About Kurungabaa

‘Kurungabaa’ is a Dharawal word for the Australian pelican, a handsome bird with a peculiar way of gliding low over the waves. We have chosen it to express respect for the Dharawal country where we love to surf, to celebrate the continuing culture of the Dharawal people, and to acknowledge the memory of the Dharawal people’s ancestors.

Kurungabaa is a not-for-profit volunteer publication, and is published bi-annually (June and December) as a hard copy by the generosity of subscribers and donors. The journal emerged from the ocean in 2008.

Kurungabaa publishes diverse genres including poetry, fiction, reflective and scholarly essays, memoirs, review essays, and interviews. Four pages each issue are made available for a photo essay or series of art reproductions by a single photographer or artist.

Emerging writers from coastlines around the world are encouraged to submit their work. Several pages will be dedicated to emerging authors in each issue. Editorial and writing assistance can be arranged, if requested.

Indigenous surfers are encouraged to join in Kurungabaa’s production, both as members of the editorial collective and as contributors.

Editorial Collective (feel free to sign up!):

Clifton Evers surfs, works, writes, and lives in east Asia. He is a university researcher and researches sporting cultures, subcultures, media and community politics. Clifton experiments with all sorts of wave-sliding equipment, but his favorite thing to do is don his flippers and go bodysurfing.

Born 1981 in Hamburg, Germany to parents from Cairo, Egypt Dina El Dessouky immigrated to the United States at age three. Her family moved to northern California when she was eight, and France, Tahiti, and Spain have also been formative places for her; Dina is local to no particular landmass. She is a doctoral candidate in literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and works primarily with Oceania’s indigenous writers and activists.

Kim Satchell is a Mid North Coast NSW surfer, reconstructed from the Cronulla Underground, halcyon days of the early 70s to early 80s, before and after the demise of the Miami Milkbar at South Cronulla. Academic, mystic, oceanic hippy, right foot forward, left hand touching the water, aspires to live recursively from land to sea, in a flow-state of consciousness. Dreams in colour and listens to an eclectic range of music, wavesong and the sound of words. Is said to be able to disappear and appear, at different points on the compass, according to the moon. Lover of books, style, bottle green and contemporary renderings of mid-20c aesthetics. At times raves on…

Rebecca Olive can sometimes be found with cup of tea in hand musing over why Ryan Adams cannot take criticism. When not at home sliding at The Pass in Byron Bay Bec is found, well, sliding somewhere else or Making Friends with the Neighbours.

Noah Sabich is a Ph.D. in Francophone Literature and lives and surfs semi-nomadically throughout New England in the United States.  He lives to explore both the unyielding fragility and beauty of the human condition and our planet.

Born in the West, surfing and swimming while the sun goes down, SimonO recalls hard outlines against white skies, salt on browned skin, body warm through the evening, the long travel to the East…
Waking again fifteen years later, board gone, no wetsuit – need both – surprising self with a body-grace and relentless memory of moving to my feet, jumping up into the jacking wave, the startling speed that eases past words, and smileglow oceangift.

Taylor Miller grew up between the beach and bush of Byron Bay, Northern New South Wales. As an avid surfer, traveller and current honours student at Sydney University in Italian surf culture, she still remains deep-seated within the cosmic groove of her beloved hometown by the seaside. Rolling hills and glistening oceans will forever be her fix and effective inspiration.

ISSN 1835-6575