Read Jane Downing's "About a Friend" now in Sūdō Journal Volume 6: Disconnect.
sudojournal.com/disconnect/
03.03.2026 03:16
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Read Jane Downing's "About a Friend" now in Sūdō Journal Volume 6: Disconnect.
sudojournal.com/disconnect/
''I’m no fool. His eyes moved off my lips, the spell was broken and I recognised his charm as the type my dad called smarmy. You couldn’t help falling for it in the moment; you’d be desperate to scrub it off your skin after the fact."
Volume 6: Disconnect is now live!
In this sixth volume of Sūdō Journal, we hope you find, as we did, both solace and a call to action; connection in a time of division; something worth striving for.
sudojournal.com/disconnect/
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 1: Blood, Sweat and Tears
"Feminine substantiality covers the contours of formerly patriarchical social space: sickening, fuggy air fills our nostrils to the brim..."
From "Soft, Black, and Liquid" by Mark Horvath, in Sūdō Journal volume 1.
shorturl.at/5XH5l
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 2: Hot Under the Collar
"Travis says nothing as gets his breath back. He stares straight ahead as speed runs hard through his brain. The sensation is electric but he knows he has a job to do."
From "Wonderland" by Sean O'Leary.
sudojournal.com/hot-under-th...
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 4: Touch Wood
"Her child—starving on airless blood
Her breath—uncaught and drowned
Her breasts—buoyed and bloated
Not sculpted"
From "Women of Pearling: Bedford Park" by CE Collins, in Sūdō Journal volume 4.
sudojournal.com/touch-wood-2/
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Vol 4: Touch Wood
"I am, by nature or by trauma (or both) a competitive perfectionist type, with the added bonus of low self-esteem. So when I look at my art, I always think it's not good enough."
From "Change is Coming, Change is Here" by Rebekah Lisciandro.
The Australian première of Existence is Resistance with @louisarmand.bsky.social in the heart of the nation's cultural scene (i.e. Townsville, northern Queensland), courtesy of @sudojournal.bsky.social with support from FALS and Mary Who? Bookshop
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 1: Blood, Sweat and Tears
"O but that thump thump thump
Is only the cry of life awaiting
Death.
The pulse of these veins
Pumps in vain like anchors
Drowing in a well."
From "Sinking" by Toddryck Noël, in Sūdō Journal volume 1.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Vol 1: Blood, Sweat and Tears
"The men and machines were moved out and the land the airfields sat on sold off. For many fields this was the inevitable outcome; Reid River was no different."
From "A Retrospective..." by Andrew Sibley.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
"A policeman arrived just in time, yet he did not clap a single man into handcuffs. Instead he simply clapped. Elsie was dumbstruck; he had actually given the mob a round of applause."
"Here on the Home Front" by Rodney Williams.
sudojournal.com/burning-brid...
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 4: Touch Wood
""Honestly,” the internet sensation demanded of its audience, “haven’t you anything better to do? Read Voltaire. Read Wittgenstein. Read. Anything. You plonkers.”"
From "Possum Hunt" by Jane Downing.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 3: Burning Bridges
"And you, Narcissus? You will burn in those foul, dark flames. The forest pool in which you find your deeply loved reflection will evaporate in the heat."
From "Risen" by Amy Windsor.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Vol 3: Burning Bridges
"She is happy for them. She is happy that their sadness and anxiety was temporary and had a fixed locus. But she is also reminded that her sadness was never their sadness at all."
From "Stop the Bus and Pray for Me" by Lianda Burrows.
shorturl.at/AJZSW
The sixth volume of Sūdō Journal asks what it is to disconnect in an increasingly connected world. Is it ethical to extract yourself from social and political upheaval? How can we retain our humanity if we are not connected? Is disconnection even possible?
We want to read your work! Submissions are now open for Sūdō Journal volume 6: "Disconnect." Submissions close June 30, 2025 for our December 2025 issue.
sudojournal.com/submissions
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Vol 3: Burning Bridges
"Suddenly he hoisted the sledgehammer over his head then brought it down top of the TV with impressive force and stunning violence."
From "Uncle Kev" by Peter Horgan.
shorturl.at/AJZSW
In case you missed it: Jade Croft and I wrote a piece on our experiences of studying the humanities in regional Australia and how they are at the pointy end of a long, international decline in the humanities in the English-speaking world
doi.org/10.56449/146...
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Vol 2: Hot Under the Collar
"The feeling I had was akin to that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie with your parents and a sex scene comes on. It was silently, yet undeniably, awkward."
"Ways of Seeing Sex" by Emma Maguire.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 2: Hot Under the Collar
"A silver mask, eerily animated, in perfect repose, faces the worshippers. Serene and benign but still powerful. Enduring."
From "Take Me to Church" by Tina Morganella, in Sudo Journal volume 2.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Volume 4: Touch Wood
"The tree has arms.
The sky has eyes.
We will drink water from
the river,
on the way to ourselves."
From "Two Poems Translated in English with the Original in Russian" by Ivan de Monbrison, in Sudo Journal v4.
"And the space and the heavy air / of the cabin / envelops us / with something infinite / like an insatiable / feeling of love."
Read "Listening to A Moon Shaped Pool by Anton Lushankin in our latest volume, "Eras": sudojournal.com/eras
Read "Jailbreaking" by @faith-palermo.bsky.social in our latest volume, "Eras": sudojournal.com/eras
"Bodies engineered for production redefine themselves through the mechanics of attachment, of the experience of palatable human emotions. The slow progression of love, artificial skin finding humanity, is an act of creation. Life is formed, captured, through deviation."
Read "Lord of Land" by Barlow Crassmont in our latest volume, "Eras": sudojournal.com/eras
"He fumbled a large ring on which two dozen keys hung, and riffled through them like a cumbersome deck of cards. When the right key clinked inside the latch, the door swung with the ungracefulness of a dust storm."
What looks like a glassy water surface with some rocks protruding from it in the background with sand in the foreground. The water is probably a mirage.
👍 AI mirage
👎 AI hallucination
So many have objected to "hallucination" as a description of faulty AI outputs. We need a term that doesn't suggest conscious delusion.
@xolotl.org and I analyzed 80+ alternatives and settled on "mirage."
We make the case here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Read "(In)audible: A Confession" by Mirela Cufurovic in our latest volume, "Eras": sudojournal.com/eras
"In the brief moment of unconsciousness, the world around us is quiet, still. And when my mother wakes, the effort to see, to hear, to breathe is so immense that she contemplates, briefly, if she should let the falling snow kiss her skin into oblivion."
"I like to leave it bare as words / on a tomb, death, the place / where no one wants to follow."
Read "Follow" by Nancy Anne Miller in our latest volume, "Eras": sudojournal.com/eras