Meanjin Vol 68 Number 4

Jane Gleeson-White ponders the power of storytelling traditions from Homer to Alexis Wright and Richard King rethinks Shakespeare’s sonnets and speculations of love. In a special ten-thousand word essay, novelist Charlotte Wood considers the ethics of using other people’s lives in fiction and interviews writers – Robert Drewe, Helen Garner, Tegan Bennett-Daylight and Malcolm Knox – who’ve also waded these murky waters. Ben Eltham puts himself in the thick of the Australian Arts Festival scene, Ian Syson gives us the lowdown on the history of soccer in Australia and Stephen Downes serves it up to the restaurant reviewing industry.

In other essays Mel Campbell examines Michael Jackson’s public image and its unsayable paradoxes, David Hansen explores the art of portraiture through the work of W.H. Chong, Jim Guida rides with the early skateboarders and follows the rise of urban antics, Helen Barnes-Bulley takes a look at meaning behind fashion and clothes in film and literature, Sarah Kanowski goes to the Malaysian state of Kelantan to witness the prohibited art of shadow puppetry and Claire Scobie writes on the repatriation of Aboriginal remains in English museums back to Australia.

Sophie Cunningham speaks to novelist Eva Hornung, and Mandy Ord and Kate Fielding conclude their stunning graphic history, 'Their hooks find hold deep in our flesh'. In fiction, we have new writing by Patrick Allington, Morris Lurie, Maya Linden, Clinton Caward, Nicola Redhouse and N.K Mara, as well as the next instalment of Caroline Lee’s moving novel, Stripped. The winner of the 2009 Dorothy Porter Prize will also be announced.