They’re almost three weeks old now, and the last person whom I really wanted to let see them in the flesh rather than from a photograph has seen them, and most of the traumatised skin has flaked away, and they look quite photogenic. So, here they are. My new tattoos:
The quill is on my right [...]
Ink
Dark Ages
Tomorrow, I’m leaving for a week away in Newcastle. It’s where I grew up and most of my family is still there so I try to go back at least once or twice a year to visit. It’s always strange. It doesn’t feel like going back home – it hasn’t been my home for well [...]
You know you read too much True Crime when …
… you’re walking through an underground shopping centre car park and a guy in a wheelchair, his left leg right angled and bristling with one of those metal pins-and-braces deals they put on for really bad injuries, calls out to you as you approach and asks if you can help him get his chair into [...]
Sweat, Salt and Insomnia
It’s after 2am and I should be in bed, sleeping. Hell, I was in bed until a few minutes ago, although not sleeping. Just lying there, in the awful heat we’re promised at least three more days of here in Melbourne, and wondering if it would make things a bit cooler if I actually started [...]
lizards and other small disasters
Sometimes, things which seemed like such a good idea in the fraught wee hours, don’t seem so bold and bright when you wake to the slim grey fingers of dawn slipping through your curtains.
But this isn’t about that.
After a troublesome, semi-sleepless night, I dreamed of walking through anonymous, unfamiliar, urban parkland, accompanied by a [...]
Kirstyn McDermott is an Australian writer living in Melbourne. Mostly. 
