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Storm and Sunshine Anthology


A collection of writing from Storming the City 2024


Storm and Sunshine Anthology: Contents

  1. Sundials by Ibtisam Shahbaz
  2. [Insert Label Here] by Jacinta Dietrich
  3. Quiet in the City by Renay Barker-Mulholland
  4. The Countdown by Emma Rennison
  5. Chronically Bloom by Zoe Simmons

An Introduction from Lyndel Caffrey, Co-Writeability Program Manager

I’m very happy to introduce our latest Storming the City online anthology, Storm and Sunshine.

This year’s anthology showcases our 2023 writers, including some familiar names.  Zoe Simmons and Ibtisam Shahbaz once again share their poems with us. Jacinta Dietrich reflects on identity and the not-so-helpful boxes she’s been put in over the years. Renay Barker-Mulholland shares  the silence of her city at night, the quiet before the noise of the day begins, the noise that is so often people talking at, or about disabled people, but rarely to us. Emma Rennison writes about waiting – through an evening, through days, months and years – for a surgery that is essential, it seems, to no one but her.

The storms and sunshine of these first years of the 2020s will feel very different for the generations that lived through them, compared to the years that came before and everything that will come after.  In our small part of the world, here in Naarm, meeting and working with Storming the City writers will always, for me, shine with their creativity, excitement and promise.  From my very first meeting with the very first cohort of Storming the City writers – one face-to-face meeting before lockdowns showed us the way to working from home and endless Zoom meetings – to this anthology and the hybrid events we are enjoying this year, all the seasons have been out in force.

Thanks to the City of Melbourne for their support of Storming the City and these new and emerging storytellers, poets, activists and essayists. 

Lyndel Caffrey

Co-Writeability Program Manager


Please be aware that the writers contributing to the Storm and Sunshine Anthology have freedom of expression and that some stories may contain coarse language or confronting themes around disability. 

This anthology is part of Storming the City, which was funded by the City of Melbourne Arts and Creative Investments Partnership program.  

Copyright belongs to the creators.

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