Emily Paull

AKA all the wonderful short story collections that have inspired me on this journey. Little White Slips by Karen Hitchcock A Lovely and Terrible Thing by Chris Womersley The Weight of a Human Heart by Ryan O'Neill Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven Zebra and Other Stories by Debra Adelaide You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian The True Colour of the Sea by Robert Drewe The Bodysurfers by Robert Drewe Australia Day by Melanie Cheng Pulse Points by Jennifer Down The Love of a Bad Man by Laura Elizabeth Woollett Bird Country by Claire Aman Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri The Thing Around your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Promise by Tony Birch Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls by Danielle Wood Mothers Grimm by Danielle Wood Feet to the Stars by Susan Midalia ...

This weekend, short story writers from around Australia descended on Aberdeen Street in Northbridge for the third annual Australian Short Story Festival. The brain child of Margaret River Press and Midnight Sun Publishing, the festival has previously presented the likes of Cate Kennedy, Tony Birch, Ryan O'Neill, Melanie Cheng and many more. This year's festival was opened by David Malouf, who spoke at Gallery Central on Friday night, musing on the nature of creativity, and the interconnectedness of his body of work. He had many pearls of wisdom to share with the audience, such as the idea that the ending to a short story is inevitable, because the groundwork for it has already been laid in the existing words; the idea that you have set up for an ending that you have not even decided on yet is comforting to me, as endings have always been the part of writing that I have struggled with the most! David's generosity in sharing his thoughts with the audience continued into quest...

A Chinese Affair (Margaret River Press, 2016) Isabelle Li (I own a copy, courtesy agent) Isabelle Li's short story collection, released this month by local powerhouse, Margaret River Press, introduces a new voice to a burgeoning Australian short fiction scene.  These sixteen stories follow characters who have some connection to China, and are navigating the cultural divide between Australia and China, and the temporal divide of past and present.  Li's writing is skillful, and she deftly changes voices, tenses, points of view and even formats to experiment with what her short fiction can do.  Characters often appear as the lead in one story, only to turn up in another role a few stories into the book, reinterpreted again and again from many different points of view. The collection uses Chinese folklore and superstitions, as well as looking deeply into the role of language and translation.  One of the most prolific characters in the collection, Crystal, works...