We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 114
SPRING 2008
EDITORIAL
Gina Mercer
As I checked the mail box today I saw a slow, fat snowflake drift down to the pavement. Well, it is winter in Hobart, one might say, what else would you expect? But winter has been late arriving here and snowflakes are uncommon off the Mountain (that’s Mt Wellington to those unfamiliar with Hobart’s geography) and very uncommon near the river. Once upon a time, remember, we could rely on chatting about the weather as the safest, least contentious topic? But recently that has changed. The weather itself is changing. And this is a dire and contentious action for the weather to take. Climate change is not safe terrain for any of us, in terms of conversation or anything else.
This issue of Island looks at change and those who actively seek to be agents of change. Our essays cover the contentious topics of sex and death, as well as raising questions about what we choose to read and eat.
Rodney Croome recalls his arrests in 1988 for defiantly setting up a Gay Law Reform stall at Salamanca Market. He interlaces his memories with those of a nineteenth-century ancestor transported to Van Diemen’s land for acts of agricultural defiance.
Helena Pastor reflects on changing the way we organise our last rites, inviting us to rethink our approach to the unchanging fact of death.
Three dynamic women, Louise Swinn, Zoe Dattner and Kate Freeth, speak about their passion for changing what is available for us to read, through their work in an independent publishing house.
Michael Allen Fox suggests ways in which changing what we eat could help to save the planet.
Here at Island we embrace the change which brings us our new
poetry editor, Adrienne Eberhard. Adrienne is a prize-winning poet who lives just south of Hobart. We welcome her and look forward to this wise and talented poet joining the Island team.Change and certainty are the perennial poles around which our days swing. Globally, we are preoccupied with ‘security’, from ‘homeland security’ to ‘food security’. At sixteen I was chastised by my headmaster for a moment of revelation. I stated in a class debate that: ‘The only security in life is that nothing is secure.’ He was horrified by what he saw as my nihilism. I still think I was right and now, even the weather is supporting my argument, as it too changes in unprecedented ways. Some change, like that occurring in our climate, is dire. But other types of change – of the kind these authors write about – are desirable, welcome and necessary, especially in these insecure times. ¡
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