fbpx
Skip to content Skip to footer
Menu
Spain Story
The Death of a Doorman
My previous portero died unexpectedly. One day he was there – a fat and jovial man, bald, glasses, head pushed a little forward giving way to the staircase of rolls in the back of his neck, always with a kind word, or the latest English phrase he’d taught himself, Goot eebening, or just to hold…
March 10, 2022
Spain Story Uncategorized
El Abuelo’s Ashes
Buenaventura Bravo’s main job during the Spanish Civil War was getting his goats out of the village and into the mountains. This was no top-secret mission, entrusted upon young ’Ventura by the besieged Republican government in Madrid, just something that had to be done; this was the day-to-day life that continued to unfold regardless of…
April 11, 2020
Story
Death in the Time of Corona
I was prepared for one of them to die. Before I left the UK to go travelling, I made a list of family members I would come home for if they died. In a single week in October 2016, I lost not one, but two of the most influential men in my life: my granddads.…
March 27, 2020
Yarns
Losing My Mum at Six Years Old
I enter the hospital room and my body freezes. Before me stands a lifeless room full of clinical white light. Death lingers in the fringes, waiting for permission to feast. Bleach engulfs my nostrils. My feet shuffle past the door as I take in the slumped bodies occupying the room. Sunflowers sit in a vase,…
August 23, 2018
Vietnam Yarns Yarns
Killing in the Name Of
The reactions are diverse when you tell someone you've decapitated a live chicken in Vietnam: I’ve been laughed at for my inept bravery, labelled as a bloodlust sicko and given a pat on the back. One thing’s for sure: it peels open a fresh can of controversial worms. Nearly all of us kill animals every…
August 13, 2018

Astray is a storytelling project centred on travel, place, culture and identity.

We’re run by a team of writers who mostly live, work and play in nipaluna / Hobart. With reverence, we acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and ongoing custodians of trouwunna / lutruwita / Tasmania: land that was stolen and never ceded. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.