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 Rose Allan
Fiction | Breathing lessons
You get in early to the Department of Prosperity and Initiative, which you’ve been doing since the restructure of 2018. As government departments go, it’s nondescript. It works in the way that gumboots work. Not pretty but it does the job. You arrive at seven, card swipe, and in through the front, up the lifts, and on to the double sliding doors as the cleaners waltz around empty cubicles. You go to the gents at 7.05 and grab a coffee at 7.10. You are not exactly ‘killing it’.
Overland literary journal
Find it. Kill it. The thought has been bothering me and my fingers fumble, working back and forth on the mariner shell necklace. Walking home along the beach, I pull my coat tightly about myself, keeping the wind from probing the exposed skin of my neck. Across buttongrass and bauera and beyond the choppy harbour are Hell’s Gates, a wickedly shallow channel surrounded by rocks; they are cloaked in the blackness of an encroaching storm. The Gates are a slot breaching the edge of the island.
Overland literary journal
Memory’s a trickster, just not a very good one. It meddles with the mise-en-scéne of the music awards, faithfully recreating the tables and stage but inserting a children’s swing and climbing frame. It cut-and-pastes a sunbather plattered on a towel. A couple picnic on a rug. The smell of trampled grass mixes with the funk of booze and fumes of… well… grass. More than a few of the invited guests are brazenly toking.
Fiction | Focus
A woman is lying on her back, disappearing into the sand. Bit by bit. First her belly, then her legs and lastly her feet. Her eyes are closed. She could be dreaming. She could be dead. From above on the boardwalk, Madeleine has an excellent view. A boy and a girl gleefully scoop and dump sand over the woman’s body. The mother must trust them not to get carried away and dump sand on her head. Burying Mummy is fun. Mummy is likely enjoying the rest.
Fiction | New face in the fight against poverty
Several things happen. I wake up. I hear the appeal of the advertising cruisers creeping past my building. My skin flames where it rubbed against the grainy sheets. Still two more days before I can do a load of washing. My Palm lights up with messages from work, Mum and (surprise, surprise) no men. And my mind remembers too late my affirmation principles: today is a good day. I am good. I am today. And all that. But I feel like death, or worse, like life gone on too long.
The Bear on the Beach
Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $100 for a print subscription, $5 for a monthly digital subscription, and $50 for an annual digital subscription.
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 Rose
Contact Rose, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack