I recently discovered my high school yearbook. In it, I found my eighteen-year-old self’s life goals: to become a paediatrician, to marry a Spaniard (I was madly in love with Antonio Banderas at the time) and to pen a novel. They were tongue-in-cheek aspirations. Some were more so than others. At the time, I was […]

The first thing that struck me about your story, ‘When the Sky Looks Like the Belly of a Donkey,’ was its title. How important is metaphor to your work, and how do you ensure you’re harnessing your most effective, most original use of said metaphor? Metaphors do not have exact logical connections with the things […]

I've just returned from the Perth Writers Festival where it was wonderful to speak about Bloodlines. There were other fledgling writers in the audience, and they asked, how did I do it? How did I pull off writing a novel?

Ten years ago, I left teaching to travel and do volunteer work abroad, and I planned to honour my childhood dream of writing a novel. Yet, ironically, even though I had more ‘free time’ I never actually started. It wasn’t until I undertook a PhD in writing that I began to hone my focus on […]

From the window, she stares down at the people clumped under trees, or sitting on the back of utes. She watches women walk along the muddy street in their bright, puffing meri blouses, billums stuffed with kaukau, taro, yam. Mangy dogs run by, nipping at each other, head toward the beach. ‘What do they do […]

It’s rare that you get to interview a writer whom you mentored, and even rarer for said writer to be one of the most well-rounded, delightful people that you’ve met. But then, Tinashe is like that: erudite, contemplative, at times funny, and always a joy to be around. I spoke to her about her life, […]

Barefoot, toes digging into brown dirt, I survey the old tin milking shed and cobbled-together chook yards … all empty now. Large white turkey feathers have gathered along the fence line, and curl over like small waves, ruffling in the breeze. I look over to where dad kept his dog. Gone. Then down the hill: […]

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2017 Margaret River Short Story Competition. Laura Elvery has taken out the 1st prize with her story, Joiner Bay. Laura is a writer from Brisbane. Her work has been published in The Big Issue Fiction Edition, Kill Your Darlings, Award-Winning Australian Writing and Griffith Review. In […]

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the annual Margaret River Short Story Competition. The final judge and editor of the collection, award winning writer Ellen van Neerven said she was very impressed with the high standard of entries and has selected seventeen stories for the collection. Those shortlisted are : WA Emily Paull, […]