“HEAT is a distinguished Australian literary journal renowned for its dedication to literary quality, and its commitment to publishing innovative and imaginative poetry, fiction, essays and the hybrid forms.
HEAT’s first issue of 2025 starts with ‘Annie’, a story translated by Sarah Death from Swedish novelist Lena Andersson, whose fiction contains truthful and cutting, hilarious and crushing representations of the minutiae of human relations. It then turns to π.O., whose poem-portraits of Fitzroy pulverise the heart by seeing too deeply and with too much experience.
Fiona Kelly McGregor’s virtuoso essay ‘What’s in a Name?’ looks at the violence and freedom of given names and chosen names by transcribing a chorus of personal name-stories from all corners of the world. Leah Muddle’s buoyant ‘Volcano Sequence’ of poems sets the heroine of Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli against the artist’s eternal battle with herself – we are horrified by, and throw ourselves at, a volcano who will only spout when it wants. Debbie Lim’s weather poems likewise draw out the mist and rain and thunderous turmoil in our hermetic interiors.
Finally, in ‘Charismatic’, Hannah Fink takes us through Lucian Freud’s art and life to reveal endless layers in both the paintings and the man.”
