We are Australian: A living history

Earthquake, a National Disaster Area and a volcano are all here. Along with friendships, partings, love and estrangement--the gamut of the human experience.

We meet an indigenous family fighting to learn the truth about a loved one's death while serving his country. A son remembers a war-weary father who marched the Kokoda Trail, and a mother shares the joy of her three children. We pay tribute to the Stolen Generation and warriors defending the gentle giants of the sea--our whales. We share the love of a wife requesting her husband's surgeon to take care of her lover's heart and a family's devotion to a disabled son, with a unique gift for poetry, and deep insights into life.

We read about the innocent joys of childhood, the love of grandparents and the extended family. So, here we are to share the kitchen pots, the tools of trade, the building of homes, living with hardship and the experience of integrating with other cultures. We hope that you will enjoy these stories and the journey back along memory lane, and realise that we are all a part of life's 'living history'.

Linda Brooks lives in Adelaide. She gained the attention of a publisher when her short stories found critical acclaim on the ABC website, 'The Making of Modern Australia' and her first published book resulted, A Curious & Inelegant Childhood, a memoir of growing up in rural Australia.

Magdalena Ball is a gently flowing river, with a mind that is flexible and scary smart. A poet of renown and book reviewer, Magdalena runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the poetry book Repulsion Thrust, the novel 'Sleep before Evening' and several other books.

Gail Hennessy has been reading and writing all her life and her short stories and poetry have been published in newspapers and journals since the '70's. Her book of poems 'Witnessing' is a collection that brings together published and new poetry in a loosely autobiographical history.