‘We need to be open to feedback and willing to make changes while also staying true to the story we want to tell. It can be a fine line but one worth walking to create a novel or non-fiction work readers will not be able to put down.’

‘The short story is a literary fragment that insists on immediacy, brevity, intensity. My stories—irrespective of setting—are character-based: a character’s relationship with themselves, with others, and with the world around them.’

‘A novel is an opportunity to do multiple pieces of business. A short story is the perfect opportunity to do one piece of business in a fresh way really well.’

‘Sometimes we resist an idea because it doesn’t feel original or brilliant enough, but it’s only when you commit to it, and spend some time exploring it, that you find your connection, start inhabiting it, and then the magic starts to happen.’

‘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.’

“Writing that doesn’t spell everything out, that trusts the reader to make sense of what’s not there but is gestured towards is, in my opinion, the most powerful form of writing, because it invites the reader to help co-create the story as they read.”

‘The theme and style of stories are varied, some are close to magic realism, some directly related to Persian folklore and some realistic experience of first-generation migrant life experience in Australia.’

“We’re still not seeing enough First Nations stories written by our First Nations peoples; we’re still not getting enough Own Voices stories or intersectional stories in Australian published fiction.”