Claire Wellesley-Smith

The Cardigan The cardigan was very basic: black cotton fine knit, long length, buttons, a masculine cut but bought in Top Shop – I wore it for years. Then the pockets developed holes and runs. My line of work, teaching and running long-term textile projects, meant that I often had sharp embroidery scissors on my person, and the blades broke through the knitted threads. Other areas of the cardigan began to unravel. Thin areas on the elbows went to holes,Read more

Claire HM

Your favourite piece of clothing? (cw: weight loss) I’ve a clothes-buying confession to make. The things that I love most in my wardrobe are those things that are new. My heart chooses the novel over longevity every time, but my conscience knows that fast fashion is stripping our world of its most vital resources and supports business that ruthlessly exploits the labour of women and children. So to balance my heart and my conscience I choose to buy second-hand. IRead more

Trish Bolton

I’m from Melbourne so perhaps it’s no surprise that the colour of my favourite piece of clothing is black. I have, over many years – make that decades – attempted to bid farewell to black. I mean, how difficult is it to find what you’re looking for in your wardrobe when everything is black? And so I have ventured into other palettes, diversified, taken risks so that I might inject a little colour into my life. But always I returnRead more

Rowena Mondiwa

The drawstring has long since been lost but the bookbag is still intact and I keep it folded up among my belongings. I often think about how it’s my oldest possession, the one thing that has accompanied me in my life across the world. Now, as an adult, it makes sense that this would be the one possession I have kept from my childhood. I’ve had this bag since I was four years old. Back then I’d just started primaryRead more

Tanya Huntington

Your favourite piece of clothing or textile object? Your dream outfit or textile object? A piece of clothing or textile object that haunts you? After giving this some thought, I’ve decided on an infinity scarf that my sister knitted following the pattern of a Moebius strip. It’s too warm to wear it now, but I keep it handy as a treasured item. Why? Because sisters are interesting creatures – we are more alike to one another genetically speaking than toRead more

Mauricio Montiel Figueiras

Mauricio Montiel Figueiras (Guadalajara, México, 1968) es narrador, ensayista, editor y traductor. Parte de su obra ha aparecido en medios de Argentina, Brasil, Canadá, Chile, Colombia, Estados Unidos, España, Inglaterra e Italia. Entre sus libros más recientes se encuentran Paseos sin rumbo. Diálogos entre cine y literatura (2010), Señor Fritos (2011), La mujer de M. (2012), Ciudad tomada (2013) y Los que hablan. Fotorrelatos (2016). Desde 2011 trabaja en el proyecto novelístico titulado El hombre de tweed a través de la plataforma electrónica Twitter, dondeRead more

Ben Walter

Ben Walter is the author of What Fear Was (Puncher & Wattmann, 2022). He is a writer of lyrical fiction and poetry who has been widely published in Australian journals, including Meanjin, Island, The Lifted Brow and Griffith Review. He has twice been shortlisted in the Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prizes, and was guest editor of Overland’s special anti-/dis-/un-Australian fiction issue. Consistencies My writing has a texture, but it is the texture of a material that can be woven in various ways. This is perhaps true ofRead more

Laline Paull

Laline Paull studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles and theatre in London. Her new novel, The Ice (4th Estate), is out now. Her award-winning debut, The Bees (4th Estate) was published in May 2014. She has written screenplays and for the theatre; two of her plays, Boat Memory and Show and Tell, were produced at the National. She lives in England with her husband, photographer Adrian Peacock, and their children.   The Bees As they descended over the treetops Flora strained for any trace ofRead more

Andreas Loizou

Andreas Loizou was born in London and grew up in the seaside resort of Margate. Summers spent working in the ice-cream hut on rainy Margate Beach lead to copious amounts of time reading everything, and reading everything lead a highly driven person from finance to linguistics to travel to writing fiction. Andreas studied English Literature and Linguistics at Leeds and holds an MPhil in Modernist Literature from Cambridge. He has worked in finance and is a director of The Client Academy, anRead more