Happy Holidays!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Here comes Santa Claus – and The Big Issue’s bumper Christmas special! Our latest edition brings you festive cheer from our cover star Greg in Brisbane through to messages of hope and heart from vendors around the country in our annual Big Wish You special. Across eight extra pages, vendors reminisce about the year that’s gone, recall their favourite holiday memories, and offer their good tidings for the year ahead. ’Tis the season, after all.

Also in this edition:

• Director Taika Waititi on why he wanted to make Next Goal Wins a sports film that was “not about the sport at all”.
• Ahead of his Australian tour, singer-songwriter Elvis Costello waxes lyrical on storytelling, the Liverpool scene, and why he isn’t the sentimental kind.
• Testifying to the healing power of the highway, truckie Heather Jones of the Pilbara Heavy Haulage Girls Group explains why driving a big rig is changing the lives of vulnerable women.
• Literary superstar Trent Dalton on the people, places and perspectives that inspired his third novel, Lola in the Mirror.
• In The Big Picture, photographer Jack Kenyon grabs his tape-measure and points his lens at the enormous eggplants, gigantic gourds and super-sized spuds of the UK’s deeply competitive giant vegetable scene.
• Silverchair drummer Ben Gillies on international rock’n’roll superstardom and the many pearls of wisdom gleaned from his dad in his Letter to My Younger Self.
• Melbourne Big Issue vendor Mariann B on why her New Year’s resolution is to quit jumping to conclusions.
• Author Anna Spargo-Ryan is celebrating Christmas with a different kind of family, while writer Daniel Nour shares his survival guide if you find yourself in the midst of a festive familial onslaught.
• In Ozzities, we take a deep dive into Aussie minstrel Paul Kelly’s ‘How to Make Gravy’ Christmas classic.
• And cheese-making siblings Ellie and Sam Studd share a sweet taste of Christmas past with their mum’s recipe for Mascarpone Raspberry and Rosewater Tart.