Wallet, check. Phone, check. Keys, check. Laptop, check. Chargers, check. I take one last glance at the note on the kitchen table left for my cleaning lady and grab my suit bag. I jump into the taxi waiting out the front and we’re off.
I’ve managed to get these last minute trips to Melbourne down to a fine art. I haven’t had much choice. We’ve got a long way to go before we reach the critical mass necessary to open an office down in Melbourne, even though our one...
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I am cruelly wrenched from my Saturday morning lie-in and jet-lag recovery by the infuriating buzz and whine of a leaf blower. When will a caped crusader free Sydney of this scourge?
With the persistence of a blowfly of prehistoric proportions the drone continues pulsing and reverberating, seemingly getting nearer and nearer. I stumble out of bed to see if this person is doing our street any good.
Petrol fumes from this infernal menace are drifting in through my...
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The Common Thread is actually a writing group (looking for new members) that has published an annual anthology of their work since 2004. In 2010 they held their first competition. This Anthology is a ‘bumper edition’ covering both 2012 and 2011. The bonus for readers is that this book therefore contains four prize-winning stories.
Apart from the pure enjoyment of reading short stories, this book makes an interesting study for any aspiring writer developing their...
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This story was first published in the 2013 UTS Anthology The Eveninglands
Alone, parked on the shoulder of the road in the middle of nowhere. I stare with blank eyes out the car window as I work mechanically through the doorstops of ham and mustard Peter made me before daybreak. Neither of us could sleep after the shrill ring pierced the night. The call is now on a tape loop in my mind, its alarm still jangling my nerves.
I had not heard that...
I usually keep reviews here as to the point as possible, but this book is so rich and rewarding, it deserves more. The Road From Coorain is the coming of age story of Jill Ker, a child whose whole world was an isolated farm in western NSW in the 1940s. She grew up confident in her family and her environment, and was able to negotiate her work around the farm to the extent that at eight years old she could ride for miles to herd hundreds of sheep on her own. When she...
This story was first published in August 2021 in Writing in a Woman's Voice
I think of planning to get up off the floor. Or am I planning to think of it? I imagine each step in minute detail. Slightly shifting my weight onto my left hip, starting to move my hand to the right, but I do nothing. A moment later the messages are becoming more insistent. You must move. Get up.
Mum always used to say I could never make a decision. But I proved...
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This story was first published in September 2021 in Flash Fiction North
I stopped at the chemist to buy some mints, hoping they might mask the twin evils of beer and onion. I was in enough trouble as it was. I stood at the lights waiting for the green man when I heard someone yelling. I looked in the direction of the noise and saw a girl in a red dress tearing down the library steps. No one seemed to be chasing her, but then she raised her arms spastically...