Welcome to CRUX, a collection of speculative fiction and poetry from Australia's boldest voices. Curated by a team of Aurealis-winning editors, CRUX challenges preconceptions of what speculative and literary mean in a contemporary context, boldly embracing the hallmarks of genre fiction while never forgetting what it means to speculate: to challenge, to deconstruct, and most crucially, to hope. Featuring odes to ancient styles of storytelling and experiments in the new and unexplored, CRUX is an anthology for right now; one that forges onward without losing sight of the stories and traditions that have inspired us for generations.

With writing from: Arden Baker, Isaac Beach, Will Greatwich, Mara Papavassiliou, Kate Alfano, Emily Mercurio, Luke Weavell, M. Mclellan, S. L. Johnson, Megan Cartwright, David Stevens, Nalini Jacob-Roussety, Jason Schembri, Dmitri Akers.

And illustrations from: Tracey Chen, Arden Baker, Zoe Curtis, Rebecca Stewart, May Du, Jimmy Spence, Lizzi Long, Jesse Densley.