Author Stephen Orr is a prolific writer, spinning yarns with an unmistakably nostalgic Australian flavour, and this guest piece is no different. In ‘The Land of the Giants’ Stephen reflects on his childhood as a small, weedy boy in a world full of monsters and bullies.

We are thrilled to share this story, and even more thrilled to be publishing a collection of short stories by Stephen later this year. The titular story from the collection, ‘The Boy in Time’, shares its name with the recently announced winner of the 2021 Patricia Hackett Prize (Stephen loves to recycle!), awarded by Westerly magazine. Find that story here.

Stephen has also recently had another experimental short story published in the Saturday Paper. ‘A perfect day for bream’ is a mind-bending piece, blending together two very different stories. Find it here.

Read ‘The Land of the Giants’ below.

The History Council of South Australia Wakefield Press Essay Prize is awarded to the author of an essay that deals substantially with some aspect of South Australian history. This year’s prize was awarded to Stephen Valambras Graham of UniSA for ‘Open Doors: The Art of Charity in the Promised Land’.

The judges say that ‘this essay is an intriguing re-examination of well-known images that challenges our traditional understandings of them, and our State’s past’.

We are thrilled to be able to republish Stephen’s essay here on the Wakefield Press blog. This essay was originally published in the journal of the Historical Society of South Australia in 2021 (vol. 49).

Banner image: S.T. Gill, Going To Work, undated, watercolour, 25 x 33 cm, Canberra, National Library of Australia

Edited by Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science is a collection of essays written in the context of the French explorers’ belief that studying in situ was the only way for science to move forward.

In a special three-part guest series on the blog, John West-Sooby discusses how the book came to be, and the discoveries made along the way. In this third instalment, John examines the specimens collected on the Baudin expedtion.

Read on below.

Banner image: Terre De Diemen: Ile Maria. Tombeaux des Naturels, (detail) by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur

Edited by Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science is a collection of essays written in the context of the French explorers’ belief that studying in situ was the only way for science to move forward.

In a special three-part guest series on the blog, John West-Sooby discusses how the book came to be, and the discoveries made along the way. In this second instalment, John examines the drawings produced on the Baudin expedtion.

Read on below.

Banner image: Terre De Diemen: Ile Maria. Tombeaux des Naturels, (detail) by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur

In Robert T. Harris’ Dancing Before Storms, he examines five revolutions of the past that changed the power structures of our modern world. In this special guest post, Robert examines the similarities between revolutions of the past with our current political climate.

Read on below.