Date Archives August 2018

Death by Preservation: New Travel Essay Published

Published work Travel
Death-By-Preservation-in-Rome

I just had a travel essay called Death by Preservation published in Issue #34 of Post Road Magazine, a literary magazine over in the U.S. It’s about the tourist project of fantasy construction and the curious correlation between UNESCO World Heritage status and spiritual death. The essay starts in the medieval theme park of Tallinn’s old town, before moving across the continent and asking why some places get preserved and others don’t, anyway. And what are we looking for and why? What qualifies as picturesque for the tourist, and what is… Read More

A Shocking Memoir From a Stolen Generation

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Marie Munkara and her mother Judy

I learnt about Of Ashes and Rivers That Run to the Sea from Emma’s excellent review on Book Around the Corner. It’s a very moving memoir by a woman, Marie Munkara, who was taken from her Aboriginal family in northern Australia at the age of 3 and placed with a white foster family in Melbourne. The Stolen Generations Munkara was one of thousands of members of the “Stolen Generations” of Aboriginal children taken from their homes by the Australian government or church missions. According to Wikipedia: “Official government estimates are that in… Read More