Surplus Women by Michelle Duff. THWUP (2025). RRP: $35. PB, 240pp. ISBN: 9781776922284. Reviewed by Laura Borrowdale. It’s hard to know what to make of the short story form, and I say this as a short story writer. It’s a spiky, awkward form that often seems to belong more on classroom desks than bedside tables.…
The Enemy Within by Maire Leadbeater. Potton & Burton (2024). RRP $40.00. PB, 250pp. ISBN: 9781988550657. Reviewed by Allan McEvoy. Activist, author and social worker Maire Leadbeater’s latest nonfiction book The Enemy Within is a first rate exposé of Aotearoa New Zealand government-sponsored intrusion into the lives of social activist movements and its lasting effects…
Clay Eaters by Gregory Kan. AUP (2025). RRP: $29.99. PB, 128pp. ISBN: 9781776711536. Reviewed by Tim Grgec. At 18 years old, all male Singaporeans are required to undertake two years of military service. Over 20,000 recruits are enlisted every year, starting with nine weeks of basic military training on Pulau Tekong, or Tekong Island, on…
Gordon Chaffey is an artist based in Wellington, New Zealand. They are working on a few different graphic novels. One is called Busy Nights, which is about their own life working the night shift for Uber, and also one called Phil, Demon Slayer of Kilbirnie. “Mystery Kererū” is a story from Busy Nights. Edited by…
They have escaped to this region on the recommendation of Josh’s friend, who has family down this way. Josh and his partner, Matt, don’t think they know anyone else who lives or holidays here—not regularly. The whole environment is abnormally clean, the air and the freshwater springs, the bush, the burnished beaches, the sea and…
I studied the map of the London Underground hanging on the wall. Multi-coloured lines sprawled outwards, branching off from one another with no apparent logic. The whole thing was more like a diagram of an electric circuit than a map of a transport system. A thick, light-blue line made its way, in a jagged fashion,…