Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Katelin Farnsworth
Yellow
The first time Jack sees them he doesn’t think much at all. After all, he’s tired and running late for work. He didn’t even have time that morning to eat his Weet-Bix, and he always eats Weet-Bix, with manuka honey and half an overripe banana mashed in. He sees them on the street corner, near the McDonald’s and the Coffee Xpress. Jack doesn’t go to McDonald’s anymore, not after they started charging extra for sweet chilli sauce.
Overland literary journal
The skinny man with his beanie and cane – I think he’s dying. His nose is turning blue at the tip. * I saw the boyish woman walking towards me along Paisley Street.
Overland literary journal
She slammed the bedroom door shut, turning us both into silhouettes against the fading light filtering through the large open window. Barely in the room, she collapsed on the bed in front of me, said, “Smartphones are what cigarettes were for the great masses of people once addicted.” Reaching across her bed, she dipped her hand into the bottom drawer of her bedside cabinet and pulled out a single cigarette.
Overland literary journal
The things I want to say aren’t the sort of things you’re allowed to say out loud. You’re not even meant to think the things I think. But sometimes I think them anyway and sometimes I want to say them, so badly, that my chest fills with this irredeemable rage and I don’t know which way to look. Life is so strange. People don’t talk about that enough. My boss killed his wife.
Overland literary journal
The next time we saw each other I would only remember the name Bastard, which was not his name but what his friends had called him, how they’d introduced him that first night, because it resembled the sound of his true surname. But I felt strange addressing him as that; even an unflattering nickname seemed to produce intimacy I didn’t care to feel. Instead, I didn’t call him anything. I said, Hi, and then: Do you remember me? Yeah, he said, of course.
Overland literary journal
It is not the first time the thought occurs to her: that it might be days before anyone finds her, lying still on the linoleum. What prompts the thought this time is her bleeding thumb. Clumsily opening a can of baked beans she finds at the back of her kitchen cupboard yields such blood. Sofia drenches the handle of her mother’s old wooden spoon. The sauce, also a sickly red, is starting to bubble on the stove. Thumb under the tap until the water runs clear.
Fine
Every Saturday Mrs Fine walked to the corner store to pick up a bottle of milk. The milk came in a tiny glass bottle, never enough for a full week’s worth, not with the kids and the amount of cereal they consumed, but Mrs Fine liked the ritual of picking up milk all the same. On these walks Mrs Fine admired the sky. It opened up, expanded. She liked the walking track too, the tiny blue flowers growing out of the cracks in the pavement, the snaking path in front of her.
From the editorial collective
Who are we? We’re some of the volunteer readers at Overland – you might recognise our names from the editorial pages of the journal. Ordinarily, we have the pleasure of reading a selection of the works submitted to the journal each month before they move onto Claire’s desk for further consideration. We read and carefully consider each piece, but don’t make the final choice of what’s published, and we don’t ordinarily interact with the authors. This edition, however, is different. This is our edition.
Art and female agency in ‘The Lady of Shalott’
Alfred Tennyson’s 1842 version of ‘The Lady of Shalott’ explores complex ideas, twisting and intertwining art and female agency. The poem represents art as a means by which women may express agency, but also as a means that is limited, and which women seek to transcend. Tennyson’s poem debates the nature of free will, which is ridden with contradictions regarding the female artist and her place in society.
Art and female agency in ‘The Lady of Shalott’
Katelin Farnsworth Type Author biography Katelin Farnsworthis a writer and editor from the Dandenong Ranges. Her work has appeared in The Age/SMH, Overland, Verity La, Award-Winning Australian Writers and others. She was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize 2020.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Katelin
Contact Katelin, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack