Survival
When I first heard the theme for the 4th Floor Journal this year was survival I laughed out loud. How ironic, I thought. Survival – surely the bane of a writer’s life.
Survival is a word and a sphere we all grapple with, searching to understand. I think of it in terms of struggling to exist or live through difficult circumstances. So, I read the submissions with a strong curiosity and found them to be deeply and intelligently observant of our internal and external world.
I was looking for writing that came from the heart. Where the writer’s voice sat strong and authentic on the page. I wanted to feel pulled into the place where they had chosen to stand.
The selected writers’ work therefore, in my mind, demonstrates voices that are distinctive, original and sincere. It is writing that leaps from the page into the consciousness, probing at survival in all its complex forms.
Writer Rosie Stirling took me into the world of a boy with a gun. Vivienne Bailey reminded me how That was then, this is now. J.E. Blaikie told of a Return trip to Sydney and allowed access to My western home. Through the words of Krysana Hanley in Survival is a trend, I revisited the meaning of Food, our need to Exercise and the tribulations of a Budget. Nakisa E. Wilson wrote of Fish ‘n’ chips, being On the throne and Stacked sheets. Erin Donohue provided insight into how The anorexia speaks. Always Becominging narrated three survival pieces, Box, Particles and Rain, that made me stop and think. And finally, Jenny Clay gave me reflections.
This collection is a sampler on survival that cuts through preconceptions, full of wise, insightful writing. It’s a rich immersive reading experience that celebrates the power of writers’ words on topics that touch our lives, sympathetically brought to life and written with wisdom and texture.
Our writers though, are now dealing with survival in other ways. Today, even more so than in years past, it is not just about putting words down on the page, or having your work recognised or acknowledged. Recently, I’ve seen advertisements on television where audiences are told technology can write things for us. This is deeply unsettling when we think of creativity, the imagination, and the world of the writer.
I believe we need to stay true to our writers and the things they want to write, and the things they want to say. Writing from the heart. Yes. Writing that is real. Yes. This year’s 4th Floor Journal speaks to the theme of survival on many levels, and it was wonderful to have the privilege of reading the work.
Thank you, writers, the 2025 publishing ākonga, kaimahi Odessa and Theresa, and all others involved in producing this journal.
Let’s all raise a hand to the survival of the writer, the thoughts they share and the joy of reading real human creativity.
Donna Banicevich Gera
Guest editor 2025