Australian poets Toby Davidson and Mark Reid speak to Verity La La editor Michele Seminara about their new collections, The Grand Reopening and The Blessed Affliction. You can read a poem …
Wax and Wane: three poems (Peter Mitchell)
Intoxication for J For years, my heart was drunk on you — each sight …
Pacing the Stage (Deborah Conway)
On October 3 2023, I released a memoir, Book of Life. Four days later, the world changed. On October 7 we were in the middle of a matinee performance of …
‘We’ll Always Have Paris’ (Devika Brendon)
Humphrey Bogart says this to Ingrid Bergman in the film Casablanca. A great exit line, as he farewells the love of his life with supreme gallantry and apparent nonchalance. Paris …
I’M GAY BUT I KNOW JESUS: an interview with performer Melody Rachel
Melody Rachel doesn’t so much perform as detonate — sometimes with laughter, sometimes with prayer, sometimes with the quiet implosion of shame turned inside out. Growing up Christian, she inherited …
Editors’ Note (Verity La Reborn) Issue One: ICONOCLAST
After years of silence, Verity La returns. This is our first issue since the journal’s Managing Editor, Michele Seminara, endured a cancellation at the hands of activists. What followed was social …
The Curse of the Man Who Could See the Little Fish at the Bottom of the Ocean (Simon Leys)
For Hanfang Since the Beijing massacres, the question has already been put bluntly to me several times: “Why were most of our pundits so constantly wrong on the subject of …
The Skin I’m In (Iona Italia)
All my life, I have been accused of having the wrong skin colour. My body’s wrapper—loosening and crinkling slightly around the eyes and mouth now, like the bow-tie-shaped foil around …
The Emperor’s Return (Anne Casey)
Just one piece—they will never notice he whinnied as he secreted the piece in his pocket just before he ordered the summary evisceration of his predecessor, as black letters slicked …
The World’s Longest Daisy Chain (Jenny Lindsay)
The first time I was complicit in inflicting public humiliation on someone has left a strong enough impression on me to be writing about it thirty-five years later. For various …