Great Ocean Quarterly is a gorgeous new magazine dedicated to ‘art, ideas and the sea’.  The publishers are based on The Great Ocean Road in Victoria but the magazine’s stories, including stunning photography and artwork, roam the world’s oceans. I happened across GOQ last December and thought, ‘Where has this magazine been all my life? What can I write for it? Can I be between these thick, heavy, tenderly designed pages?’

‘Beach house records’ is part of Volume 1:3, available from 31 July. The story’s artwork is by none other than Chris O’Doherty (Reg Mombasa) and his brother Peter, both members of Mental As Anything and Dog Trumpet.

The 2500 word story begins:

IN THE diary at the family beach-house my brother’s wife has written a list to sum up their short holiday with their two young children.

Rachel has not written ‘We made sandcastles at Fairhaven’ or ‘We walked to the Moggs Creek Picnic Ground’ or ‘We fed the rosellas on the verandah’. None of that stuff.

 Rachel has written ten names, beginning with Michael Jackson and ending with The Doors.

 The ten are names of some of the singers and bands that are part of the beach-house collection of 300 records, records that are, in their way, a form of family history. They are old records played on an old record player with an old needle, giving you wear and tear, crackling and scratching in stereo. It’s as if the needle rides the grooves of the vinyl like we ride the ups and downs of life.

Great Ocean Quarterly is available via its website, newsagencies and bookshops such as Readings.