An excerpt from EXCLUSIVE! Dispatches from The Paris End

The following is an excerpt from the introduction of EXCLUSIVE! Dispatches from The Paris End (1 Nov 2025). The anthology brings together a selection of nineteen lively essays from the first years of the popular Melbourne newsletter, written by founders Cameron Hurst, Sally Olds and Oscar Schwartz, and accompanied by an illustration by house cartoonist, Aaron Billings.

We had our first proper meeting upstairs at Young & Jackson pub on Friday 11 November 2022. Oscar said we should meet upstairs to avoid the large gathering of men in military medallions. Sally had dressed up for the occasion in brown leather backless loafers, which, as she hurried down the hill at the top of Bourke Street, continually flew off her feet. This was the part of the city centre known as ‘The Paris End’. Barefoot, running to catch up with her own shoes, she turned that phrase over in her mind: ‘The Paris End. The Paris End.’ Sally thought the ‘The Paris End’ would make a great name for one part of the newsletter. Or even the whole thing? At the pub, we decided we wanted it to be like a society magazine for the precariat. We would do in-depth reporting on important events and ideas, and publish pieces rooted in the pleasures of people and their scenes. We liked Hilton Als’s New Yorker profiles and Maeve Brennan’s ‘long-winded lady’. We liked Clarice Lispector’s crónicas. We liked irreverent newspaper comics and quickly came up with a nominee to draw ours, Aaron Billings. We liked Joseph Roth’s What I Saw, and Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, and everything Nancy Jo Sales wrote for Vanity Fair in the 2000s. We figured our own city could support this kind of writing, even if, instead of sipping a martini while gazing out a plate-glass window, jotting observations on a napkin, we were just now seated on uncomfortable wire chairs, drinking pots of beer, framed by an unnaturally lush (on closer inspection, plastic) vertical garden and taking notes on our phones. Things become important through one’s attention to them. We would pay attention to the ground we stood on.

… It’s been almost three years now and a lot has happened. We’ve sent hundreds of emails and spent endless hours in Google Docs finessing each other’s sentences. We’ve thrown a few parties and broken a few exclusive stories. We’ve moved into a shared office in the Nicholas Building with a stunning view of St Paul’s Cathedral and a persistent issue with Metro Tunnel construction noise. We’ve received tip-offs, heard wild rumours and collaborated with various friends, lovers and mutuals who get roped into The Paris End’s schemes. As promised, we’ve been pounding the pavement, scribbling away as the city has transformed beneath our feet. This anthology offers a record of a very recent history. Whatever happens next, we’ll see you at The Paris End.