To write, it isn’t the intensity of the experience that matters, as much as the intensity of your ability to experience. There was a melodramatic quality to many of the submissions, which suits my temperament—nobody has ever called me subtle. But sometimes the words were so familiar to each other, too tightly bonded to let me in. Sometimes the piece was a summary or a map, when I wanted an escapade, an unfolding pilgrimage, lost in the bush and following the river down, down, down.

Guest edited by Stephanie Christie and Mark Prisco, Mayhem 2021 features fresh creative work from the finest literary talent in Aotearoa today.

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