The Thousands

Melbourne seems to be the primordial soup from which new literary journals in Australia spring forth. The latest is Kill Your Darlings, a quarterly publication showcasing commentary, interviews, new fiction and reviews. Having just completed my masters in creative writing, I look to these journals like they’re the cool kids who might one day accept me as one of their own – maybe even go joyriding down Thunder Road with them, or dance at the malt shop. I don’t, however, enjoy reading every published submission – short fiction especially grates: metaphor after simile after added flourish of irrelevant detail. I digress. To my utter delight, Kill Your Darlings doesn’t pose as Literary or inaccessible.

Its creative non-fiction pieces, including commentary from Ruth Starke and Benjamin Law, don’t mince words, and Samuel Rutter’s short fiction piece, ‘Comfort Inn’, keeps a steady bleak, contemporary tone throughout. The interview with Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series and his latest controversial book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, lets the author extrapolate and explore his ideas and process without excluding the reader. Kill Your Darlings is not a clique; it doesn’t pitch at a specific ‘youth’ or academic literature crowd. It pitches right down the middle and hopefully continues to hit home runs every season. That reminds me, I better go send some stuff to Danny Zuko now. Running gags in reviews? Now there’s something to hate.