Table of contents for HEAT Series 3 Number 2 in HEAT

Helen Oyeyemi is the author of the story collection What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, along with five novels—The Icarus Girl; The Opposite House; White Is for Witching; Mr Fox; Boy, Snow, Bird; Gingerbread; and, most recently, Peaces. In 2013, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, most of my life has been a live action rendition of Rumi’s ‘Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to Take Me Home’, that poem of cosmic bewilderment at having somehow ended up in this world (brusquely described as a ‘prison for drunks’). While it may read as if I’ve randomly decided to fling insults at life, I’m actually aiming for transparency here, trying to clarify the basis for the awe in which I hold…

Luke Carman’s debut story collection, An Elegant Young Man, won the 2014 NSW Premier’s New Writing Award and was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal, the Steele Rudd Short Story Prize and the Readings New Writing Award. His second collection of stories, An Ordinary Ecstasy, is forthcoming in July. SUNSET HUNG OVER THE MOUNTAINS when Liam stepped off the carriage into the sting of Katoomba’s twilight, hoisting his guitar case over the gap and following the evening rush of strangers in black coats and scarves down the station stairs. An electric schedule hanging from the station’s awning announced the time in blinking yellow digits, an hour left before the opening, enough time to settle the nerves at a pub up the street, not enough time to become so settled the…

And receive each issue of HEAT Australia’s international literary magazine Since its inception in 1996, HEAT has been renowned for a dedication to quality and a commitment to publishing innovative and imaginative poetry, fiction, essays, criticism and hybrid forms. Now, in the third series, we are excited to bring together a selection of the most interesting and adventurous Australian and overseas writers. HEAT Series 3 is posted to subscribers every two months, forming a unique, cohesive whole. Your subscription supports independent literary publishing and enables us to cultivate and champion new and challenging writing. Visit giramondopublishing.com/heat/to subscribe. The Novel Prize 2022 Entries are now open for The Novel Prize, a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world.…

Pip Adam is the author of three novels: Nothing to See, The New Animals, which won the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction, and I’m Working on a Building. Her short story collection, Everything We Hoped For, won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction. IN HINDSIGHT, I probably heard the first ones but ignored them. They were probably background to whatever was going on in my foreground and I brushed them off. Maybe it was the microwave, maybe it was a notification on my phone. A hidden box left unchecked, something I’d lost interest in, was maybe still paying for. They were sudden noises. When there were only a few of them, at the start, the dingdingding or the chugga-chug was here and then gone before it…

Michael Farrell is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Family Trees and I Love Poetry, which won the 2018 Queensland Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Michael also edited Ashbery Mode, an Australian tribute to John Ashbery. In The Year Of Our Modernism 1922 We tend to gender ourgrandparents more than we do ourselves. He dyed hishair…she had a more serious operation. They first startedpublishing things in EuropeThere began to bearticles about them. They were always having rebirths–comebacks – cleansings. Some of the language seems verydated now (some offensively so). Did you really have aspider tattoo, asked my cousin Deborah, seeing ourgrandmother’s scar one summer? We barely knew them…Ithink they didn’t know each other that well. They seemedmore affectionate than…

We respectfully acknowledge the Gadigal, Burramattagal and Cammeraygal peoples, the traditional owners of the lands where Giramondo’s offices are located. We extend our respects to their ancestors and to all First Nations peoples and Elders. HEAT Series 3 Number 2 has been prepared in collaboration with Ligare Book Printers, Avon Graphics, Ball & Doggett paper suppliers and Candida Stationery – we thank them for their support. The Giramondo Publishing Company is grateful for the support of Western Sydney University in the implementation of its book publishing program. Giramondo Publishing is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts.…

Samuel Wagan Watson is an award-winning Indigenous poet and professional raconteur. He is the author of five collection of poems, including Smoke Encrypted Whispers, which won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for the Book of the Year and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Patrick White Literary Award for his significant contribution to Australian literature. DAVID HAD NO IDEA what was bearing down on him. He was out in a field, somewhere. Just a flat, seemingly void expanse. Suddenly, an orb so brilliant appeared in the landscape and began closing in on the Aboriginal man. He was like an animal caught in the headlight of something unstoppable. David’s options were limited. Panic was about to set in. He wore light trousers and…

Ren Arcamone is a writer from Sydney. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an alumna of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Her work also appears in Gulf Coast. She lives in Iowa City, where she is at work on a short story collection and a novel. PHIL AND I HAVE A MAKE-BELIEVE HOUSEMATE – we call him Allen. Allen is a real jerk. Allen never cleans the bathroom, leaves the fan on when no one’s home, and only half-empties the dishwasher. Allen lets the laundry stay out on the line for so long that all our jeans are sun-faded, and he alone is responsible for the murder of our beloved houseplant, Fernie Sanders. He never vacuums. He never takes the dog for a…