When you’re just a young chap and it’s the nuns teaching you, what often happens during art class is you decide to paint Jesus. As if it’s your own idea and not Sister Perpetua nudging you in a certain direction. In my case, the picture of Jesus morphed into a picture of a hamburger. But…
Emma Sidnam is a Wellington-based writer and lawyer. As a fourth-generation Asian New Zealander, she is passionate about representation and ensuring that all voices are heard. She is a slam poet and her work has been published in the Spinoff, Capital, Newsroom and the anthologies A Clear Dawn and Middle Distance. Her debut novel Backwaters won the Michael Gifkins Prize and was longlisted for the…
You want to order from a local restaurant, but you need to download a third-party delivery app, even though you plan to pick it up yourself. The prices and menu on the app are different to what you saw in the window. When you download a second app the prices are different again. You ring…
I typically avoid hard foods. These mantou are under-fermented: as if someone has poked a white ball with a needle, leaving it pockmarked and deflated. Biting into it might be tough, without the softness I prefer, but I don’t want to try. This results from my inexperience—uncertain about the right amount of water to add.…
As children, wild and unwatched in the streets of Kerman, we played dodgeball religiously. Every day, no exceptions. Those days our bodies were still as swift as hummingbirds, as agile as fish, swooshing away from the yellow ball thrown at us as if it were a comet on fire. The most glorious moments of the…
When you see your ex with a baby strapped onto him for the first time, don’t act surprised. Even though you haven’t seen him in years, obviously, and you’ve just bumped into him outside the cafe where you both used to sit with your laptops, attempting to study, but too distracted by each other, legs…
Tommy threw an inflatable inner tube and rope into the boot of the Holden, on top of the crate. The bottles clattered together. It was Saturday. We had all finished work for the morning and were heading up the back of Lake Tekapo, to the canals, to camp out. ‘What’s that for,’ asked Jed, ‘you…
She gripped the stainless-steel handrail and planted her feet wide apart, stabilizing herself as the tram traveled over the uneven tracks. With her other hand, she shook her wet umbrella, adding a layer of moisture to the already damp floor. The tram came to a halt and its mechanical doors swung open to a flock…
1 Last August, I bought a one-way ticket to Mexico City where I stayed in a hostel and spent nine days losing myself in anything and everything I could. I drank happy hour margaritas and did lines with my new friends and went to raves downtown. Still sparkly from the booze and the drugs, I…
He cuts into his steak. It’s rare. He told me in the car that he’d asked around and this was how everyone told him to have it. There’s no point having it any other way, they’d said—it’s got to be bleeding a bit. ‘Are you really only having chips?’ he asks. ‘They don’t do anything…