Celebrating Australian Women Writers in the Short Story Form

Kate at booksaremyfavouriteandbest has given us two fabulous reviews in one with her post ‘The Long and the Short of it . . .’  Musing on Melanie Cheng’s Australia Day Day (which won the Fiction Prize in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards), Kate highlights the way racism catches us unawares and gives a great example of those moments when casual racism slips through conversation’s cracks. Clearly Cheng’s stories, told from various cultural perspectives, are thought-provoking.

I had not heard of ‘Pulse Points’ by Jennifer Down but it is definitely on my TBR list now that I have read Kate’s review in which she’s plucked out some tantalising quotes that give an indication of the exceptional writing skill on show.

Carolyn reviewed Helen Garners ‘Stories: The Collected Short Fiction’ on Goodreads and found it interesting re-reading one story she had read over twenty years ago. That’s the thing with Garner, I think: her everyday ordinary characters stand the test of time. Carolyn calls it a ‘stylish collection’.

In reviewing Lynette Washington’s collection ‘Plane Tree Drive’ Sue at ‘Whispering Gums’ notes that, ‘Like many books from smaller publishers, it deserves a wider audience than it will probably get’ which is why blogs like this are so important. I love reading works from authors who are not afraid to experiment with form so, after reading this review, I was straight off to find myself a copy of ‘Plane Tree Drive’.  I was not disappointed!

Whispering Gums is also the site to head to for a review on Carmel Bird’s e-book ‘The dead aviatrix: Eight short stories’ and it sounds like the shorts are cracker reads, just as we would expect from Bird!

The Silver Well

Sarah at Reading the Past reviews ‘The Silver Well’ by Kim Wilkins and Kate Forsyth, a collection of shorts themed on a Dorset village’s mystical history.
Sarah sums up her experience of ‘The Silver Well’ thus:

“The stories are tinged with supernatural happenings. This is a satisfying, multi-dimensional read for anyone who likes pondering history’s deep and intricate layers.”

A good review of an interesting concept collection.

HM Waugh reviews ‘Cyclones and Shadows’, a collection of stories for children by Laura Dudgeon, Pat Dudgeon, Sabrina Dudgeon-Swift and Darlene Oxenham and gives it a ‘hats-off, stupendous-clapping level of recommendation’. High praise indeed.

Laura Elvery’s collection ‘Trick of the Light’ gets high praise too. From Cass Moriarty. As much as I enjoyed reading Cass’s specific comments on the stories (‘each a skilfully contained vignette’),  I loved the way she – as a reviewer – captured the essence of great short story writing. Cass says that good short story writers can leave us ‘gasping for breath and wondering what just happened.’ 

Until next time . . . happy reading and writing!


About Me.
I am a writer of short stories, essays, poetry and one novel and I am passionate about writing and reading the Australian voice. My bushfire themed collection of shorts was published in March 2017 by Hybrid Publishers. I have two chooks – Eleanor Roostevelt (Ellie) and Margaret Hatcher (Maggie). I occasionally (ahem, rarely) blog at www.karenleethompson.wordpress.com