatherboard. Its walls still stood stark, red brick. Paint like tender old sagging skin on the timber windows. A bastard of a garden sur...

“There he was, on the edge of his bed, his guitar cradled, moving with it. Arms contorted and tensed and then released. A rhythm in those arms alone.”

From THESE OLD HANDS, THEY ARE STILL GROWING, our latest #fridayfiction by Sam Fisher

The $67 billion climate betrayal: how Australia’s record fossil fuel subsidies fund global destruction - Overland literary journal The contradictions aren't failures of implementation. They're the predictable result of a political system that has decided fossil fuel profits matter more than climate stability, more than the Great ...

“The government is telling major emitters they must cut pollution while paying them not to.”

Noa Wynn on Australia’s $67 billion climate betrayal

The proletarianisation of disability support work: workers’ perspectives on the NDIS - Overland literary journal Support workers, rather than creating objects, create a caring relationship. The scrupulous observance of organisational policies and ‘best practice’ codes is not sufficient to create such a relations...

“The most consistent factor that supports meaningful, lasting change … is the relationship between the client and the worker.”

Nick Crowley on the proletarianisation of disability support work.

Join us for an evening of solidarity and shared purpose.

April 29, 5:30pm-late. Solidarity Hall at Trades Hall, Carlton.

RSVP now: tally.so/r/44L1bB

CoPower Archives - Overland literary journal Any and all donations are valued. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

This is the last installment of a long-standing series sponsored by @copower.bsky.social. We are very grateful for their generous support, which has made possible the work you can here: overland.org.au/topics/copow...

Against the will to engineer: Richard King’s Brave New Wild - Overland literary journal The response demanded of us in the twenty-first century must operate at the level of metaphysics as well as the material, addressing our underlying assumptions about the instrumentalisation of nature and what constitutes a meaningful life in the face of technology’s relentless advance. To neglect that deeper terrain is to concede, in advance, the very ground on which our resistance to the machine must stand.

“King’s solutionism remains entangled with the technological paradigm he critiques, rather than decisively breaking from it.”

Ben Brooker reviews THE BRAND NEW WILD.

Less familiar terrains: Alana Lentin’s The New Racial Regime - Overland literary journal In the foreword to Alana Lentin’s The New Racial Regime, Elizabeth Robinson suggests that Lentin’s writing moves “beyond the terrain with which we were most familiar”. This less familiar terrain, I su...

“This less familiar terrain … offers new methods for us to understand, discuss and organise against racism and fascism.”

R Browne reviews Alana Lentin’s NEW RACIAL REGIME

Peering into the docks: a conversation with the Wharfies Mural - Overland literary journal People are deeply curious about the docks. The port is right there, the cranes are giant shapes looming, so often visible, stretches of landscape inviting reflection and curiosity. But the docks are a...

“This is the challenge of the artist who is concerned with struggle: to make manifest power relations, social relations, amorphous shape-shifting dynamics.”

An illustrated essay by the incomparable @samwallman.bsky.social on the history and lessons of Sydney’s Wharfies Mural.

United in grief, divided in strategy: the limits of Australian Muslim political engagement - Overland literary journal The invitation by the Lebanese Muslim Association, and the intense criticism it received, reveal that, despite a shared sense of collective grief, the Australian Muslim community currently lacks a uni...

“Years of cultivating ‘good’ relationships with politicians were never enough to humanise Muslims in the eyes of those in power.”

Sara Cheikh Husain on the limits of Australian Muslim political engagement.

Conditions regarding protests: a response to the University of Melbourne - Overland literary journal What has been done cannot be undone. But a reversal of the current descent into barbarism begins with justice for Gaza. The University of Melbourne still has an opportunity to speak out against genoci...

I wrote for @overlandjournal.bsky.social about some university policies and Palestine

overland.org.au/2026/03/cond...

Conditions regarding protests: a response to the University of Melbourne - Overland literary journal What has been done cannot be undone. But a reversal of the current descent into barbarism begins with justice for Gaza. The University of Melbourne still has an opportunity to speak out against genoci...

“The university still has an opportunity to speak out against genocide and apartheid. It should do so.”

@jeffsparrow1.bsky.social responds to the call for feedback on the right to protest and the “iSurveillance Policy” at the University of Melbourne.

We are thrilled to announce the winners of this year's Judith Wright Poetry Prize! Head here to read more about the poets and their works: overland.org.au/2026/03/fina...

We are so happy to announce this year's winners of the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize! Head here to read more about the winning authors and their work: overland.org.au/2026/03/fina...

Twenty-five years of the housing struggle - Overland literary journal The housing struggle is a tug-o’-war between those who profit and those who pay. Over the last quarter century, this battle for the so-called “privilege” of shelter has accelerated and intensified.

“It’s the people on the frontlines of the housing crisis that are leading the charge.”

Hannah Garvan on the last twenty-five years of the housing struggle.

Carrying country - the unseen emotional labour of environmental defence - Overland literary journal Daniel Garlett is a Noongar cultural educator and community advocate who has spent decades opposing logging, mining, and large-scale land clearing in Western Australia’s forests and catchments. He liv...

“The labour of constantly translating grief into acceptable language, of remaining calm, generous, and persuasive, is carried by those least able to set it down.”

Jens Kirsch on the work of Noongar community advocate Daniel Garlett and the unseen emotional labour of environmental defence.

At a crossroads with Reverend Hansen-Bang - Overland literary journal On a narrow road in rural Norway, I am driving at forty kilometres an hour. Reverend Hansen-Bang has been quiet for the last few hours. Which was lovely – a pleasant break from the lectures on politic...

“We’re heading to Ålesund, which is just a name on a map to me, a small city hovering on the coast of my dreams. The Opening Heart – three days of stillness, singing and sharing. Not my choice. He insisted.”

From AT A CROSSROADS WITH REVEREND HANSEN BANG, a wonderful new story by Cameron Semmens.

From invasion to terror: white supremacy and the Australian state - Overland literary journal Within minutes, Uncle Herbert Bropho got on the microphone and calmly asked everyone to clear the area, and told the audience the police said there was a bomb. We moved to the back of Forrest Chase, w...

“We allegedly had a bomb thrown at us — a bomb said to be designed to kill us — but there was mostly silence from the nation.”

Roxy Moore on Invasion Day in Boorloo and how safety can only come through truth-telling.

Safety for whom? trans women, carceral feminism, and the politics of exclusion - Overland literary journal The campaign against trans women in prison exposes how moral panic can be manipulated to defend colonial authority and how fragile Australia’s commitment to equality remains when confronted with diffe...

“If feminist organisations are genuinely concerned about safety, their efforts must target the everyday violences of imprisonment, not the scapegoating of trans women.”

Stacey Stokes, Witt Gorrie and Sheena Colquhoun on carceral feminism and the politics of exclusion.

The role of the committed writer in an unfree world - Overland literary journal No, the committed writer is a movement writer. I mean that the committed writer knows that they know very little, and that the way to remedy that ignorance is through solidarity with people in struggl...

“The committed writer is a movement writer … The committed writer knows that they know very little, and that the way to remedy that ignorance is through solidarity with people in struggle.”

For PEN Melbourne, André Dao on how a writer can make the world more free.

Issue 259 is now here. Available for purchase now: overland.org.au/product/curr...

This comic elegantly puts it all together, making abstract things concrete and seemingly remote things urgently relevant. Fantastic work

Huts - Overland literary journal With the hut as his base, Heidegger would set out on walks where he would collect water from a well and think philosophically.

Bloody hell - how good's this?! I missed it some months ago: Chris Fleming on "Huts" (Heidegger's, Wittgenstein's, Adorno's* (* "the last philosopher who would be caught dead in a hut"), Kaczynski... In @overlandjournal.bsky.social overland.org.au/2025/08/huts/

We are very excited to announce the arrival of Overland No. 259. Now available for purchase in our online store. If you are already a subscriber, keep an eye out for your copy in the mail! overland.org.au/product/curr...

Trying really hard not to make a comic about critical minerals - Overland literary journal I'm trying really hard not to make a comic about critical minerals. 'Cos I know, my mum tells me, "it just doesn't resonate". Unless it's a personal story, critical minerals seem too far removed from ...

In our latest piece for @copower.bsky.social, the wonderful Sofia Sabbagh tries really hard, and ultimately fails, not to make a comic about critical minerals.

We are excited to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize. Head here to read more about the authors! overland.org.au/2026/03/anno...

We are excited to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize. Head here to read more about the authors! overland.org.au/2026/03/anno...

We are thrilled to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Head here to learn more about the poets! overland.org.au/2026/03/anno...

Between past and possibility: Ernest Thalayasingham MacIntyre (1934 – 2025) - Overland literary journal Reading Australia from Lanka and Lanka from Australia, MacIntyre is an artist who made new cultural and social landscapes visible — spaces that Lankan Australians might take as a springboard for our o...

“Reading Australia from Lanka and Lanka from Australia, MacIntyre is an artist who made new cultural and social landscapes visible.”

Suvendrini Perera remembers the playwright Ernest Thalayasingham MacIntyre, who died in December at the age of 91.

Too sick, too hard - Overland literary journal In January 2020 as the Commissioner to the historic Victorian Royal Commission into the Mental Health System was working away, I was sitting inside the padded seclusion room of the psychiatric ward at...

“I write in the hope that the psych ward I do visit next, if that unfortunate day comes, is a reformed one, a changed one and one that treats its patients with a level of dignity and respect not always seen in the past.”

Jarni Blakkarly on the broken promises of mental health reform.