Big Vendor Edition

If you could reach back in time and space, and offer advice to your teenage self, what would you tell them? Buy shares in Apple? Embrace love? Always trust your gut instinct? Know that you are loved?

In this special Vendor Week edition – an annual celebration of the people who sell our magazine and other street papers around the world – we ask our vendors that very question in an inspiring Letter to My Younger Self series. Lynn in Newcastle, Simon in Adelaide, Ben in Brisbane, and KJ in Melbourne each offer encouragement, kindness and wisdom to the teenagers they once were.

More highlights in our annual Vendor Week edition:

• Mark, a Big Issue vendor in Adelaide, steps in for regular columnist Fiona Scott-Norman to pen a beautiful ode to friendships.
• For Melbourne vendor and writer Mariann, a trip to the hospital is eye-opening in more ways than one!
• Cindy, who sells The Big Issue in Adelaide, shares her recipe for Baked Cheesecake!
• Our cover star Michael reveals why the beach is his happy place (as long as there are no jet skiers around!).
• Amanda Brown was a member of iconic Aussie band The Go-Betweens and toured with REM – now she’s finally ready to release her debut album, with a little help from her friends.
• We talk subversive superheroes and real-life acting gods with two of the teen stars of DC’s new flick Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
• Perth-based author Simone Lazaroo started writing to honour her late mother, developing her tale into a sprawling novel about family, grief and secrets from Singapore to Australia.
• Plus, in The Big Picture, Melbourne photographer Dave Tacon shares his photos of a decade in China, capturing the street life in Shanghai during a period of intense gentrification.