Wonderground: Issue Four

Issue Four of Wonderground is overflowing with inspiring, exciting and heart-filling ideas, stories and conversations. Just like a healthy forest ecosystem, there’s a diversity of light and dark, hope and wonder. In fact, consider the fourth issue of Wonderground a forest itself – a window into worlds personal and mythical, ideas alive and ageless; a place mysterious and mad, meaningful and beautiful.

Issue Four makes the perfect purposeful and ethical Christmas gift. Printed in Australia on 100% recycled paper and supporting a diverse range of writers and creatives financially and professionally, Wonderground is a vital (and beautiful) new literary voice.

Table of contents:

Up the Back | Inga Simpson dusts off her wildest self among trampled trees, thistles and birdsong.

Tree Songs | Wonderground guest poetry Editors Siân Darling and Paul Kelly in conversation.

A Complicated Pining | It’s difficult to know what’s true or false in the hush of the dense pine forest. Richa Kaul Padte contends with the power of nostalgia.

Tree Rites | A new project growing ritual, connection and trees on Sydney’s streets.    

Know Your (Black) Garden History | We are energised, we are focused, and like our ancestors, we are rising! Abra Lee finds freedom, sorority and affirmation in Black horticultural stories.

The Heart of the Forest | It would be immoral to have this kind of knowledge and not do something about it. Forest ecologistDavid Lindenmayer in conversation with Georgina Reid.

Tree Talk | Jeff Perry converses with trees.

Alive with Rock and Tree | Tree’s been watching this story play out for hundreds of years and suggests, no, demands, better stories. Georgina Reid on living your best life amid ecological collapse.

Tiny Tree Tales | Six short stories about trees.

Karnpuka | Zena Cumpston explores the power of plants to open up connections to Country, culture and ancestral knowledge.

Undercurrent | We don’t have time not to hear the voice of Country. Tanya Massy walks upstream with Richard Swain, amid questions of custodianship and Country.

Gardening the Silence | Is this why the olive tree spoke to me? Jane Gleeson-White faces dark histories of war and trauma with help from an olive tree.

Root and Branch | Neha Kale profiles three artists who re-imagine ideas of kinship and ask us to look closely at ties that bind.

Laws of Nature | People aren’t as rigid as you think. There’s always the potential to change someone’s mind. Jess Bineth talks power and possibility with a lawyer on mission to gain legal protection for Australia’s natural wonders.

Good Country | My mum knew the meaning of Good Country all along. Georgina Reid remembers a childhood planting trees.

Acts of Co-Creation | Artist Sammy Hawker gives voice and visual expression to the more-than-human worlds that vibrate around, and within, us.

Migrants | Stéph Donse ponders questions of trees and family, movement and meaning.

Patterns of Time | They’re revered by many as the timepieces of the natural world. Ella Mudie explores the stories told by tree rings.

Plus poetry by Ali Cobby Eckermann, Thomas Hardy, Paul Kelly and Walt Whitman.

Illustrations, images and artwork by Daniel Shipp, Abbey Rich, Janet Laurence, Dan Kyle, Tiyan Baker, Sammy Hawker, Diana Scherer and more.

156 page softcover journal (24x17cm) printed on 100% recycled paper.