‘Writing a novel is like flying a 747, with plenty of time for take-off, flight and landing. Writing a short story is like trying to get a plane off the ground as you are in the process of building it. It teaches a writer all kinds of skills.’

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 […]