Wish you were here is story-series written in first person, in the form of six letters. Stories are intimate, fictitious snapshots of various times, places, people across Victoria. Each story is set in a different era, with a timeframe spanning from 1904 through to 2020. The author of the letters is travelling for work, but this job allows them time to explore the each place in which they find themself. The encounters jump from one time period to another. The voice of the author of the letters remains consistent, although the language adapts as they move around in time. The recipient of each letter, “Dear heart”, is you, the reader.
The series transports the reader across the state to towns, cities and regions that include Ballarat, Geelong, Bendigo, Melbourne, the Dandenongs and Woolamai. Each letter in the series is connected to the other through author and their connection and commitment to the recipient. The letters are not sequential, so as reader, you can jump timeframes as you please without any sense of disconnect. The stories are also linked stylistically through their magic realism or sense of the uncanny.
Wish you were here is a series of stories that are an opportunity for the reader to be transported, if only for a short moment in time.
Wish you were here is part of the 2020 Melbourne City of Literature Office Commission Series. Published online, April 2022.