ISSUE NO. 21
APRIL 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!

Ethan Cassidy

My Happy Place

The winner from our first Writing Challenge!

By David

There is a place not far from Flinders Street Station, along the bank of the Yarra River, that’s at the centre of everything I love about Melbourne.

ISSUE NO. 21
1 MIN READ
Ethan Cassidy

My Happy Place: Rusty, My Soulmate

The runner-up from our first Writing Challenge!

By Pip

Everyone needs their own happy place. Especially in here. Somewhere to escape the drama and politics of the yard.

ISSUE NO. 21
1 MIN READ
Ethan Cassidy
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.

ISSUE NO. 21
3 MIN READ
By Nicholas

I hope you all have a place that you can feel your strength from. I wish I had more of these than I do, now he’s gone. Make most of your time people, inside or out – our lives are too short to waste. Find your Happy Place.

ISSUE NO. 21
1 MIN READ
By Trieste

It’s 10am, I am at work deciding if I need coffee to get the jitters, a piece of fruit for some sugary glucose or a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ
By Neale

Maybe the title for this competition should be OUR Happy Place rather than MY Happy Place. As I think it is more about how we approach a place together that determines if we are going to be happy or not.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ
By James

My experience of entering gaol was hazy and blurry. A brick, as they say, is a 10 year term of imprisonment, and getting outta my mind was on my list of things to do, not realising that I would find my true happy place in nature.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ
By Jonathan

Within that club of egos, I had found a friend. He talked to me of glory and made me want to join. So I sent a few gold coins and received a nonsense letter. I must be a member! In a group of names, I am the unclean one, the token unpublished poet; there always must be one.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ
By Anonymous

The straps of his back-pack chaffed and pulled against his shoulders, the weight of each uneven step threatening to topple him back down the slope. His boots crunched the tiny pebbles that slided and slid, plumes of dust flicking into the still air.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ
By Russell

Two words, one name. I was stunned. Gathering my thoughts, I started the mental checklist. Had I pressed the wrong button? No. Was it a stranger answering? No. It was definitely my son, a changed son.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ

Latest

Art From Inside

By Lanie

Our team was blown away by this beautiful painting.

ISSUE NO. 21
1 MIN READ
Lanie

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.

ISSUE NO. 21
2 MIN READ
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.

ISSUE NO. 21
1 MIN READ
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.

ISSUE NO. 21
1 MIN READ

Previous Editions

ISSUE NO. 12
July 2025

Doing Time Together

Anonymous

Doing time together, under lock and key, but helping others can set your mind free. The past is gone, the future’s not arrived, focus on now, be glad to be alive.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 12
July 2025

A Dialogue Between Poets

By Krystal

I found this poem titled Until and I wrote a poem on my reflection to it.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

‘Rhyme Doin’ Time’

By Jeff

Now sit in cell of nought to read, the glasses gone! Of what I need! I ask the system, to provide, for that, my sight be magnified.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

Golden Mud

By Leonor (through Somebody’s Daughter art programs in DPFC and Tarrengower prison)

This painting was inspired by a photo that I found in the National Geographic of January 2011 taken by Robin Hammond. It’s a gold miner in the border province of Manica.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

My Name is Meth: A Poem of Truth

By Kelly Flanagan

I destroy homes, I tear families apart, take your children, and that’s just the start. I’m more costly than diamonds, more precious than gold, the sorrow I bring is a sight to behold.

3 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

Broke My Heart

By Mahina

Being in jail has given me time to think, as I lay in my bed and slowly sink.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

Ode to Ashton – Now Eighteen

By Jacqui

My little boy has grown so strong, I can’t believe its been this long, since he raised his tiny head, and gazed at me in the hospital bed.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

My Brother Anthony

By Karie

Brain tumour, brain tumour, a darkness you can’t see, oh how I hate you, you took my brother away from me.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 11
June 2025

Jesus DMC – Based on a True Story

By John

Rob (my cellie) and I were about to go to sleep one miserable cold night, and a mouse (Jesus DMC) died and went up to the pearly gates and knocked.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 10
May 2025

You Were Warned

By Anastasia

If you turn to drugs instead, to silence the villains in your head. Or to minimise the self harm to your arm, without causing alarm.

2 MIN READ

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