From the Editor Brenda Machosky, Editor Being Creative Welcome to the combined issue of Antipodes volume 35, which features the winners of the first annual AAALS creative writing competitions; a special section focused on the work of the contemporary writer Christos Tsiolkas, guest edited by Barbara Hoffmann; and a second special section focused on the book-publishing industry in and related to Australia, edited by Per Henningsgaard. The issue also features poetry, selected under the new editorship of Nathanael O'Reilly, and creative prose works curated by outgoing editor Tiare Picard in conjunction with incoming editor Raindrop Wright. AAALS Prizes in Creative Writing This issue highlights the winners of the first creative writing contests sponsored by the American Association for Australasian Literary Studies. The poetry prize was awarded to Rosanna E. Licari for her poem "Drifters." Based in Brisbane, where she teaches English to migrants and refugees, Licari has won multiple awards for her poetry and can now add the AAALS 2021 Poetry Prize. Susan M. Hancock was given the prize for fiction with her work "Hero of My Bones." Born and raised in New Zealand and migrating to Australia by way of Oxford, Hancock has published one novel and has another close to publication, along with a collection of short stories. The judges also awarded an honorable mention in the creative prose category to Catherine Padmore's work "Beach Road." At La Trobe University in Melbourne, Padmore teaches creative writing and literary studies, and she has received national recognition for her work. Together with the AAALS organization, Antipodes is pleased to publish and honor these writers. This competition was made possible by the blind and independent review of two judging panels, and we are grateful for their attentive work with a large number of entries. The poetry judges were Paul Kane, Ann-Marie Blanchard, and Nathanael O'Reilly. The various creative prose entries were judged by Niki Tulk, Vaughan Rapatahana, and Thomas Gammarino. Creative Discomfort Barbara Hoffmann initiated and edited the wide-ranging special section on the work of Christos Tsiolkas, extending from his novels to his plays and the presence of his work in the United States and in the classroom. This issue also offers a review of Christos's most recent novel, 7½. Christos's work is characterized by a brutal honesty and even, as several of the contributors here put it, disgust. In the honest [End Page 5] assessment of the challenges of teaching this "affectively difficult" material, the five teachers' proposal for teaching this work with a "pedagogy of discomfort and an embedded focus on critical inquiry" warrants attention in the United States, where certain state governments are striving to ban discomfort about facts of history, including chattel slavery, and banning critical inquiry as something not to be taught in school. Perhaps the extremity of Tsiolkas's work provides an opportunity to think through the value of pedagogic discomfort and self-reflection. Striking in the essays about Tsiolkas's oeuvre is the consistent focus on the ways in which the works both repel and attract readers. In a way, the reader is forced to step back, to step outside the immediate concerns of the text and contemplate it in various ways that are unusual for engaging with a work of literature through the willing suspension of disbelief. Tsiolkas demands more than that. A step back from comfortable assumptions, or simply unquestioned realities, characterizes the second special section, which has an unusual focus for this journal. Several of the articles focus on data collection and analysis (and its current limitations) as well as the presumptions about book publishing and distribution, not only in Australia but also globally (and especially in the United States). This section challenges Antipodes readers to reflect critically on the book industry as such, the socioeconomic conditions that influence it, the role of gender, the effect (or not) of prizes, and even indirect consequences of the "cultural cringe" that has long characterized Australians' sense of their own literary output. Students and scholars of Australian literature revel in the content, analyzing the literary value. However, as we all know but often do not reflect on, what "counts...