Meanjin Vol 81 No 1

‘ . . . embracing anger is a political act. This is not a personal project but a social one-being passive and perpetually afraid of your power reinforces the status quo, and I am no longer interested in that. Anger is a complex emotion, which is exactly why my child-brain suppresses it, and exactly why we as a society are afraid of it. Anger teaches us that not everything has to be either/or.’

In a profound and personal essay, Lucia Osborne-Crowley writes on learning to embrace anger as a multi-faceted emotion. Anger can be an act of caring, anger can be a force for personal power, and inter-personal good; anger, she says, ‘can sit alongside love and hope and connection rather than being their opposite.’

Guy Rundle studies the rise of the Knowledge Class, the laptop tapping workers at the core of the west’s new economy, and details the challenge – and opportunity – this growing group poses for traditional progressive politics.

Na’ama Carlin found her first pregnancy challenging, a minefield of existential and practical complication. Then she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer.

Author Alice Pung writes on the vexed politics of ‘diversity’ in the Australian publishing industry. Futurist Mark Pesce is anxious about the social implications of the Facebook ‘metaverse’, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Critic and curator Chris McAuliffe looks at the hidden and very complicated history of the Australian flag. El Gibbswrites on the hidden pandemic- of living with both covid and disability.

Other essays from Declan Fry, Martin Langford, Gemma Carey, Madeleine Gray, Jill Giese, Bruce Buchan and more.

Memoir from Alice Bishop, Alexander Wells, Dominic Gordon and Hannah Preston.

New fiction from Jennifer Mills, Ouyang Yu and Christopher Raja.

New poetry from Adam Aitken, Lucy Dougan, Ashleigh Synnott, Stephen Edgar, Svetlana Sterlin, Junie Huang and more.

Reviews from Millie Bayliss, Imogen Dewey, Hasib Hourani, Thabani Tshuma and Rosie Ofori Ward.