HEAT | Australia’s International Literary Magazine

HEAT 19

Our new issue features writing by Miro Bilbrough, Chris Andrews, Vanessa Berry, Michael Farrell, Miriam Webster, and Reyumeh Ejue. Subscribe to HEAT now to receive Number 19 as your first issue, with more adventurous literary writing from Australia and around the world to come.

New to the archive

Did you see that man in black socks flicking his feet out front? I asked Christine, who sat low at that wheel, beringed in kohl and silver, extra-long-armed, vestigially Bibaesque at eighty. She was often silent, Christine, which only added vehemence and force to her sallies when they arrived.

A museum of objects in my study that accompanied the long journey of writing still cast their wonderment through thoughts and imaginary possibilities; the many pictures on the walls and desk – a small print of a Rainbow Serpent, birds, art, photos of dust storms, haze, smoke, a young boxer, mythical landscapes in Asia – all had this responsibility.

Within this handful of proper nouns, so much pathos, humour, mystery and pain. I saw maps unfold across the globe and traditions receding so far into the past they were barely decipherable. What to one culture may seem dizzyingly complicated is, to another, ordinary. Names may contain history’s greatest upheavals in all their pitilessness and terror, as well as one person’s whimsy, or life-saving choice.

Cats and comets / are cousins. / With arching tails / and bright orbiting / mating swoops. / I used to sleep / hugging my cat / I used to sleep / my nose buried / in her fur.

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This bundle includes all five issues of HEAT Series 3 published during 2024, featuring original and innovative prose and poetry from writers in Australia and around the world.

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So slender and elegant, nothing wasted, nothing grandiose – and beautiful work.
Helen Garner

I welcome the return of HEAT. Writers and readers alike will revel in its daring audacity, bold exploration and innovative celebration of literature.
Alexis Wright

The revival of HEAT has been one of the high points of the year. After more than a decade on ice, this new series – under the editorship of Alexandra Christie – has raised the bar once again.
The Saturday Paper

An edgy and enormously influential literary magazine.
The Australian

A forum for beautifully crafted writing which engages both the emotions and the intellect.
Australian Book Review

HEAT is eclectic and eccentric, bold and often feisty, and above all else, it is a journal that always gives a freer rein to its writers, that we might gallop wherever we will.
Fiona Wright

HEAT magazine was a trailblazer from the day it was launched…[it] has always been known for the quality of its writing as well as its multicultural outlook.
Openbook

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HEAT 19

New to the archive

Two Portraits

An excerpt from ‘Dream Geographies’

What’s in a Name?

Comets

HEAT 19

New to the archive

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Australia’s international literary magazine

HEAT in 2024

HEAT Series 3 Number 13-17