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Story
Counting the Minutes
Nothing symbolises Western society – particularly, its notion of time as a commodity for sale – better than the taxi driver’s meter. As a child, I watched them with a morbid fascination. Seeing the price rise before my eyes with each passing moment was anxiety-inducing, painful almost, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from…
5 minRead time
Editorial
A Middle Finger to the Modern Trap
I’m looking for a job and it is depressing. Trudging through the lists of meaningless positions feels wrong. It feels like a waste. People have so much potential and the world we have squanders it. I see my friends settling into careers even though so few are doing what makes them happy. Friends who acted,…
6 minRead time
India Story
The Halloween Puja
I’m going to be a boxer. I walk to town and ask my tailor to make me a baby blue bathrobe with a hood. This requires a fair amount of pantomiming and gesturing. Then I ask him to make me a pair of red boxing gloves. “Boxing gloves?” asks Rajesh. He sends a boy out…
7 minRead time
Story
Summer Romance
Ten years ago, I lived on an island off the coast of Honduras. It was summer when I was there. It was summer almost all the year. The air was hot and buttery; day lasted long into the night. Through the afternoons, men played dominoes in the shade beneath the mango trees. In the evenings,…
6 minRead time
Bali Story
Adios, Motherfucker
What’s the most quintessential injury an Aussie can get in Bali? A scooter accident. Okay, what’s the second most? Animal Bite. What’s the third—actually, forget it. Picture this, it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and you’ve just down a beverage called Adios Motherfucker. Sorry, Adios Motherfu*cker. Can’t forget the oddly placed asterisk; it’s honestly charming.…
10 minRead time
Feature
Fucking My Oppressors
Here I am, on my knees for a white man. Throwback to 50 years ago, and the context of this statement would have meant I was about to be beheaded, or shot, or whatever else occurred during the Vietnam war. But it’s 2020, and as the world slowly comes to terms with the breadth of its…
5 minRead time
Current Affairs
Why Do We Scoff at Arts Degrees?
Last week, the government announced its plans to slash the costs of the uni degrees it deems most essential in our current economy – namely teaching, nursing, agriculture, science, mathematics and engineering. So far so good. Youth unemployment has skyrocketed to 16.1% because of the virus, and the government is going to increase the number…
7 minRead time
Story
The Last Cigarette
Nothing ever changes where I’m from. It’s small-town forgotten suburbia where fuck all happens and everything stays the same. No one knows where they’re going – we just know we want out. We claw at the lip of the sewer lid, only to fall back in, left to sizzle out in a cesspit like a…
7 minRead time
Bali Story
A Balinese Quest for Magic Mushrooms
When people say drugs are a gateway, their minds often jump straight to visions of calamity and misfortune. More often than not, drugs provide a gateway to the next adventure. An escapade you would never have possibly found yourself on, had it not been for the quest to alter your reality. In my case, on…
8 minRead time
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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.