#39 CLIMATE

A painting of two crabs in portrait orientation, facing one another from above and below. Their front pincers meet at the centre, as if they’re holding hands. It is painted in an expressive style, streaked with warm tones of pink, yellow, orange, and brown. The background is awash in the same colour palette, giving the impression that the crabs are lazing about on a warm, sunny day. Bright yellow flecks on their backs come to the fore, appearing like dappled sunlight.

Prepare to lose your cool: from searing political commentary to poetry that will set your heart ablaze, there’s nothing temperate about #39 CLIMATE.

Lauren Barton’s crustaceous cover stars band together in the face of an uncertain future. Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker delivers a mould-infested workplace satire that takes ‘networking’ to the next level, and comics artist Sofia Sabbagh takes aim at the coal and arms industries. On the poetry front, Ren Wyld zooms across time and Country, Merinda Dutton wades through life-sustaining waters, and Eve Tramacchi O’Keeffe charts cycles of destruction and renewal. Lulu Houdini shares a clear-sighted suite, Kathryn Reese pens an elegy for the ocean, and Bradley Bradley meditates upon the Anthropocene. In non-fiction, Sharleigh Crittendon traverses an emotional landscape, and Sabyasachi Roy cranks up the humidity.