The Night My Heels Made Me Feel UntouchableEvery closet hides a relic of a self we have already shed. Mine is a pair of strappy black stilettos, slightly scuffed at the toe, that I bought on a Tuesday…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…