cread | read & see

The 146  birthday of iconic Australian author and poet, Henry Lawson is being celebrated today through a mechanism which he could not have even imagined - a Google doodle. A 'drover', some cows and a dusty landscape accompany the Google logo and of course a click through takes internet surfers to a Google search of Henry Lawson. Searching for Henry Lawson is an apt phrase for although achieving some literary peaks - such as in short story collection While the Billy Boils (1896), Jo Wilson and his Mates (1901) and perennial favourites ranging from The Drover's Wife to The Loaded Dog - he was as well known for being restless, erratic and unwell. Many Australian homes will have his collected works somewhere on a bookshelf, the township of Grenfell celebrates his birth there every Queen's Birthday long weekend, and some of his work is re-told to modern audiences such as the recent theatrical performances of The Loaded Dog . Despite the bruising tale of

By Josiah Hallett The Big Issue is a five dollar magazine sold by vendors who retain $2.50 of that sale price for themselves. These vendors are people like Lea, a former drug addict, who became homeless and lost her kids after separating with her husband. Lea's story is told in the current edition of The Big Issue , where she expresses her thanks to the publication for giving her the opportunity to make some money, when what she had become accustomed to was “no.” The “fiction edition” of The Big Issue is in circulation until September 10. It features 12 short works of fiction, and each of these stories has been matched with artworks by modern artists. When flicking through the magazine, the positioning of these artworks seemed random, but once I'd read the accompanying stories my mind made the most of the fiction's framing, leaping one way or another to make sense of why each artwork belonged where it was. I think that's the way it's supposed to be with art, r