Heath Killen

"As a writer and a reader I am attuned to how literature and art of all kinds expands our sense of life and our understandings of it ... I often reflect on the relationships between living and writing" Get Close Reading with @VanessaBerry closereading.co

We heard you like words, so we made you a newsletter. Close Reading is a fortnightly dispatch of literary obsessions. Each edition features a guest writer who shares one word, one quote, one poem, one book, and one other thing. Subscribe for free at closereading.co

Close Reading is a fortnightly dispatch of literary obsessions. Each edition features a guest writer who shares one word, one quote, one poem, one book, and one other thing. Free of algorithms. Free to subscribe. Get it at closereading.co

We heard you like words, so we made you a newsletter. Close Reading is a fortnightly dispatch of literary obsessions. Each edition features a guest writer who shares one word, one quote, one poem, one book, and one other thing. Subscribe for free at closereading.co

I've launched a newsletter. Close Reading is a fortnightly dispatch of literary obsessions. Each edition features a guest writer who shares one word, one quote, one poem, one book, and one other thing. Free of algorithms. Free to subscribe. Get it at closereading.co

“Wool is a potent source of language and storytelling". I chose the name @woolgather_co for my studio, and wrote a short piece about the origins of the word, in a tale that spans from Italian Alps, to fields of England, to farms of Australia. heathkillen.com/woolgathering

Something good to read is coming soon. Follow @woolgather_co to get it first.

Woolgather is a purpose-driven studio dedicated to social, cultural & environmental projects. Sometimes these worlds dovetail, as they did with On a Floating World, a publication that gathered stories of how water shapes us, for @CityNewcastle & @PortofNewcastle.

The Australian Government spends less than 0.1% of our annual budget on nature conservation and biodiversity. Australia has the world’s highest mammal extinction rate, and is the only developed country listed as a global deforestation hotspot.

“We have produced more than 8 billion tonnes of plastic pollution, enough to cover the surface of Australia with a crust 20 centimetres thick" To combat this growing crisis, bioplastics are positioned as a green alternative. But are they what they seem? heathkillen.com/dream-in-seawe…

"In Australia, controversy is treated as an institutional failure rather than cultural vitality. The result is a narrowing of ambition, purpose and the place of literature in our society. The door is opened to mediocrity." Marcia Langton for @SatPaper. thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/2026/0…

earth pink earth dust pink dust bush green bush hawk circling hawk

Drummer Laurence Pike improvises to field recordings of Palm Cockatoos, who break off small branches and rhythmically beat them on trees to attract mates and establish territory. The only known animal to create and use a tool musically. youtube.com/watch?v=GcY9hU…

"Love is a kangaroo Love is an emu Love is the earth" Vale Lionel Fogarty.

“It was our second anniversary, we were in Bermagui, and my shoes were filling with blood.” An accident cut our trip short, but saved us from driving into a bushfire. I wrote about that day, and our changing climate, in a story called The Lost Holiday. heathkillen.com/the-lost-holid…

My work has always been divided between words and images, but at the end of last year, I decided to dedicate myself to the words. In this transition, one creature has occupied my thoughts and has become a totem: the bogong moth. This is why: heathkillen.com/information

It has been a particularly gloomy season in Australian literature, so QUT saving @Meanjin is very welcome win. The name Meanjin is a Turrbal/Yagara word for land on which Brisbane is located, so this is a homecoming too. Love to see it. qut.edu.au/news?id=203300

We float in the water between the ocean and the river. We watch silverbodied fish flashing in the seaweed like turning tinsel. A million moon snail eggs in swollen jelly submarines bump against us as the current carries them downstream.

Found an Australian word I’d never heard before: snigging. Originating from the coastal timber-yards of the 18th century, snigging described the act of dragging wood with ropes and bullocks from the forest to the river.

Over 100,000 bony bream have washed up on the shores of Lake Menindee, following the recent heatwaves. The most likely cause of death is hypoxia, where the heat reduces oxygen in the water, leading to suffocation. abc.net.au/news/2026-02-0…