Purple Prose - July 2026
- Jacaranda Journal
- 14 hours ago
- 13 min read
Monthly Recap and Reminders
Welcome to the July 2026 issue of Purple Prose—Jacaranda Journal’s monthly online newsletter. Purple Prose creates a regular platform for our readers, where we discuss all things writing and arts, give recommendations, feature local creatives, and provide a glimpse behind the scenes to see what the Jacaranda team are up to.
June was a huge month for our team at Jacaranda Journal! After working tirelessly, at the end of June we officially launched Jacaranda issue 13.1: Breaching Boundaries! So much hard work and talent went into this issue, and it was so rewarding to finally see it in print. We sold lots of copies, made some exciting announcements, ate some free food, and of course got to hang out with fellow writers, artists, and creatives! If you missed the launch or its Instagram livestream, we’ve listed exciting announcements below.
Announcements:
The winner of our cover art competition is Carly Marchment, with her piece Letting Go. It is truly such a beautiful artwork and aligns perfectly with the theme Breaching Boundaries.
Our writing competition winner is Kate Minto, with her non-fiction piece Marginalia. The piece intersects identity, memory, and belief, and all the quiet ways that we leave traces of ourselves behind in the world.
To see these winning pieces in print, as well as all of the other amazing writing and visual art that made it into this issue, you can purchase Breaching Boundaries on our website! It will also be hitting multiple bookstores in the coming weeks, including:
Avid Reader, West End
Books@Stones, Stones Corner
Riverbend Books, Bulimba
Cursive Knives, Fortitude Valley
Under the Greenwood Tree, Tamborine Mountain
And finally (drumroll please) … the theme of Jacaranda 13.2 is Perennial! We are seeking fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art that reflects endurance, recurrence, and continuation, be it ecological, personal, communal, or political. Submissions are open on our website now.
The July issue of Purple Prose will be a slightly smaller edition as our usual newsletter curator is away on a much-deserved holiday trekking through Europe. Hence, there will be no new essay in The Writer’s Rant this month while we await Jemma’s return. However, maintaining the regular course of events, we will be providing a variety of recommendations – giving you cafes to try, movies to watch, music to listen to, and more. We interviewed Impressionist photographer and nature artist, Mai Naito, for this issue's Creative Spotlight. Our Behind the Scenes Bookclub features a review of a new-release literary fiction book, They All Fall in Love at the End by Haili Blassingame. We also provide a sneak peek of the latest from JJ Online: a fiction piece that reflects on climate change and the sudden arrival of snow in a town that has never witnessed it before.
What’s coming up in July?
While the Jacaranda team will be taking a short break from event hosting in July, the broader Brisbane literary and art world has lots on to keep you entertained!
If you had so much fun at the launch of Jacaranda’s latest journal issue and still want more launches to attend, QUT’s arts and culture magazine Glass is hosting the launch party of their Winter Edition mag! On the 19th of July at Warehouse 25 in Milton from 6pm-11pm, hear from some contributors to the magazine, meet some cool people, and support more small lit publications!
The Brisbane Illustration Fair returns on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th of July! It offers a dedicated platform for illustrators and artists to share, connect, and sell their work directly to the public. There will be over 180 local and national artists there to discover. Support local talent, get creative, and immerse yourself in Brisbane's vibrant illustration scene!
Avid Reader is hosting an ‘Ask the Author’ event with bestselling writer Frances Whiting, where she will be discussing her newest book The Nocturnals. It is a witty, wise, and endearing novel of love and friendship about the lengths we will go to protect those we love. It will be facilitated by bookseller Fiona Stager at bookshop Avid Reader on July 17 at 6pm.
Avid Reader will also be hosting award-winning author Mirandi Riwoe for A Short History of Longans, a novel that follows an Irish-Chinese family and explores what it means to belong to a place, to ancestors, and to ourselves. She’ll be in-conversation with Trent Dalton on July 29.
If a medieval festival is your thing, Echo & Bounce are hosting a 'Medieval Affair' on the 11th of July from 4pm-11pm. Expect a jam-packed evening of medieval games, drag, live music, a talent show, wares, and food & drinks.
Keep your eye on the Jacaranda Journal social media as we will soon be announcing our second Salon event of the year! We had such a great time eating ramen, making new friends, and listening to so many talented writers at the last Salon that we immediately started organising our next one. For now, all you need to know is that it will be in August and it will be awesome.
There’s plenty of upcoming events to look forward to in Brisbane’s literary and arts scene! To stay up to date on all things happening at Jacaranda Journal and in the broader creative community, please follow us on TikTok and Instagram, as well as share and subscribe to Purple Prose!
JJ Recs
Our recommendations this month aim to keep you cosy, caffeinated, and captivated. Some of them are in-line with our next journal theme, Perennial. We hope these recommendations can give you some inspiration of what you might like to submit to Jacaranda 13.2!
The Hideout Specialty Coffee (café)—Recommended by Kiv, Subeditor
"Seriously one of the best cafés for me."
Honey by Imani Thompson (novel)—Recommended by Kiv, Subeditor
"For fans of Promising Young Woman."
Anthill by Tara Nome Doyle (song)—Recommended by Euri Glenn, Publisher and Editor in Chief
The Seed by AURORA (song)—Recommended by Euri Glenn, Publisher and Editor in Chief
A very perennial-esque recommendation.
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (novel)—Recommended by Dani Ringrose, Salon Supervisor and Sub-Editor
Written over a century ago, it is a classic lesbian novel that was banned for obscenity.
Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest (novel)—Recommended by Dani Ringrose, Salon Supervisor and Subeditor
New novel by one of the world's best spoken word poets. He recently toured Australia and was "one of the best live concerts I've ever seen... and I've been to a lot."
Beetlejuice (musical)—Recommended by Clarice Lo, Sales, Sponsorship, and Distribution
It Lasts Forever and Then it's Over by Anne De Marcken (novel)—Recommended by Britt Bentley, Subeditor
Sprout Artisan Bakery—Recommended by Britt Bentley, Subeditor
Specifically the tomato, boccaccini, pesto croissant toastie.
Land by Maggie O'Farrell (novel)—Recommended by Talia Wright, Subeditor
A beautifully written and well-researched Irish bio-fiction.
Leviticus (movie)—Recommended by Talia Wright, Subeditor
A new Australian psychological thriller film.
Sweet Fortune by Ryan Beatty (album)—Recommended by Cris Bonquin, Arts and Culture Liaison
Very Perennial in the way that it's his romantic album after his last album was about deeply traumatic heartbreak.
Close-up (movie)—Recommended by Cris Bonquin, Arts and Culture Liaison
Fiction-documentary film focusing on the arrest of an individual posing as iconic Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
All of Us Strangers (movie)—Recommended by Cris Bonquin, Arts and Culture Liaison
Adam is a screenwriter who revisits his family home after an intimate encounter with his neighbour, Harry.
The Holdovers (movie)—Recommended by Cris Bonquin, Arts and Culture Liaison
Paul Hunham, disliked teacher at a New England prep school, remains on campus to keep watch of students holding over Christmas Break. He forms an unlikely bond with troubled student Angus Tully and the school's head cook Mary Lamb.
The Devil Wears Prada (movie)—Recommended by Cris Bonquin, Arts and Culture Liaison
Andy Sachs tries to make it in journalism by taking up an internship with Runway magazine.
My Old Ass (movie)—Recommended by Millie Biggs, Co-Head of Social Media and Marketing
Our free-spirited protagonist experiences an 18th birthday mushroom trip where she comes face-to-face with her 39-year-old self. It follows Elliott as she questions her sexuality and spends her last Summer in her hometown before she moves away.
Creative Spotlight
Moments of Escape: An Interview with Mai Naito
By Cris Bonquin
Do you remember when the leaves were new? When warm rushes of wind sent you through a world of green and flashes of red-feathered birds motioned a chase commencing. In moments of rest, velvety grass beds cushioned your tired feet, and flowers blushed pink for your admiring eyes. You thought endings did not exist here, but suddenly, mellow oranges blanketed you into a pitch-black embrace, and it was time to sleep soon. Remembering all this may be a technicolour blur, but it’s certain: you were there.
From cherry blossoms to jacaranda trees, Mai Naito brings forth her childhood experiences of exploring natural spaces to her photographic practice. She applies impressionistic techniques to convey a faint recollection of memory—abbreviating “light, movement, and time” to a single frame—an abstraction of a bygone time.
Growing up in Osaka, Japan, the delicate impermanence of seasonal changes shaped the way Naito documents nature.
“Some of my earliest memories are of walking beneath cherry blossoms in spring, hearing cicadas in summer, and watching leaves transform from bright greens into burning reds before falling away in winter for renewal again in spring”
Cherry blossoms became a focal point in Naito’s most recent work, Hanayume, as a way of tenderly memorializing her youth in Japan. Harungi, a piece within the Hanayume series, was made with her grandmother’s involvement—a “collaboration between generations”. Her grandmother’s influence was invaluable in shaping Naito’s artistic sensibilities.
“My grandmother was a painter who teaches both oil painting and watercolour… We share a very similar attraction to colour, light, and impressionistic ways of seeing the world. Even though I work with photography rather than paint, I’m often searching for the same emotional softness and atmosphere that existed in her paintings.”
Naito’s parents immersed her deeper into impressionism as they adorned their home in paintings of the same artistic style. She admired the soft, atmospheric qualities embedded into pieces like Claude Monet’s Water Lilies and Woman with a Parasol. Each brushstroke is complex and energetic, even chaotic. These same qualities present in impressionistic artwork is like how she recollects childhood memories—never “perfectly sharp images.” Instead, she “remembers fragments of light, shifting colour, movement, atmosphere, and feeling.” Thus, impressionism offers a way of documenting the world in “a way that felt emotionally true rather than literally descriptive.”
Naito eventually moved to Australia, a place that introduced her to “a sense of scale, intensity, and immersion within nature.” Her observations are reflected in the works of Aboriginal artists like Albert Namitjira and Edwin Pareroultja, who highlight Australia’s wide and vast desert landscapes, rich in deep red ochres and warm greens. The light feels “harsher, brighter, and more exposed” here.
In Impressionism’s beginnings during the 1860s, painters like Pierre-Auguste Renoir worked en plein air, meaning they worked outdoors in the environment they tried to capture. Fast forward to 2026, Naito applies those same en plein air techniques, but she uses cameras instead of paint. Photography can be seen as a “mechanical tool for recording reality” and can render “technologically mediated” pieces as “something cold, hyper-realistic, or pixelated”. Despite this, Naito proposes that her photographic practice is “capable of carrying emotion, imagination, memory, and human experience”. Naito's Impressionist photographs are souvenirs of her travels. Each frame obscures the hard lines of stone faces yet captures their overgrowth of energy, feeling, and meaning. Together, Naito wields technology into something more honest, transposing its artificial output into something more sincere.
Even with all these material records of Naito’s explorations into nature, she still feels an “underlying sense of impermanence” within her work. The UN reports signs of progress in achieving sustainable development goals (e.g. decelerating global forest loss), but critical issues such as threats to several species groups are ever present. Devoting so much time amongst forests and flowers across Japan and Australia made Naito recognise their value both “ecologically” and “spiritually.”
“Many of the subjects I photograph—blossoms, moving water, and changing light, naturally carry themes of transience and fragility… The landscapes we experience are not permanent, and there is a growing awareness that many ecosystems are vulnerable to change and loss.”
Instead of “documenting environmental issues in a literal or scientific way”, Naito creates emotionally expressive landscape pieces to inspire care for our surrounding environments. She believes that “people are more likely to protect what they feel connected to.”
Naito’s work has travelled across great oceans, exhibiting at Side Gallery (Australia) in 2023, all the way to a Prize Exhibition at the Royal Birmingham School of Art (United Kingdom) in 2024. She also holds a prestigious portfolio of achievements including being named as one of Fujifilm’s Top 20 Emerging Photographers in the Art Category for Australia. Among all these accomplishments, the opportunity to install her art in Hospitals across Brisbane and the Gold Coast (including the Queensland Children's Hospital (QCH) mental ward, Gold Coast University Hospital, and Robina Hospital) was deeply transformative for Naito.
By bringing her art into a space often “overwhelming, emotionally heavy, and highly clinical”, Naito realised that “art can exist beyond galleries and become part of people’s healing environments”. Based on a belief that “art can offer emotional comfort”, Naito hopes that she can offer “moments of escape” for “children who may not currently have the freedom to go outside”. Through Naito's experience installing her art in hospitals, she became inspired to join the Arts in Health team at QCH. Her role centres on finding ways to support patients and their families through arts programs, and contributes her own art where it is appropriate.
“More hospitals today are recognising the importance of art within clinical settings, not simply as decoration, but as a meaningful part of healthcare and well-being.”
The world feels heavier these days. Years of meaningless transactions make the skies much greyer, and each passing day, I fall further into the endemic disillusionment in the world. Amidst the turmoil, Naito’s work offers me reprieve. Each frame reminds me of the time when I ran so carelessly—when trips and falls were the only scars I had to heal. Remembering how life once was—that youthful technicolour blur—reminds me that my future is not held within four white walls. I know one day, I can leave it all behind and bring colour back to my world.
Mai Naito is an Impressionist photographer born in Osaka, Japan, now creating nature art that inspires calm and connection. In 2015, she moved to Brisbane, Australia to study and grow, fuelling her passion for capturing the beauty of natural spaces with a therapeutic twist. Raised surrounded by nature, Mai’s childhood sparked her love for nature art, blending imagination with the emotional power of forests, skies, and rivers… Her Impressionist art style reflects these personal experiences, offering a soothing, therapeutic escape. Through her work, Mai invites you to rediscover a deeper connection with natural world, blending nature art and therapeutic art to evoke wonder and peace in every moment.
Cris is a graphic designer and writer based in Magandjin/Brisbane. His series, “In Review”, gives readers his perspective on cultural events within Magandjin’s arts community. Outside of his writing, he experiments with mediums like graphic design and photography to develop his artistic practice.
Behind the Scenes Bookclub
July Book of the Month: They All Fall in Love at the End
Reviewed by Millie Biggs
A messy, unique, and non-traditional love story — this is one for the literary romance lovers. They All Fall in Love at the End follows creative writing student, Cat, as she explores non-monogamy in an open relationship with her long-time boyfriend Jay. When Jay’s best friend, Tristan, and his girlfriend, Nia, enter the scene, it gets very messy very quickly. And honestly... it was so fun to read about.
This is the author's debut novel and I was so impressed. There were multiple love interests and I was somehow rooting for all three of them, and I think this was the point. This book offered a fresh perspective on polyamory as an identity and really opened my mind to the challenges that it presents. Despite sometimes struggling to understand Cat's decisions, I ultimately sympathised with her and enjoyed the journey that this novel took me on.
I also enjoyed the political backdrop on which these relationships were set. Following the Tr*mp election result in 2024, the book touches on Palestine, ICE, and the way that this impacts a smaller university with little power to fight back. So, the book gets dark and sad but unfortunately... real. It was so incisive and such an important read. I also found myself giggling aloud a lot while reading. If you want to feel this whirlwind of emotions, I would highly recommend They All Fall in Love at the End. And if you still aren't convinced, two of the main characters are literally writers and artists — it's the perfect read for an audience of creatives and activists alike.
Our Next Book
Our August Behind the Scenes Bookclub will look a little different. Our team have been working away at the Miles Franklin longlist, and hope to give some short reviews next month. For a feature in the next issue of Purple Prose, send us your thoughts via Instagram DM if you have read any of them.
Latest from Jacaranda Online
Unlike Home
by Dr Niamh Wood
I never imagined the end times would look so beautiful.
Snow sprawled across the hills. It clung to the trees and perched upon the branches. It gathered steadily and silently. White morning light peered through an opening in the curtains and spilled across the bedspread. I knew as I woke that something in the air was different.
I’d never seen the earth like this. Never in all these years on this property. I walked into it, barefoot in my pyjamas, entranced by the snow, surprised by the blistering cold.
The dogs sniffed at it, unsure like me. A toe off the front step’s edge to test it was real. Still, the snow continued to fall. The morning was silent.
Inside, fumbling with socks and boots, my hands shook. A child on Christmas morning. I turned, bright-eyed, eight years old, in search of Mum and Dad, or Joey, still eleven, still eager to play. The kitchen was still and dark. I’d call him later.
Then, clad in wool and scarves and rubber boots, I leapt off the front veranda and into the snow. We made snow angels, me and the dogs, and discovered how wet snow is. Down the hill, at the base of the property, the river continued past, slow but uninterrupted. It was a relief to see it flowing onward, proof that something remained as usual.
We ran along the river, rolled down the hills, shivered in unwavering delight. I rolled snowballs, then rolled more, continuing long after my fingers went numb. Stacking them atop each other, little snowmen appeared one by one, with twiggy arms and crooked smiles.
By noon, the ice figures were dotted around the garden, far outnumbering the dogs and me, each one dressed in something from my own body. I shivered under the damp, grey light of the early afternoon.
Dr Niamh Wood is a writer and researcher based in Meanjin Brisbane. Niamh's work is published with Island (upcoming), Baby Teeth, Voiceworks, and others. In 2024, Niamh was writer in residence at BRAZZA artist residency in France. She has a PhD in creative writing from the University of New England, Australia.
Find Niamh on Instagram @niamhwood12
Thank you to the JJ team and to all our readers for another issue of Purple Prose! See you next month!
July Newsletter Curator:
Millie Biggs, Co-Head of Social Media and Marketing
Newsletter Editors:
Talia Wright, Subeditor
Aster Ren Kivy, Subeditor
Euri Glenn, Publisher and Editor in Chief
July Issue Contributors:
Dr Niamh Wood, Assistant Publisher and Editor (Latest from Jacaranda Online)
