by Ian Cochrane | May 27, 2018 | Oceania, Utopia
Australian author Helen Patrice has been described as a fantasist cat-lady, tarot enthusiast, belly dancer and a widdershins circle-casting witch. But going by her latest offering – THE COMMUNICANT and other stories – there is much more to this writer than meets the...
by Ian Cochrane | May 3, 2018 | Africa, Europe, Oceania, Utopia
Grandma was a short, stooped lady fond of telling stories in her Scottish brogue. In that blue, white and green MacDonald tartan pinny over a floral dress, she cooked up batches of potato scones, fried fruitcake and black pudding. No one in her family had seen a...
by Ian Cochrane | Apr 18, 2018 | Europe
Broken walls topple, the last defenders with them. Canal bridges, city gates and the cathedral burn. Steel clashes with steel, horses’ hoofs pound stone roads and women drag screaming children, the old and infirm towards the hills and mountains. Columns groan...
by Ian Cochrane | Apr 15, 2018 | Oceania, Utopia
This morning we ponder our breakfast bowls in quiet isolation, another bush camp away from the road trains, the caravans and crowds, 100km east of nowhere in Outback Queensland… last night’s neighbours a passing herd of camels with shining eyes, their...
by Ian Cochrane | Mar 21, 2018 | Americas, Oceania, Utopia
Paul Robeson was a black American man and an important civil rights activist of the early to mid 1900s, but there is so much more to this story. Until hearing Jeff Sparrow’s impassioned presentation at his recent Melbourne book promotion, my own knowledge of...