Journals

Westerly: Vol. 59, No. 2 edited by Delys Bird and Tony Hughes-d’Aeth

by Luke Johnson •

March 2015, no. 369

Westerly Centre, $19.95 pb, 310 pp, 9780987318053

Journals

Westerly: Vol. 59, No. 2 edited by Delys Bird and Tony Hughes-d’Aeth

by Luke Johnson •

March 2015, no. 369

‘A father is God to his son,’ declares the father in David Whish-Wilson’s story ‘The Cook’, just a split second before he is shot dead by his drug-dealing son. Thus begins this special edition of Westerly, which marks not only the magazine’s sixtieth year of publication but also the retirement of its two standing editors, Delys Bird and Tony Hughes-d’Aeth.

Fortunately, those who live by the editorial pen need not die by it (at least not with the same ruthless permanence as those who live by the .303). As the collection of histories written specially for this issue by past editors and associates of the magazine shows, they are more likely to be invited back to share anecdotes and reminisce on their time as head of the family.

Luke Johnson

Luke Johnson lectures in Creative Writing and Literary Theory at the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of Wollongong. He has written opinion pieces for The Age, ABC’s The Drum and New Matilda, and has had peer-reviewed research published both nationally and internationally. His fiction has appeared in such places as Overland, Island, Going Down Swinging, Heat, Mascara Literary Review and The Lifted Brow, and in 2014 he was shortlisted for the Josephine Ulrick Prize in Literature.