EDITOR’S NOTE As a fresh BFA student last year, my mind was blown by the writing staff who were ~actually~ quite famous and successful. I imagined myself standing in H101, with the creaking seats thrumming in my ears as I launched into a tirade about Twilight and declared myself a ‘Hemingway lover’. For me, this was what made you a writer worthy of publishing. We’ve studied the old, usually fat, always white, and almost always male writers and they’ve all had one thing in common: a hatred of anything that isn't deep AF (also a lot of famous writers look like serial killers, or even are serial killers?). Hemingway was deep because he was a drunkard; Kerouac was deep because he was a bastard; Cormac McCarthy was extra deep because he was both a drunkard and a bastard; and here I am, enthralled by Stranger Things and the bargain of the $2.80 chicken chip deal at Woolies. Am I deep enough to be a successful writer? Should I be drunk more often? This thought has pounded against me every time I’ve sat in a poetry lecture or a short story critiquing session when everyone has a dark story about addiction and despair, and my story is about a shitzu and post-it notes. Would Hemingway have been as successful if he wrote stories about shitzus and post-it notes? Maybe. This is why we created the QUT Inklings Zine. It’s already difficult for an undergraduate or emerging writer to get published (made more difficult by QUT’s recent scrapping of the Undergrad and Postgrad Writing Prizes), and most publishers will strip so much of what the story is about because of themes and regulations, or in my own experience, not being “deep enough”. And when you’re starting up, all you want to do is show the world that yes, I can write an emotional, life changing story about a post-it note and still be a good writer. The stories that have been submitted to this zine are packed full of writerly passion. Some are funny, some make you think, and some just make you want to cry. It has been so much fun reading, editing and creating the designs for this zine, and I’m looking forward to repeating the process next year. And yes, I think they are all deep enough for publishing. Shitzus and post-its are better,
Kaet Edgerton QUT Inklings President