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Author: Julie Perrin

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Strangers on a train

    • Julie Perrin
    • 01 August 2024

    A commuter's mundane journey turns surreal as eccentric passengers create an impromptu human orchestra. From football fanatics and excited teens to brooding tradies, this slice-of-life drama reveals the hidden beauty in everyday encounters.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Burning truths

    • Julie Perrin
    • 12 July 2024

    In her new Quarterly Essay Highway to Hell, Australian climate scientist Joëlle Gergis pleads in language beyond the careful neutrality of traditional science-speak: ‘We need you to stare into the abyss with us and not turn away.’

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The art of storytelling

    • Julie Perrin
    • 18 August 2020
    31 Comments

    The capacity to story our experience is a powerful tool for reflection and understanding. As adults we learn that no story is pure and we are capable of telling ourselves spin, but the shaping of experience into story is the bread and butter of our lives. Narrative, it has been said, is a primary act of mind.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Telling Aurelia

    • Julie Perrin
    • 11 May 2020
    13 Comments

    In the week following my mother’s funeral I wake up knowing I need to begin cooking again. I need to enter the world beyond my door. It takes me until lunchtime to coax myself out from under the doona. I will walk up to the local shops for bread and vegetables.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Keeping vigil

    • Julie Perrin
    • 06 April 2020
    4 Comments

    While I stay by my mother, I glean only the edges of the news; already the horror of the fires has been at full stretch. In the quiet room where my mother lies, I think of people trying to sleep in unfamiliar environments, refugees from the fires.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Paul Kelly and the lighthouse in the sky

    • Julie Perrin
    • 14 October 2019
    7 Comments

    The musicians stepped forward, heads close around one microphone. The words of the 23rd Psalm were familiar and re-cast all at once. They met us in hope and in despair in 'the middle of the air'. There was a space of yearning there; the space where artists, songwriters and psalmists send us. That is the place we can be met.

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  • RELIGION

    Jack baptised himself

    • Julie Perrin
    • 16 July 2019
    10 Comments

    The first time Jack came to the church he baptised himself. The font was new, the water inviting, and he dunked his ten-year-old head right in. The font had recently been installed in the foyer on a sculpted piece of redgum. The brief for the designers was to make it accessible to all ages. They were delighted to hear of its instant appeal.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    This bus is a TARDIS

    • Julie Perrin
    • 19 May 2019
    8 Comments

    It wouldn't take much for an accident to happen, for things to fall apart. But today we have the kindly and calm Bus Driver. He wants the bus to do its job, to move as many people as possible on this afternoon when there is only one train line open, where the street is thick with footy crowds.

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  • RELIGION

    Journalist learns the power of accompanying

    • Julie Perrin
    • 17 April 2019
    14 Comments

      At Adelaide Writer's Week, George Megalogenis asked Leigh Sales who had surprised her most in the research for her book Any Ordinary Day. She replied: 'Steve Sinn, the priest. I'm not religious and I felt like we were going to have nothing in common and his way of looking at the world wouldn't make sense to me.' How wrong she was.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The man in the pork-pie hat

    • Julie Perrin
    • 19 March 2019
    7 Comments

    A small commotion at the doorway of the store catches my attention. A man in a pork-pie hat marches across the threshold. He carries a small back pack and steps with an uneven gait. He has a sure message, calling out a gamely, 'Good morning! Good morning everyone!' He looks about with purpose. Initially no one replies.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    James and the four eggs

    • Julie Perrin
    • 05 December 2018
    11 Comments

    James had come to the maths coaching because he'd been in trouble at work. He had to stack crates to a certain level at the workshop but was unable to count them, making the unloading impossible for people without his height and strength. He needed to learn to count.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Mending man

    • Julie Perrin
    • 02 November 2018
    14 Comments

    Padraig leads the Corrymeela community in the north of Ireland. It is a place committed to healing the social, religious and political divisions that exist in Northern Ireland. Corrymeela is an ancient Irish word. Padraig says they understood it meant 'hill of harmony' but recently they've discovered it is more like 'the lumpy crossing place'.

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