The Lip Balm Tucked Beneath Everything ElseA handbag carries more than its listed contents. Pressed receipts, a forgotten pen, a pair of tangled earbuds, a loyalty card for a café on Gertrude Street…The Sweater I Never Returned and the Friendship That Outlasted ItIt was a Canberra winter when my friend Lila pressed a soft, dove-grey jumper into my hands. I was heading to a dinner in Braddon, complaining about the wind…Words that never left: writing an unspoken goodbyeEvery writer eventually faces a scene that resists language: the parting where no one says farewell. The bus pulls away, the phone stays silent, and the moment…Why I Write About Train Stations When I Feel StuckThere is a particular silence that lives on a platform at half past five on a winter evening. You stand there with your bag over your shoulder and the cold…The Skirt I Twirled Before I Knew What Heartbreak MeantThere is a shade of cotton in the back of my wardrobe, folded into a square that smells of cedar and old lessons. It taught me how to move through the world…When a Dropped Phone Becomes a Breakup SceneA cracked screen is rarely the end of a story, but it can be the start of one. Writers spend years mining the ordinary for material, and few moments feel as…The Jacket I Wore When I Learned to Say NoI bought the jacket on a Wednesday, the way most of my best decisions happen midweek. It was cropped denim, faded in a way that suggested someone else had…What a pair of mismatched socks reveals about recoveryThere is a specific kind of quiet that arrives in the first weeks after something breaks. The kettle still whistles, the train still runs late, the dog still…The ring I found in a couch cushion at a stranger's partyI had not planned to stay long. It was one of those weeknight gatherings in a share house in Fitzroy where the couch had been dragged in from the footpath the…Writing Kisses That Taste of Cheap WineA kiss that tastes of cheap wine is rarely about the wine. It is about the mouth that offered it, the music three rooms away, the arvo sun slanting through…