Backstory Author

‘Anyone for a drink?’

by Angela Costi   – 1965, Regatta Hotel, QLD   Rosalie and Merle clasped their ‘cold ones’, forced their smiles,...

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All Manner of Things – Wendy Dunn

    Reviewed by Angela Wauchop     “‘As a girl, I believed the movement of the stars made music we did not even...

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Fortune’s Child – James Conroyd Martin

Reviewed by Angela Wauchop   “When our light laughter—mine more forced than hers—fades, I lift my gaze to the veil and the...

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Australia Is Also At War

by Vashti Farrer   She never got over it. It ate away like an ulcer once it took hold, him being her first child. A sickly child,...

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Darebin Creek Crimes

by James Walton   Sometimes it was my turn to buy the shilling’s worth of broken biscuits from the new Summerhill shops   then...

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Ashley Kalagian Blunt

About the author: Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the author of My Name Is Revenge, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Woollahra Digital...

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Houses of the Living, Houses of the Dead

by Jenny Blackford   After the Old Babylonian sculptured plaque in the British Museum I Claw-footed goddess strong as death,...

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Raissa Nadine

Raissa is a fresh graduate of the University of Melbourne. She majored in Anthropology and Criminology but has always held creative writing...

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Hugh McMillan

Hugh McMillan is a well published and award winning poet from south west Scotland. You can find out more on his website here:...

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James Walton

James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official. He is published in many anthologies, journals,...

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Rue Baldry

Rue Baldry lives in Yorkshire, Great Britain. Her short stories have been published in journals such as Litro, MIR Online, Postbox, Ambit,...

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Chris Armstrong

Chris Armstrong is a writer whose poetry has appeared in Australian literary journals including Griffith Review, Cordite, Overland,...

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Angela Costi

A Melbourne-based poet with a long history of working in the social justice sector and also as a freelance community writer....

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Edna Heled

Edna Heled is an artist, art therapist, counsellor and travel journalist living in New Zealand. Her writing includes short stories, poetry,...

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Jas Rose

Jas Rose has completed her Bachelor in Film and Digital Media and is currently working on her Master of Writing with Swinburne University....

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Peter Boyle

Peter Boyle is a Sydney-based poet and translator of poetry. He has had eight books of poetry published and seven books as a translator. In...

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Lou Greene

Lou Greene has spent most of her life trotting the globe: Fiji-born, Lou has also lived in Kiribati, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Sulawesi, Germany,...

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Marilyn Humbert

Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW surrounded by bush.  Marilyn is leader of Bottlebrush Tanka Group, and member...

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The House of Death

By Mori Shige. Translated by Marissa Skeels.   Mori Shige (1880-1938) was a university-educated, headstrong feminist writer from...

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The Ink Stain

by Christina King. Winner of the HNSA 2019 Short Story Contest Just fuzz. Like the fur of a sewer rat. She ran her hand over her head...

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Dirty Laundry

by Julie Parry   The kitchen door was slightly ajar. I bobbed gingerly from side to side, squinting into the sliver of light. I was no...

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History

by Jasmeka Rose.   December 1942 Germany. The whir whir whir of fast machinery fills the air. The fresh, sweet scent of newly cut...

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Gulliver’s Wife by Lauren Chater

Reviewed by Dr Wendy J. Dunn.   “… She went to bed and dreamed she was lying in a garden.  It was night time, the moon a glowing...

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Fare thee well.

by Lou Greene. Commended story in the 2019 HNSA short story contest. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, my mother used to say. I...

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Middle C

By Lauren O’Connell   ’By god! It’s bees!’ The spyglass slipped from my fingers and rolled along the deck, its rumble in...

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PALIMPSEST

By Anna Forsyth   Someone slides open a drawer carefully her gloved hands steady from practice. Hector’s locked box was at the...

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MONKEY BUSINESS

By Devika Brendon   Like a marmoset With those gripping fingers Surprising strength Stretched out full length Ears like a headset How...

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