ISSUE NO. 23
JUNE 2026

Creative

This section publishes creative contributions mostly from currently and formerly incarcerated people. It includes short-stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and much more.

If you have something creative to submit to us, we would love to read it, or see it, and publish it in About Time – please write to us!

Latest

Food for Thought
Ethan Cassidy

A Memorable Dinner

By Jeff

“I recognise that”, “that’s someone I know”, “I can’t place who, but that is someone’s smell”.

ISSUE NO. 23
2 MIN READ
By Chelsea

I hated the kitchen on the outside but have learnt from being inside that it makes me feel wholesome and happy.

ISSUE NO. 23
By Anonymous

He awoke, annoyed, just able to make out his cellie in the blacked-out gloom. He began to protest, but his spirit soared when he heard the word: “Your library books are here!”

ISSUE NO. 23
1 MIN READ
By Triste

It was November 2025. I had zero dollars in my jail account. Mum sent me some Christmas dollars. I’d just started working and was earning $47.00 per week, plus $9.95 hygiene allowance.

ISSUE NO. 23
1 MIN READ
By Grant

Buy-Ups feed my belly, but what about my mind? Wth nothing on the telly, I might as well be blind.

ISSUE NO. 23
1 MIN READ
By Daniel

The pain that I feel, this place that I’m in, these four walls closing in…

ISSUE NO. 23
2 MIN READ
By Punkin

As this time comes to an end, I wonder which way the next will bend. The earth and moon will do their thing, I’ll embrace everything.

ISSUE NO. 23
2 MIN READ

Previous Editions

ISSUE NO. 22
May 2026

‘Love is Rebuilding My Life’

By Phillip

There’s irony, hypocrisy, fallacy, a vast ocean of distance to cross. The “saint”, the “sinner”, it’s lunacy, that the ignorant could save the lost.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 22
May 2026

Methfairytale

By Karie

I’m not belle of the ball, not the very least, but we have something in common, I’m in love with a beast. But the beast is not a person but a drug that I call meth, I’ve been talking to myself for hours, I’m running out of breath.

1 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 22
May 2026

Nostalgia

By Dennis

Nostalgia is a gentle haze, a soft and fading, golden maze, where time itself begins to blur, and memory’s touch is sweet and pure.

1 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 21
April 2026

Art From Inside

By Lanie

Our team was blown away by this beautiful painting.

1 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 21
April 2026

You Don’t Know Your Worth

By Flame

Don't fear my love, everything’s alright. Don't fear my friends, the future looks bright.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 21
April 2026

‘Love Is Blind And It Can Make You See’

By Caleb

Love’s definition cannot be just one, not one, two or more but a tonne. Love is the greatest quality of them all, a verse written by the poet Paul.

1 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 21
April 2026

Apocalypse of the Mind

By Emma-lee

I sit here watching the second-hand ticking by as it slowly keeps passing my time... And just as I thought the world can’t be changed it's an apocalypse of the mind.

1 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 21
April 2026

Music is My Happy Place

By Shea

What a joy it can be, to wrench open your mind and find yourself inhabiting a song. To live out a thousand lives, to know the intimacy of a stranger, and experience nostalgia in such a visceral way for times and places you’ve never been to.

3 MIN READ

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