The best writing of 2017

Editor's note

Good writing surprises you. It shows familiar worlds in a new light, or takes you to unknown places. Suddenly, you are watching brumbies in the snow, “ragged manes flying, galloping through a mist of ice crystals”. Or roiling on a tall ship, hearing “the slurp and spray of the Tasman” as it slams against portholes.

Good writing moves you: to laugh or rage or squirm or cry. It might evoke a forgotten feeling, like hearing Nirvana’s Nevermind for the first time, or describe an unimaginable experience, such as what it feels like to be stabbed, 14 times, by a stranger in a hospital foyer.

Good writing mounts an argument but it does so with subtlety and nuance, an accumulation of detail. The opposite of simplistic clickbait, it sweeps you along with the sheer force and delight of the prose. You might not have intended to read 1,600 words on the epic of Gilgamesh, but before you know it, you have done so.

We’ve been proud to publish plenty of beautiful writers this year on topics as varied as poetry and pain; the horror of misused words and the death of John Clarke.

Here then, is a selection of our best writing for 2017.

Suzy Freeman-Greene

Section Editor: Arts + Culture

Good writing: it surprises, moves and mounts an argument

Wild horses, known as brumbies, in Australia. Shutterstock.com

Friday essay: the cultural meanings of wild horses

Michael Adams, University of Wollongong

From 30,000-year-old cave paintings to The Man From Snowy River, wild horses have always been part of human culture. As Australia debates what to do with 'brumbies' in mountain environments, it's time to reconsider their place.

Eugenia Falleni in 1920. An Italian-born-woman-turned-Sydney-dwelling-man, Falleni was convicted of murder in 1920. Wikimedia

Friday essay: tall ships, tall tales, and the mysteries of Eugenia Falleni

Pip Smith, Western Sydney University

An Italian-born-woman-turned-Sydney-dwelling-man, Eugenia Falleni was convicted of murder in 1920. Researching a novel about Falleni left this author literally, and figuratively, at sea.

ecowaltz/flickr

On poetry and pain

Kevin Brophy, University of Melbourne

There are several ways into the book Shaping the Fractured Self: poetry of chronic illness and pain, edited by Heather Taylor Johnson. And there are many uses it might serve in the multiple worlds of poetry…

Dr Michael Wong is telling his story to campaign for better hospital security.

I was stabbed 14 times at the hospital where I work. I survived, but not everyone is so lucky

Michael Wong, University of Melbourne

Melbourne neurosurgeon Dr Michael Wong was stabbed in a hospital foyer in February, 2014. He recalls his attack with painful clarity and calls for better protection for hospital staff.

John Clarke, who died suddenly at the weekend, called out absurd politicking and dishonest language wherever he found it. ABC Pr handout/AAP

Farewell John Clarke: in an absurd world, we have never needed you more

Robert Phiddian, Flinders University

John Clarke gave voice to a brilliant Antipodean acerbity that has always seemed a little old-fashioned in its moral and tonal dignity. His was a magnificent achievement of focused, pitch-perfect satire.

A cross stitch recreation of Nirvana’s classic album cover by Mr X Stitch. Jamie Chalmers/flickr

Can an album still define the times? Oh Well. Whatever. Nevermind.

Sally Breen, Griffith University

Nirvana's Nevermind was emblematic of the 1990s. But in today's fragmented digital age, can anyone nominate an album that defines the first or second decade of the 21st century?

Bob Dylan pictured in 2012: his long synopses of a seemingly random list of books made up the bulk of this week’s Nobel Prize speech. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Bob Dylan's Nobel speech: a splendidly eccentric performance

David McCooey, Deakin University

This extraordinarily odd speech might well be the singer’s most Dylanesque performance.

‘I want to be effluent’: malapropisms and mispronounced words were a regular gag in the TV comedy Kath and Kim and continue to peeve many people today. AAP

The horror and pleasure of misused words: from mispronunciation to malapropisms

Roslyn Petelin, The University of Queensland

Do you wince at a mispronounced 'Moet'? Do you cringe at unintentional portmanteau words, like 'misunderestimated' or 'insinuendo'? You are not alone.

For all its millions of female readers, romance fiction has been dismissed as sappy, trashy and dangerous to read. Pixeljoy/shutterstock

To the mattresses: a defence of romance fiction

Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Edith Cowan University

Can a gender studies academic also write Mills and Boon novels? And can purple prose be as empowering as a pink pussy hat? The answer is yes, and yes again.