VOICEWORKS 80 MISSIONARY
Bel Monypenny
Apr 08, 2010
Their first night away from home, their first night together. She lies back and thinks of England. Legs splayed and praying. They do it with the lights out. Ecstatic. He’s the man, don’t forget. Spread the word, feel the earth move. Be saved. In the morning there’s blood on the sheets from a marriage consummated, or just her stigmata. They go out and convert under the foreign sun. As long as their souls are cleansed before they starve, they’ll all go to heaven. Isn’t that how they put men on the moon? Then burned their weightless bodies to hide the science. Knocked on their wives’ doors, imagined the day they started drinking and then handed them a pamphlet to make it all go away. Far from home? Is this your first time? How far will you go to stop being alone? Can you even look her in the eyes while you do it? No, no, this way. Oh God, oh God. Before we go too far, withdraw.
Voiceworks 79 Classic
Bel Monypenny
Mar 25, 2010
Sit back and relax with all the greatest hits of the 80s, 90s and today. Sunburnt sands shift with each step you make: still surfing – now on your feet, now with your thumbs. Salvage an abandoned gramophone, your grade-two teacher’s Handel record tainted by a smudge from the typewriter’s ink ribbon. Pour tea for dead white guys fossilised in sandstone buildings, watching their hand-me-down ideas putrefy. Woolf’s lighthouse is abuzz as Homer and Virgil match wits in a game of backgammon. Dickens and Dickinson play darts while downing a keg of Foster’s. The portrait of a forgotten aristocrat lurks in an unseemly alleyway, free to a good home. Undead garden gnomes go gaga on your aunt’s lawn. Dust off that fifties dress your grandmother used to wear and don it with pride – shoulders back, pearls dangling from your milky-white neck. No amount of methylated spirits can restore the family heirloom’s reflective sheen, but you know its there despite the rust, despite age. Free bifocals with every purchase; Voiceworks is going sepia-toned.
Voiceworks 77 Postscript
Bel Monypenny
Jun 01, 2009
Voiceworks #77, 
Postscript, features an interview with brand new editor of The Monthly, Ben Naparstek. It also features new fiction by Daniel Hedger, Laura Warne and Zahid Zubaida; Poetry by Mara Coson, Benjamin Hurley and Simon Cox; and Sam Cooney explains why Australian publishing is under threat.
Voiceworks 76 Budget
Bel Monypenny
Mar 01, 2009
Voiceworks #76, the Budget issue, features new fiction by Elspeth Muir, Nick Modrzewski and Stephanie Campisi, poetry by Isabella Mead, Amy May Nunn and Virginia Plunkett, and non-fiction by Sean Gleeson. Zoe Barron also talks to Torpedo’s Chris Flynn about the ins and outs of independent publishing in Bel Monypenny’s first issue as Voiceworks Editor.
