MC²

Contents:

• Editorials and acknowledgements
• Peat Island: A Ghost Story - Tiffany Hoy
• Didn't It Rain - Harley Cattini
• Walking the Line: Rediscovering Sydney - Cassandra Grant
• The Shack - Isabel Arthur
• Dig - Julian Webster
• Men Who Gasp at Goats - Mamta Bhatt
• The Lost Zion - Max Mirch
• Shutting down the DreaMTime: the potential, protection and prohibition of the Acacia - Caleb Goman
• Caught in a Chemical War - Kristen Pitot de la Beaujardiere
• Lemi Through - Linda J. Smith
• I saw Tom Clarkson With the Devil - Tom Clarkson
• A Bell is a Cup Until Struck - Rebecca Ward
  

Editorial

This first issue of mc² presents a diverse selection of some of the most engaging and promising writing from the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University.

These pieces were originally written by undergraduate-level students participating in a range of courses.  The Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies (MMCCS) conducts a number of subjects under the broad umbrella of 'literary non-fiction', including travel writing, music and arts journalism, science journalism and life writing.  The Department also offers courses in screenwriting and genre writing.  The English Department for its part hosts a range of undergraduate units and masters programs in creative fiction writing, and also conducts a writing major which allows students to try their hand at a wide mix of writing styles, drawn from both departments' offerings.  Both MMCCS and English also sponsor vibrant and diverse rosters of higher degree research projects, in which substantial literary production components are developed alongside analytical enquiry.

Literary writing aims to elucidate experiences, to put the unexpressed into words.  What begins as a private activity ends up, if all goes well, as something collective, a traffic of delight and discovery between authors and readers.  Editor Vanessa Berry has brought together a lively sampling of different voices, writing in different genres.  So now we present it to you, the reader, with the hope that you find your own points of resonance within these stories.  
- Peter Doyle

Scope Magazine