Ten people leave the city and meet at a farm in NSW’s Hunter Valley when Covid hits and the lockdown begins, in March 2020. They learn to support each other, end some old relationships and form new ones, and become stronger together. On Fridays, for entertainment and sanity’s sake, they tell each other stories The Lockdown Tales: Emergence takes up their story after they’ve been on the farm together over six months. Some are finding the time away from the city wearing at them while others are thriving. At the same time, a new member joins the group, and adds his stories to the mix.

The Lockdown Tales: Emergence tells of the group’s recognition that though the pandemic is not over at least some of them will soon have to return to city life, while others are less keen. It also presents the last fifty-one stories told by this group of Covid exiles. As before, the stories range wide in time and places in the world, sometimes sad, often funny, quite often bawdy, and always very human!