In Australia, we have a thing for social realism. Cloudstreet, The Slap, The Thorn Birds- the vast majority of our canonical national texts are firmly rooted in the everyday reality of Australian life. And, while Tim Winton claims that “ordinary life overflows with divine grace”, Patrick White decried the predominant mode of Australian literature as […]

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing the fabulous Meredith Curnow, the Knopf Vintage Publisher at Random House Australia. Looking after both fiction and non-fiction, her list of writers is a veritable “who’s who” of Australian literature, including Patrick White, Frank Moorhouse, David Malouf, Tom Keneally, Gail Jones, Nick Earls, Kate Forsyth […]

Felicity Castagna is a Parramatta-based writer and teacher. Her work has been produced for ABC Radio National and Triple J. Her stories are widely published in Australian literary journals including Heat, Island and Going Down Swinging. Her first collection of stories is Small Indiscretions: Stories of Travels in Asia (Transit Lounge). She is currently developing […]

  Favourite Australian Short Stories by Laurie Steed   This list is personal rather than exhaustive, and with more time and space I’d include stories from Tim Richards, Josephine Rowe, Murray Bail, Elliott Perlman, Henry Lawson, Tara-June Winch, Nam Le, Paul Mitchell, Joshua Lobb, Chloe Walker, Louise Swinn, Steven Amsterdam, Peter Farrar and many more. […]

Georgia Behrens writes about her salvation: the short story As anyone who has read a newspaper column in the last 10 years will know, citizens of the 21st century have a short attention span. Gone are the days, generic columnist bemoans, when we’ll settle down with a good book or literary journal for a few […]

Georgia Behrens leaps to the defence of the beleaguered short story. For too long, the short story has been condemned as the novel’s poorer, uglier, less-charismatic cousin. It has been thought of by many as the Mr Collins to the novel’s Mr Darcy: well intentioned, yes; entertaining, certainly- but altogether lacking the depth, devastating good […]

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” Ray Bradbury The NSW Writers’ Centre is excited to open its Library of Unwritten Stories, a dynamic new program for young writers aged under 30 developing their skills in short story writing both through an engaging talks […]