HLNPNTS

{Helena Pantsis} is a {writer}, {columnist}, editor, and student from Naarm, Australia. They study creative writing, publishing, and editing at the University of Melbourne.

"Probably one of the greatest writers I've ever known, and also just a very good girl in general."
— My mother, 2021

INTERVIEWS

A Conversation between Helena Pantsis and Lily Bechtold
Body Without OrgansSeparately, it’s as if the words become something else beyond their visual companions; as I read and edit and reread my own work I develop my own sense of the piece’s atmosphere—adding an image to enhance this unspoken ambience allows me an additional layer of control over the reader’s perception of the work. The writing manipulates the visual into something else entirely, whilst the image henceforth intensifies the impact of the written word.

Ten Minutes with Helena Pantsis
Sunday Mornings At The RiverWriting is really a release valve for me. It’s like I build up with so much pressure, and the writing of things down just eases that, allows me to reflect and make sense of thing in a way that flexes my creative muscles. I’ve always loved to write, as most writers express, and the articulation of feelings and experiences through language is the most natural way I can unburden myself.

Featured Fiction Writer: Helena Pantsis
LammergeierActually a big fan of the pelvis. I like the way the top bones kind of poke through the skin so you can trace your fingers over them. Also just the general shape of it is very reminiscent of an elephant’s head.

HLNPNTS

FEATURED WRITING

I was born without a face
MeanjinLike The Truman Show, only opposite, / where all the cameras are turned away from me. / A torchlight repelling darkness wherever it / shines; I need some semblance of watchfulness or / a capsule of un-ill, taken and swallowed blue.

Grow-A-Boy
Going Down SwingingIt’s true that you’ve never been good at talking to boys, or people, or even yourself when you’ve needed the encouragement, but no one could ever say you weren’t a talented student. When it comes to standardised tests and IKEA furniture, you’ve always excelled. So what if you can’t find a boyfriend? You can just grow one.

Something Like People
OverlandSomething replaced my mother. I knew it when I first saw them standing over the sink, their eyes glassed over like marbles. They looked the same, had the same dye job and thick fish-eye glasses. They sounded like her, even moved like her, my mother, somehow, but off.

Surrogate Mother
Island OnlineHer mother drew the washcloth over her, outlining the jagged edge of her spine and caressing the gentle curvature which came to be by the bending of her. Her body grew transparent under the weight of the water, her skin shrinking against the porcelain. The spiders spent more time inside these walls than she had. She hadn't been home in years.

If I Were a Black Widow This Would Be Fine
VoiceworksI didn't eat in the week after you died. After the cremation I couldn't stand to use the oven. The heat radiated like the incinerator your dad kept in the backyard when you were a kid and all I could smell was the burning of you. You would never let me go a day without a meal, but you weren't here to tell me otherwise. Instead, your parents filled the space of you, leaving two lasagne a day by our house-my house-for weeks after the funeral. I think they forgot that only you ate meat. So I set out for a cross country journey to throw your ashes over Cape York.

Losing Dogs
Above Water 2021I remember the races, standing by the side of the track and yelling, sputtering, flicking peanut induced sweats from the bones of our wrists. Dad had the money ready and in hand, making bets on the races in between the ones in which his own dogs ran.Sometimes he'd ask me to pick the numbers, and I'd pick five numbers from the air, feeling towards them using instinct or sheer magnetism, and he'd rough my hair and smile.

Friendly Face: Day 3 - Micro-micro Fiction Winner
Going Down SwingingThe cannibals next door never bothered anyone; they mainly ate the flesh of the dead anyway, which was great for the environment and the state of our local cemetery.