Magazine

Such a lazy conspiratorial bent towards Australian publishing camouflages what I and many of my colleagues believe is an important debate we should be having about barriers to entry and supporting local writing.

Fourteen authors tackle the question of literature’s big disrupter. Featuring Ellena Savage, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Steve MinOn and more.

Chase love through the past, present and future in ‘Devilled Eggs at the End of the World’.

Read the winning story ‘Devilled Eggs at the End of the World’ by Rosie Forrest—a journey through time that explores what matters most in the giant scheme of things.

Meet the ten stories in contention.

An interview with legendary editor Hilary McPhee.

An interview with Cannon author Lee Lai.

This isn’t the Orwell classic you thought you knew. Read an interview with Elizabeth Brennan and James Jackson, the script writers behind Bloomshed’s fast and feral reimagining of the classic political fable.

It took Dunham eight-and-a-half years to write her follow-up—and it shows. With the benefit of hindsight and time away from the bright spotlight that swallowed Dunham during her Girls years, she writes about that time in her life with a clarity, self-awareness and bittersweet wit.

Motherhood is a haunted house in this wildly original short story.

The local park is a site of both naivety and menace for one young mother.

Frankness comes before fiction in Debra Adelaide’s homage to her late friend in When I’m Sixty-Four.

In our fast-paced attention economy, how did On the Calculation of Volume, a ruminative series about a woman living the same day on repeat, become an international bestseller?

Caro Claire Burke’s viral Yesteryear picks apart the MAGA-coded return to ‘traditional values’ with varying success.

It was only going to be a matter of time before AI wormed its way out of the historic confines of science fiction and into the realm of the social realist novel.

Getting constructive criticism can be a daunting and sometimes confronting exercise. We asked writers about the challenges and benefits of outside perspectives on their work.

Eating without inhibition and refusing to eat at all may seem like opposites, but in fiction they can function in the similar ways: both destabilise systems that seek to discipline the female body.

‘A writer in midlife can have more steel, more tenacity and be more compelled to take risks because there’s nothing to lose.’

I am a liar and he thinks it’s because he is not worth the truth.

Apply now to work with our new 2026 mentors

Meet the Australian making waves in New York’s lit scene.

‘Is Wuthering Heights amoral?’ asked the London Review of Books podcast late last year. Of course, and deliberately so, we evidently needed reminding.

Sex elicits the uncontrolled exchange of private memories in this short story. But how does one make sense of what is given and what is taken?

A new year, a new you, but you’re still struggling to find the motivation to write? We asked inspired authors about getting words on the page.

All of the natives were good mimics, but in Magpie the skill was heightened to a preternatural degree.

From the award-winning writer, journalist and human rights defender, a story about a war hero who refuses to kill again.

In the follow-up to her internationally bestselling memoir, Jennette McCurdy takes the readers on a squeamish journey of teenage lust in an inegalitarian world.

Meet the new book critics for Kill Your Darlings magazine

‘We can’t keep putting books and authors out there if we’re not also putting equal effort into building readerships. I very much see it as from the same ecosystem. They all feed into each other.’

Human creativity sets itself apart from AI slop in this playful comic-essay hybrid on artmaking—the runner-up of the KYD Creative Non-Fiction Prize 2025.

‘I wish I’d known that poetry is punk as fuck. We ought to read it widely and wildly.’

‘I’ve always been obsessed with political shows like The West Wing and Veep, and the chief of staff was always my favourite character.’

The social media melee is hurting leftist organising, leaving us attacking each other rather than working together.

‘He has no words for what has happened to their family, why they are alone together at the beach at the wrong time of year.’

‘I convinced myself that my body was not mine to keep. That it was something I was borrowing from the earth.’

The  much-anticipated new book from the winner of the 2022 Stella Prize for Dropbear. The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world, and demands you ready yourself for a better one.

‘Ambition and adrenaline get you through most of your 20s but then they start to taper off.’

Read a winner of the KYD Creative Non-Fiction Prize 2025!

Introducing the Winners of the Creative Non-Fiction Prize 2025

The bright match flare of the flame, the quick tug of the basket, the weightlessness upon my feet. Around me there are gasps and cries, but I lean forward, gripping the side of the gondola as we are borne upwards into the air.

A recent wave of fiction about the corporate world draws on the gothic and the weird to expose the failed promises of modern life.

We have descended into a kind of existence where the sun rises not to awaken the living but to expose the damned. Our days are rituals of humiliation, long lines for water, a single container passed like a holy relic among the parched, as if thirst were a sacrament now.

We’ve told the reporters what we saw, but they aren’t too keen to hear it. Two minutes before Philo walked into the RSL, the hearse carrying her coffin hit a pothole, bounced off its front wheels and swerved around the gas line. The coffin slid out the hearse and cracked on the road. The September sun washed over her body, the same body that had lain for three days, circled by standing fans to stop the rot, until the son found the money for the funeral. There on the road, for all of us to see, she got up.

Have podcasts ever been more popular? In Australia, six million listeners tune in every week. We’ve reached out to some of our favourites in the field to find out about the surprises and challenges of audio storytelling.

In shifting the mainstream perception of genre fiction, we can also reconceive the idea of where Blak queer bodies can and cannot exist. We can place Blak queer bodies in a futurescape once denied to us.

The newsroom occupied the entire third floor of the National Building. On the wall near the lift, and on the columns that brought anchor and pattern to the open-plan room, there hung framed copies of front pages, decades old: reports of disasters and notable deaths and victories in one kind of campaign or another.

They could not afford a girl, he said. Girls were expensive. Girls required a dowry and were no help working the field. Their hands were too small, their arms too weak.

So, if I was born a girl, I would be killed.

Before I could remind him he was well over deadline—before I could invoke the phantoms of all the editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, printers, designers, marketers, social media managers, sales agents, booksellers, BookTokkers and adoring public waiting for him to complete his next novel—the line had gone dead.

Holding the Man reveals a young man confident with his body, and with the bodies of other boys and men, most of whom seemed to know exactly how things worked. How did he have this confidence? Wasn’t he worried about being bashed, or merely rejected?

‘The wonderful thing about gothic tropes is that a lot of them are internal. Anywhere can be perfect for a gothic novel as long as you have a character that feels emotionally or physically isolated and there are dark motivations or a reckoning with something deeper.’

The writer and playwright on bringing Cory Taylor’s final book, Dying, to the stage.

Meet the new publisher at Australia’s largest indie, Allen & Unwin. ‘Getting started in the first year, my aim was to have a smooth transition for the authors. Now going into year two, it’s more about what I want to publish.’

What was it like to be an Australian gay man in the 30s and 40s? This final novel by a once bestselling author offers a searing insight into a lifelong journey to self-acceptance.

The man looked utterly nondescript. A nondescript build. A nondescript dark suit. A voice and manner of speaking that was all very nondescript. The kind of person she would’ve immediately forgotten if she’d passed him on the street. But she hadn’t passed him on the street, she’d been stopped by him at the Institute’s basement-level parking lot.

Loom is a new interdisciplinary literary journal with editors in three major cities. Read our interview with founder Adalya Nash Hussein.

Turn on the audio and immerse yourself in this interdisciplinary poem from the first issue of Loom.

RF Kuang’s blockbuster Katabasis is a reminder that the modern university sector is something of a hellscape—but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Desperate Literature Prize 2025: What would it be like to be the only one left? Solitude is the domain of the sole survivor.

This gothic masterpiece by one of Australia’s most esteemed authors plumbs the depths of internalised shame and lesbian longing.

For a long time, I felt like the books I consumed needed to be worthy. Seeking pleasure instead has reminded me why I fell in love with words in the first place.

KYD School Prize 2025 Winner: Woman or creature, man or beast? Who’s to know in a girls’ world.

What does it take to be the first, to walk the path untrodden? This groundbreaking memoir charts the challenging journey from AFL legend to trans icon.

This lyrical, tender and devastating exploration of a young woman’s sapphic obsession and heartbreak leaves a lasting mark on its readers.

Our new podcast series examines the LGBTQIA+ books that have had a profound and lasting impact on life and literature in Australia.

Well maybe there’s no ancient lore here, no sacred stories or grand lineage, just you and your thousand sisters slotted into clear-plastic-fronted boxes.

Natalia Figueroa Barroso brings the Uruguayan diaspora and Western Sydney’s melting pot to the page. In this interview, she discusses her debut novel Hailstones Fell without Rain, a pacy, multi-generational story about a migrant struggling to raise her three daughters.

As a senior book editor and a reformed lit snob, I’ve watched the rise of the romantasy with interest. Beyond sex and dragons, the revitalisation of genre fiction has hidden potential.

Writers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about crafting short stories.

Once upon a time, the marriage plot served the inevitable happy ending. What happens when the institution—and with it, the tidy narrative—slips out of fashion?

Journalists Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson are the authors of Conspiracy Nation, an investigation into Australia’s radicalised fringes. In this interview, they talk to us about media ethics and why anyone could be susceptible to disinformation.

Grief is a four-winged creature in this exclusive new story by the highly acclaimed author of The Burrow.

An experienced senior editor explores the dire state of the publishing industry.

An iPhone detox didn’t make me more productive, but I did feel free. I don’t want to wake up one day and realise that my most devoted relationship has been with a screen.

In this funny story by one of the country’s most exciting new authors, a dog becomes a cooking sensation.

Koalas begin a great exodus in this short story by the bestselling author of All That’s Left Unsaid.

A subscription to the world’s most popular streaming service comes with artist exploitation, pseudoscience and the funnelling of profits into the war machine.

Nightclubs were a crucial part of my queer millennial coming-of-age. Current trends show a global decline in nightclubs, but is Gen Z really to blame?

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For July that book is The Occupation (Penguin Random House Australia), a moving work of historical fiction set in Japan and Australia in the wake of World War II.

A Facebook marketplace exchange takes an unexpected turn after an angry encounter.

I came close to writing a hatchet job once, and I was confused by how popular the piece became online. Criticism should offer more than a cut-throat execution.

Carving out a sustainable career as a freelance writer requires incredible tenacity, but as a recent memoir shows, it wasn’t always this hard.

Thomas Vowles’s Our New Gods offers a sentimental queer coming-of-age story in wolf’s clothing.

Writers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about dealing with knockbacks.

My manuscript won a big prize and increased the pressure for literary success. But I had to put it—and me—out of its misery.

Mourners are shocked when a young woman’s funeral takes an unexpected turn.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For June that debut is Our New Gods by Thomas Vowles (UQP), a literary psychological thriller set in Melbourne’s queer scene.

In the absence of a thriving avant-garde, Dominic Amerena’s I Want Everything adds to the local tradition of imagined alternative histories.

An industry interview with Emily Hart and Margot Lloyd, founders of an exciting new Adelaide-based publishing house.

I quit my smartphone and became attuned to a ‘wood-wide web’ under threat.

Is true love as elusive as the perfect wave?

Writers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about digital mail platforms like Substack.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For May that book is I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena (Summit Books Australia), a dazzling novel about the costs of creative ambition.

Will Albanese’s astonishing election victory mean Labor will finally address wealth inequality in Australia?

Male friendship becomes violent on the road in Vijay Khurana’s debut novel.

Do away with blurbs? I don’t think so.

For one man, the life imagined and the life lived converge like rapturous waters.

In the winning story of the KYD Flash Fiction Prize 2025, one woman’s dreams blur the lines between hallucination and accepted realities.

A tragic accident forced me to reckon with the father-shaped hole in my life.

Misogyny is flourishing. What do emotions have to do with it?

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For April that book is The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana (Ultimo Press), examining how men learn and perform masculinity.

At turns entertaining and bemusing, rewatching ABC TV’s book show highlights a scarcity of televised arts criticism.

Natasha Rai’s queer coming-of-age story provides a fresh, heartfelt take on the migrant narrative.

Diana Reid landed on the Australian lit scene with her bestselling novel, Love & Virtue. In this instalment, we take a peek into the writing routine behind her latest, a gripping psychological thriller.

Ma protect me. As I try to get back to you.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For March that debut is An Onslaught of Light by Natasha Rai (Pantera Press), a luminous, beautifully observed novel about migration, diaspora and queer identity.

Creative Australia’s troubling act of censorship signals an authoritarian turn we can’t ignore.

Like a stockwhip, Blak realities crack through the fictions of Australia’s colonial identity.

Josie McSkimming’s memoir illuminates the life of her famous sister, Dorothy Porter.

An industry interview with the director of the Melbourne City of Literature office.

A recent dating trend reveals what’s missing in modern romance.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For February that debut is Gutsy Girls by Josie McSkimming (UQP), an intimate story of sisterhood, finding creative power and blazing your own trail by the sister of renowned poet Dorothy Porter.

Is it possible to balance a creative life with a day job?

Shelf Reflection is our series where we explore the bookshelves and reading habits of some of our favourite authors. In this latest instalment, singer-songwriter and children’s picture book author Emily Wurramara takes time from her tour to share the books she’s been reading.

Writers, editors and booksellers to share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about launching books.

Prices were rising, supply chains falling. Economists were quoting Hobbes. Things were limping along, but there was a feeling.

How off-brand Ozempic led me into a state of pharmacological nirvana.

In Melbourne’s queer dating scene, I face the pitfalls of trying to integrate all of one’s sexual connections into a cohesive social experience.

Staff and contributors share the culture we loved in 2024

History fades in Sean Reynolds’ photographic collection Melbourne Ghost Signs.

An extract from Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, A Hope Prize Anthology

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For December that debut is Melbourne Ghost Signs by Sean Reynolds (Scribe), a beguiling photographic collection of the faded signs and half-hidden logos of Melbourne.

Publishing workers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about publicity.

Shelf Reflection is our series where we explore the bookshelves and reading habits of some of our favourite authors. In this latest instalment, Robbie Arnott talks to us about bookseller recommendations, comfort reading and his latest novel, Dusk.

An industry interview with the publishing high-flyer on her recent move to Summit Books Australia.

An extract from Words to Sing the World Alive, co-edited by Jasmin McGaughey and The Poet’s Voice

Shaeden Berry’s debut novel digs deep into a community to find hidden truths.

An extract from Shapeshifting, edited by Jeanine Leane & Ellen van Neervan

I am a grand spectacle, luxurious and piercingly cold, mounted in the centre of the room to enchant all.

I learned the hard way that more needs to be done to prevent AFL head injuries.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For November that debut is Down the Rabbit Hole by Shaeden Berry (Echo Publishing), a haunting and suspenseful mystery following the lives of three women in the wake of tragedy.

Memoir Showcase: As a professional film reviewer, my amateur writing can feel like a dirty secret.

My fashion writing is fuelled by a passion for ethical clothing but also a family legacy that has sustainability at its heart.

Jumaana Abdu’s startling debut novel doesn’t explain Islam but explores its depths.

An encounter with Tori Amos placed Jack Colwell firmly among the super fans.

A chance encounter with a kangaroo draws me to the page.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For October that debut is Translations by Jumaana Abdu (Penguin Random House). Translations is a beautifully moving novel following the lives of Aliyah, her daughter Sakina, and her friend friend Hana as they grapple with a series of personal disasters.

Critics Campus 2024: Alice Bellette unpacks Andy Burkitt’s horror comedy, The Organist.

Critics Campus 2024: Isabella Gullifer-Laurie speaks to Audrey Lam about her library-set experimental feature, Us and the Night.

Critics Campus 2024: Dylan Rowen on Jane Schoenbrun’s horror-infused I Saw the TV Glow.

Critics Campus 2024: Four perspectives on Pedro Freire’s resonant portrait Malu

Critics Campus 2024: Four perspectives on Ena Sendijarević’s acidic satire Sweet Dreams

In an expansive polyphonic reminiscent of Zadie Smith and Tash Aw, Raeden Richardson’s debut novel captures the city’s essence through its outcasts.

Sally Rooney’s much-anticipated fourth novel, Intermezzo, looks for a way out of the structures that bind us from within.

Up here there were just branches. And bird. It sat across from her, taunt and swollen. She swore it was looking right at her.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For September that debut is The Degenerates by Raeden Richardson (Text Publishing), which brings Melbourne’s streets, shopping centres and laneways to life with astounding originality.

Growing up, my Wiradjuri heritage lingered in the background, just out of reach. Writing my first novel helped me connect to my ancestors, culture and language.

Critics share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about writing reviews.

How one Indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology

The cost-of-living crisis and the loneliness epidemic collide as Australians are increasingly priced out of a seat at their local watering hole.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For August that debut is Jade and Emerald by Michelle See-Tho (Penguin Random House), a fierce and deeply felt novel about the joys and pains of growing up, of accepting who you are and where you come from.

An industry interview with the award-winning bookseller and co-owner of Avid Reader, Where the Wild Things Are and Riverbend Books in Brisbane.

A mother-daughter bond is tested in Michelle See-Tho’s exploration of the idiosyncracies of being a Chinese-Malaysian girl growing up in late-90s Australia.

From the Archive: It’s a simple, humorous meme—queer people can’t sit properly. But queer representations in film and television suggest something more radical.

A yearning for offline living and communion with nature explains the enduring appeal of the cowboy in the modern age.

Jordan Prosser’s debut novel offers mind-bending visions of the future. But beneath its rock’n’roll exterior lies a satire of contemporary Australian conservatism.

A Note from the Editor

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For July that debut is Big Time by Jordan Prosser (UQP), an anti-fascist ode to the power of pop music, wrapped up in an unforgettable, psychedelic road trip.

Journalists share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about working in the media.

Early web aesthetics are trending. But beyond comforting kitsch, retromania exposes today’s cultural stagnation and the limitations of surveillance capitalism.

Heartbreak and tragedy mark Khin Myint’s searing memoir. Underpinning grief and a sense of dislocation is a lifetime of marginalisation as a mixed-race Australian.

Housing insecurity has been a theme of Australian cinema for decades. Comparing a cult classic with a comedic new release reveals the stark reality of the current rental crisis.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For June that debut is Fragile Creatures by Khin Myint (Black Inc.), a powerful memoir about family, care and responsibility.

Authors share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about writing long-form fiction.

Cher Tan’s essay collection Peripathetic resists the clichés of internet writing by leaning into the propulsive and boundary-crossing nature of the digital, the literary and IRL.

Speculation has become enticing entertainment in the attention economy. From the dark corners of QAnon to Taylor Swift’s Easter eggs, even the most innocuous theories have the potential to radicalise.

An industry interview with Pippa Masson, literary agent at Curtis Brown Australia.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For May that debut is Peripathetic by Cher Tan (NewSouth Books), a collection of luminous and inventive essays that look beyond the performance of everyday life, seeking answers that continually elude.

Non-fiction books require intensive fact-checking. But in an industry without the same code of conduct as media journalism, accuracy and veracity hinges on trust between publishers and their authors—with occasional perilous consequences.

Abbey Lay’s debut novel joins a rich canon of literature that explores the complexity of intimacy between young women. The exhilirating possibilities of adolescence buzz through this suburban-set Australian coming-of-age story.

Publishing industry folk share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about writers’ festivals.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For April that debut is Lead Us Not by Abbey Lay (Penguin Random House), an emotionally charged novel of expectation, compulsion and desire.

Bri Lee is a rare Australian literary multihyphenate: bestselling author, public intellectual, activist and social media influencer. Given her knack for brand building, her debut novel offers a self-aware yet lukewarm parody of the uneasy relationship between art and money.

As the death toll in Gaza continues to mount, the arts world has started to fracture along sectarian lines. Recent attempts to censor events programming reveal the way that money, politics and power increasingly intervene in our national culture.

Blak sovereignty is centred in Mykaela Saunders’ inventive new short story collection. Her experiments in form, philosophy and genre offer a visionary exploration of the Tweed Goori community to which she belongs.

To examine one’s mental health in literature is to do the difficult work of overcoming shame and transforming the ineffable into words. Two new releases break form to share personal stories that hold room for ambiguities of the mind.

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For March that debut is Always Will Be by Mykaela Saunders (UQP), a timely collection of speculative fiction imagining futures where Indigenous sovereignty is fully reasserted.