HEAT | Australia’s International Literary Magazine

HEAT 26

Our new issue features writing by Evelyn Juers, Luke Beesley, Luoyang Chen, Jing Cramb, M. Seppola Simonsen translated by Eirill Alvilde Falck, Emma Sorensen, Lucy Lehmann and Gabriel Curtin. Subscribe now to receive Number 26 as your first issue, with more adventurous literary writing from Australia and around the world to come.

New to the archive

By contrast, she seemed so unwaveringly certain and dedicated to her creative calling, despite its challenges. As we spoke, she described writing as being like archaeology, seeing a psychotherapist, or going deeper into a meditation. She talked tenderly about her writing routine and the importance of building in time for things to ferment or brew while she wrote letters or tended to horses. Writing was all-consuming, from the amount of time it took up to the variety of ways she wrote – making notes and writing letters were a break from writing books and stories.

We are nowhere. Or rather, we are somewhere beyond reach, floating above an ocean. The woman next to me has contorted herself on the seat and her feet are pushing into my thigh. We are flying backwards in time, and I know from the boarding pass that when we land, whenever that is, it will be again, 12.00 a.m.

Each mouthful was the same, another northern Italian dish informed by butter, challenging her imagined ideas of this country. She hadn’t felt anything in Milan yet that she hadn’t already felt at home. But when she got to the bottom of the plate, she had the thought that to be a tourist is to be a spectator, and that to be a spectator means making a wordless oath to passive observation. Which was a role that Helen had never respected in anyone she’d ever known.

There is no dialogue in these scenes. Instead, the narrator probes them like a film camera might, a big roving eye. Each belongs to the same world. Is it our world? I go back and forth on this. It seems like ours to begin with. It has a harbour and ships and rivers and rain. But then the details take on a dreamlike, off-kilter quality.

Works from across all three series of HEAT – from 1996 up until the present day – are uploaded on a regular basis to our digital archive. This includes writing by Alexis Wright, Brian Castro, Helen Garner, Gail Jones, Amitava Kumar, Bruce Pascoe, Dorothy Porter, Wen-Juenn Lee and many more.

View all HEAT contributors who have had their poetry or prose uploaded by clicking the button below. To get notified of what’s new to the archive, sign up to our newsletter.

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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 26

New to the archive

Gillian Mears and the Lost Art of Letter Writing

Write the Day: World Tour

Tourist Trap

On ‘&’ by Solvej Balle

HEAT online

Australia’s international literary magazine