Venita Munir

Writer. Editor. Former doctor.

Australia

Venita is a diverse writer, editor and non-practising doctor who lives and works in Melbourne / Naarm. She has a lifelong love of music & travel, loves greyhounds & coffee, and would love to publish a novel or two. Venita works as an Editor at Therapeutic Guidelines Ltd.

Portfolio

Prose and more

Time Anthology
24/02/2018
Time to leave

Time to leave was a finalist in the 2017 joanne burns microlit award run by Spineless Wonders

Spineless Wonders
2018
Time Microlit Author Venita Munir

This week we talk to Venita Munir about 'Time To Leave' which appears in Time, the latest Microlit anthology edited by Cassandra Atherton and published in 2018 by Spineless Wonders. In this interview, Venita talks about her approach to writing microlit, what she is reading right now and her favourite time of year for putting pen to paper.

Litro Magazine Stories Transport you
08/09/2017
There is no girl

After the rain eases in the humid dawn, Ezrin lies on his bed and listens to the jungle wake to the hill-myna's song. The bird's shrill whistle echoes across the valley

Venus Moon
11/21/2016
Outback Sentinel

I glimpse him from a distance, a Drizaboned mirage on the road. He tips his flask upside-down and his shoulders drop.

Venus Moon
11/14/2016
I float

Overhead A cloudless blue ceiling Beneath Buoyed by liquid hands

[11:59PM SUNDAY]
11/07/2016
The Lighthouse Keeper

Randall Thomson peruses his ageing face in a shard of mirror tied to a picture hook. Flotsam from the beach, the shard at least reminds him to shave.

Breach Visible Ink Vol.28
11/06/2016
The River Runs Dry

I walked home from the public swimming pool, having swum my mandatory forty laps. Thinking-time in the pool helped wash away my nights on call, if only to refresh me for the next.

Emergency: Real Stories
08/03/2015
I can probably help

A yellow rescue helicopter hovers menacingly just beyond the break. Its downdraft carves a white-fringed crater on the sea's surface.

Real ED Stories
06/29/2015
I can probably help - Dr Venita Munir

I'm on my knees in the wet sand, leaning over a woman younger than me. She's clothed in jeans and a t-shirt, which has been pulled down to expose her chest. She is cold and grey. Her eyes stare, pu...

Out of Place prose poems & microfiction
08/01/2015
Amplification

Evie lies on her back. The noise-cancelling headphones squeeze her skull. Her surging thoughts press from the inside.

Venus Moon
05/09/2015
Animal Lab – Essay

This essay carries a warning that some of the content may distress some readers. It contains references to animal cruelty and descriptions of such.

Music Reviews and Interviews

COLLAPSE BOARD
Died Pretty @ The Croxton Bandroom 23.04.2021

For the last year it's been like a nuclear winter for the live music scene in Melbourne. Fourteen months to be specific. The last live gig I saw in Melbourne (apart from buskers in Bourke St) was Julia Jacklin at Melbourne Zoo back in February 2020. That was just before Covid Lockdown 1.0 happened.

COLLAPSE BOARD
12/04/2020
Calexico - Seasonal Shift (Spunk!)

Let's get it over and done with - 2020 hasn't been a great year. Thank goodness for all the musicians of the world who've kept making music throughout this unspeakable pandemic. As most couldn't travel and haven't been allowed to play live, at least technology has enabled digital recording and sharing, and live streaming performances.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Neko Case @ Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, 13.03.2019

It's been a busy week for live music all over Australia. There were so many tantalising acts, both local and international, I had to rationalise and choose how many gigs I could attend (unfair). By the time tickets went on sale for Neko Case at the Melbourne Recital Centre, I almost couldn't justify the number of nights out in one week.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Marlon Williams & The Yarra Benders + Laura Jean @ Zoo Twilights, Melbourne, 08.03.2019

Another month of Zoo Twilights concerts is almost a wrap, with Marlon Williams, supported by Laura Jean, as the penultimate show. Laura Jean and her band arrive on the stage at dusk. I'm not familiar with her music, and she takes a couple of songs to warm up, but her laid-back banter, beautiful voice and 80s-style saxophone are pretty likeable.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Calexico @ Theatre Royal, Castlemaine 27.01.19

I love a road trip. If I didn't have to work, I'd probably buy a VW Kombi van or a convertible Mustang and take off with little more than a fridge, my music and my dog. At risk of being chastised by the family, I'll qualify this by saying there is something deeply personal and indulgent about a road trip.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Iron & Wine @ Sydney Opera House 26.05.2018

And so it transpires, this weekend is the opening of Sydney's Vivid Live 2018 festival, in its 10th year. I've made the trip up from Melbourne to see Sam Beam and his full band, Iron & Wine, play at the Sydney Opera House having never set foot inside the building.

COLLAPSE BOARD
The San Sebastian - Alive on the Black Sea (Spunk)

The San Sebastian's debut album, Alive on the Black Sea, is an intriguing debut for Adelaide brothers, Dan and Joel Crannitch. If you were a fan of Sydney's 78 SAAB in the early 2000s, or love other alt-country rock bands such as The Decemberists or Band of Horses, you might care to have a listen to these guys.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Marlon Williams - Make Way For Love (Dead Oceans)

I've been fortunate to listen to Marlon Williams's much anticipated new album, Make Way For Love, for a couple of months now and finally it has made its public arrival. Fans will already be familiar with a lot of these new songs from his recent gigs or from having seen a few videos on Youtube.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Calexico - The Thread That Keeps Us (Spunk)

Yeah, so I'm a self-confessed Calexico groupie. Have been since first seeing them support Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl in 2003, touring their much revered album, Feast of Wire (2003). My mate Ross burnt Hot Rail (2000) for me soon after and I became hooked to their unique sound.

Worldmusiccentral
01/16/2018
Calexico Takes a Slight Detour

Calexico - The Thread That Keeps Us (Anti Records, 2018) Calexico's 9th studio album, The Thread That Keeps Us (Anti- records), is a slight detour from their usual Americana-Mexicana sound, but is no less captivating.

COLLAPSE BOARD
The Collapse Board Interview: Pete Oxley (Sunnyboys)

The other day I read a feature article about one of my all time favourite bands, The Jam - their individual style and musicianship, their rapid rise and premature break up, the precocious genius of frontman, Paul Weller, and the enduring love their fans still hold 40 years later.

COLLAPSE BOARD
Damage and Joy - The Jesus and Mary Chain (ADA/Warner)

It's been a long wait - 18 years since their last offering - and fans of The Jesus and Mary Chain, like myself, have surely been hanging out for the band's ninth studio album, Damage and Joy. The enduring brothers-Reid from Glasgow are back with 14 tracks of quintessential J&MC grungey guitar pop.

Worldmusiccentral
03/09/2017
Lone Piñon - Días Felices (Living Music Duplication, 2017)

This new release from New Mexico, the self-professed "land of enchantment", is sure to get you dancing. Acoustic trio, Lone Piñon's second album, (literally translated Happy Days), is a fiesta of music that pays homage to the borderland's cultural roots.

COLLAPSE BOARD
The Specials @ Melbourne Zoo, 11.03.2017

Storm clouds threaten but never come close to snuffing out the enthusiasm of the crowd at Melbourne Zoo for what is the ultimate gig in this year's Zoo Twilights series.

No Depression
12/21/2016
Ode to the Southwest

Every story of landscape needs a soundtrack, whether it's filling a cinema with atmosphere, or just in the mind of the writer. Music that carries a sense of place,

COLLAPSE BOARD
The Stranglers @ Corner Hotel, Melbourne, 20.04.2016

It's been over a decade since I last saw legendary punk outfit The Stranglers play, so it's with keen interest that I rock up at Melbourne's Corner Hotel to see them in their most recent incarnation.

No Depression
04/19/2016
Conjuring a Sense of Place

Tucson-based band, Calexico, recently toured Australia and New Zealand promoting their 2015 album, Edge of the Sun (ANTI-). Currently touring Europe, they enthrall audiences with their passionate and diverse repertoire.

COLLAPSE BOARD
The Decemberists @ Hamer Hall, Melbourne, 29.03.2016

For the second time in a month I find myself 'down by the water' for a show at Melbourne's Hamer Hall, and for the second time in a month, it's not to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. First it was Calexico, now The Decemberists, an indie folk-rock band from Portland, Oregon.