Laura McPhee-Browne

'It is dusk, and above her the sky is sinking, though it has not given up, and it will be back tomorrow. The colours are striking, and Arabella can’t remember the last time she saw so much pink and yellow and mauve and electric purple and saffron in the sky, but she hasn’t been looking up there much lately.'

Read A Few Hours in the Gardens, forthcoming in The Big Issue Fiction Edition 2022.

'I loved the smell of his skin, at his neck, his inner wrists, his dank, spicy crotch, but I felt as if I couldn’t sniff as long as I wanted, in case he realised. I wondered if he felt the same way.'

Read An internal sea in The Saturday Paper.

'I didn’t remember much of what my mother used to say to me before she died, all puffed up and covered in welts in a hospital bed, but she did tell me once that my belly button was as perfect as a shell.'

Read Perfect as a shell in The Saturday Paper.

'The paintings I see when we enter hit me like little bolts of special lightning. They are careful yet overgrown, luscious yet sensible, and the people in the paintings are cared about and seen, in the lines of their bodies against the fields.'

Read Self-Portrait After Panic in New Australian Fiction 2020.

'Women go through so much, she reflects, their bodies the sites of the real world wars.'

Read about What I’m Reading on the Meanjin blog.

'Sometimes I wish that all life expected of me was one walk each day, to admire the things that grow without our encouragement.'

Read The goddess garden in The Saturday Paper.

'Retreating had always been hard for me; to retreat completely felt like it would be death. The death of all the things I hoped for and wanted, and the death of experience.'

Read Retreat in the Victorian Women’s Trust Journal.

Art by Maggie Stephenson.

'I would like to think of myself as someone who understands what an orchard is: how it thrives, what it needs.

I would like to have common plum friendships, common plum love.

I would like to think of myself as someone who isn’t me, sometimes.'

Read Common Plums in Archer Magazine.

Photo by Ioli Clement.

'I eat all of my dinner; four slices of damp roast pork the colour of a morning tongue, cold peas, boiled carrot slices cut out like Christmas biscuits. Afterwards I doze, and think about what I have left behind – now that I am very old.'

Read The Voices of the Magpies in #153 of Island.

Portrait of Elizabeth Jolley by Mary Moore.

'The pyjamas were a set, and there were tiny spots all over the fabric. I wanted to look at her stomach, to see if it had grown, to believe her, but my eyes were scared. She stood there looking at me, and I stared at her shoulder. The dots on her pyjamas were actually very small stars, and were rather beautiful.'

Read Stomach in the autumn 2018 edition of Meanjin Quarterly.

'She has dreamt of wheat three nights in a row. When she wakes up, she looks first to see whether there are tiny cuts on her hands from stroking the golden stems.'

Read 'In Bitter Dust' in Kill Your Darlings.

Photo of a scene from a theatre adaptation of 'The Chosen Vessel' by Barbara Baynton, performed by the Australian Classical Theatre.

'My insides whooshed, and I jumped a little in my seat, parts of me dancing like streamers. It was Janis Joplin, the heroine of my little life. I should’ve known her, I should’ve known her straight away.'

Read 'The Day I Sat with Janis in the Garden and She Gave Me Her White Fur Hat' in Issue 8 of The Suburban Review.

Oh and here's a tiny interview.

Art by Jess Parker. 

'We were mad, and it was a river washing over us, dragging us wet towards the waterfall.'

Read 'Wet Towards the Waterfall' in Issue 20 of Mascara Literary Review.

Photo of Silvina Ocampo.

'I can’t help looking sad and I imagine my eyes are sagging and he whispers in my ear ‘Give us a smile’ and so I force it, and then it’s stuck there on my face even though I’m 33 and I stopped smiling years ago and maybe I’m fun but this party isn’t and my bed is calling out to me for once despite the alcohol in my bones.'

Read Ain't We Got Fun, in the autumn 2017 edition of Meanjin Quarterly.

Photo of Dorothy Parker with Dog.

'That night I dream that Mum vomits all over the carpet at the surprise party and makes Mal clean it up with his favourite tea-towel. She's laughing when I wake up, and I can still hear her when I finally begin to fall back into sleep.'

The Surprise was Highly Commended in the inaugural Hope Prize, judged by Kate Grenville, Cate Blanchett and Quentin Bryce. 

Artwork by Rosie Curran.

'She knew this as she shifted down into her bed at night, her legs hanging off the end like the ham that doesn't fit under the bread of a sandwich. She promised herself she would never leave.'

Read The Tallest Girl in the World, highly commended in the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction 2016, up on Lip Mag.

Photo of Clarice Lispector.

'My mind was tired, and as tentative as a star. I walked down streets I had always known as if they were tangled.'

Read The Bougainvillea Tree, up on Verity La.

'She knew she had swallowed rather a lot—warm cider, beer and mildewed liqueur at home in the breakfast room while her son had been bathing and dressing and bowing his tie.'

Read Olam, in the Autumn online fiction edition of Overland.

‘I could hear the trees swishing against his window, his spotted breath. I asked him if he’d ever loved me and he turned his alarm clock radio on.’

Read Lynx Africa up on Scum Mag.

‘It’s a big week at Hungry Jack’s—I do six shifts in seven days and spend the rest of my time thinking about Forest Boy.’

Read Forest Girl in Issue Eleven of Tincture Journal, available for purchase here.

‘Fern gets sick sometimes. It’s a big, heavy sadness in her heart and her head and a jelly in her arms and legs.’

Read When Francis Bacon came to stay up on Writers Bloc along with a tiny interview, or buy a copy of Tincture Journal, Volume 9 where the story was first published.

Artwork by Francis Bacon: Man Kneeling in Grass, 1952.

‘By the time I was seventeen I had this bad habit. It was my secret, and I held it close to me like the newspaper in the rain.’

Read Our Lady Godiva up on Verity La. 

Artwork by Russell Flint: Lady Godiva 2, circa 1950.

‘When you were younger, before the cough and the habit, you would have stayed out for nights on end, drinking in cans and the moonlight.’ 

Read Here are the dogs, shortlisted for the Right Now Fiction Competition 2014, judged by Anna Funder and Tony Birch.

Photo by Adnan Khan.

‘Like the eyelashes of a seal, just from the water.’

Read Wednesday is Cooking Day, shortlisted in the Right Now Fiction Competition 2014, judged by Anna Funder and Tony Birch.

Artwork by Felicity Handley.

'I wonder as I lead you into the bathroom, so dreadfully nude and full of bones, whether you know I am leaving soon.'

Read Bathing up on The Suburban Review.

Photo by Todd Anderson-Kunert.

‘Mum flushes pink and happy when she sees us, it hurts my heart a bit. ’

Read The Change Jar up on The Squawk Back.