ISSUE NO. 22
MAY 2026

Creative

This section publishes creative contributions mostly from currently and formerly incarcerated people. It includes short-stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and much more.

If you have something creative to submit to us, we would love to read it, or see it, and publish it in About Time – please write to us!

Latest

By Phillip

There’s irony, hypocrisy, fallacy, a vast ocean of distance to cross. The “saint”, the “sinner”, it’s lunacy, that the ignorant could save the lost.

ISSUE NO. 22
2 MIN READ
By Karie

I’m not belle of the ball, not the very least, but we have something in common, I’m in love with a beast. But the beast is not a person but a drug that I call meth, I’ve been talking to myself for hours, I’m running out of breath.

ISSUE NO. 22
1 MIN READ
By Dennis

Nostalgia is a gentle haze, a soft and fading, golden maze, where time itself begins to blur, and memory’s touch is sweet and pure.

ISSUE NO. 22
1 MIN READ

Previous Editions

ISSUE NO. 3
September 2024

Legal Dogma

By SKS – 7K2

Obey you must O’feeable citizen, do you dare to cross the line?

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 3
September 2024

Love Breaks Chains

By Malnight

Oh how I can’t stand these nights alone, wishing that I could just go home. Never thought this is where I’d be, constantly dreaming of being free.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 3
September 2024

I Cannot Write Poetry

By A

I’ve tried to write poetry, but I find it hard to do, I’d like to say in pretty words, just what I think of you. And what I would like to say, would be something like this: you make my heart run wild, with just one little kiss.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 3
September 2024

Beyond the Bars

By Codey

Beyond the bars, I sit and think about the past. Beyond the bars, I wait and watch the time pass. Beyond the bars, I barely ever see the stars. Beyond the bars, I’m alone in the dark.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 2
August 2024

You Were Never There

Anonymous

You were never there to tuck me into bed. No, you were never there at night when I was scared. Mama, where were you when I needed you most. Mama tell me why all alone I had to cope.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 2
August 2024

Freedom Is Not a Box

By Taylor

Freedom has been likened to a bird, a plane, a song, it has been once personified as a road that’s very long. Freedom has been likened to people: from war, death, or insanity, to others it is being absolved from rules for eternity.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 2
August 2024

Eco-cow

By Kyle

The two men popped open the Tesla's doors, thump thomp, and stepped out into a blooming orchard. The air was a herbal tea. Honey bees bobbed between the peach pink flowers.

3 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 1
July 2024

I'll Never Come to Prison Again

By Joseph B

If I could dress it up and say I never felt better, that I’ve got a girl at home and I’m waiting for a letter. I’d pretend the kids are fine and doing well at school, and when I phone they say they miss me and they think their daddy’s cool.

2 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 1
July 2024

I Am Yours

By Lauren

No matter what our pasts may say, what hurts, our pains endured, and tears shed for those who walked away. You and I, need not let ourselves be defined by those hurts from our pasts and no longer will it influence our time.

3 MIN READ
ISSUE NO. 1
July 2024

Waiting for Parole

By Nick

Waiting for parole is like remand all o'er again. When starting on my 'things-to-do', my mind leaps back to 'when!?' All-consuming niggling thoughts contort me out of shape. Swarms of bees inside my head frantic for an escape.

2 MIN READ

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About Time is the national newspaper for Australian prisons and detention facilities

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