The Gum Wall

Final thoughts

2011-06-14T10:14:00.000+08:00

I really should have been updating this page more often.

This past two months I've been reading like crazy. I've been listening to The New Yorker fiction podcasts and some cracker readings from Selected Shorts. I've been part of the Subcommittee, an online group of thirteen writers supporting each other and pushing for challenging goals and high standards among the group. I've been writing too, although to be honest, revising is a better word. Put simply, I've never been so committed to perfecting each story I write and submit.

Sadly, my PhD duties have made it harder and harder to keep this blog going. I've easily read 100 short stories since my last post and would love to tell you all about them, but time is limited, so instead, here are ten of the best stories I've read, reread or listened to since we last spoke:

1) Tobias Wolff - Bullet in the Brain
2) Nicholson Baker - Subsoil
3) Paddy O'Reilly - Speak to Me
4) Tara June Winch - Cloud Busting
5) Leonard Michaels - Nachman from Los Angeles
6) D.H. Lawrence - The Rocking Horse Winner
7) Shirley Jackson - The Lottery
8) Joshua Lobb - I Forgot My Programme So I Went to Get It Back or 101 Reasons
9) Amy Hempel - REFERENCE #388475848-5
10) Sherman Alexie - War Dances

Only one of these writers (Tobias Wolff) has been previously featured on The Gum Wall, which says a great deal about the wealth of incredible short fiction that's being published and celebrated around the world.

While The Gum Wall is finished for now, many others continue to discuss and promote quality literature. Among them, I include the mighty Book Fox, The Short Review, Verity La, LiteraryMinded and Spineless Wonders. In addition, I would like to thank Angela Meyer, Karen Andrews, A.S. Patric, Ryan O'Neill, Vicki Thornton, Louise Swinn, Zoe Dattner and Bronwyn Mehan for their help with the blog. It's all well and good to crap on about short stories, but it's far more enjoyable when you have some friends along for the ride.

By all means, feel free to contact me via email if you want to talk writing, reading or short fiction. In the meantime, thanks for sharing the love with me over the past two years. It's been a blast.

Best wishes,

Laurie

Life Through a Flash Fiction Lens

2011-04-14T10:16:00.001+08:00

Last Friday I had some fun on Twitter.

Well okay, I wasn't actually on Twitter. I hadn't taken a huge sniff of the social network and logged on, high as a kite and keen to hug anybody or everybody. Rather, I'd been buoyed by the magic of #flashfiction, the skilled writers who could take a sentence and craft a narrative.

The best I came up with was "Rang wife, man answered." As short stories went, it was very short; Tattoo from Fantasy Island short but without the annoying yelling of "the plane, boss, the plane". Thankfully, I wasn't the only one playing that day, and Alice Grundy (@Alicektg) came up with "Girl meets boy. Decapitates. Runaway assassin."

I wasn't sure what was more disturbing, the image, or that even as this woman was lopping off a boy's head, I still found myself strangely drawn to her. I could actually hear the roll of the head across wooden floorboards but was still thinking "how do I get next to her?"

More surprising was the challenge presented by the act of writing flash fiction. @lorryx3 and @NaeDanielle took the easy way out, although the latter's "In the beginning, the end," did raise some interesting existential questions. @dingotookmybaby tackled autobiographies with his "Lived boring life, wrote it down," but to my mind, the one that lingered was @ZoeDattner with "Sorry, I backed the wrong horse."

This to me, had all the hallmarks of a Carver story, where a man named Bill marries a woman named Lorraine, and she bakes a cake, only it sinks in the middle, and then, as the sun slips down behind the trees, he turns to her, eyes bloodshot, and utters that final immortal line, knowing he barely has enough money to make it to Michigan, let alone the West Coast.

It was fun playing with flash fiction, but for me it provides limited scope. Part of my joy in reading short fiction is unravelling the riddle. At present I'm reading Tim Winton's The Turning, and finding myself continually surprised by the directions he takes. Sometimes, it's only as I'm coming to the last few pages that I realise I'm in the company of a writer with supreme mastery of the form. And somehow, I can't imagine the same experience with such a passing moment as flash fiction, which to me feels more like a kiss stolen in a hallway, or a moment of clarity.

On another topic, I watched the above video from David M. Harris, teacher from Vanderbilt University, and while personally, I think any one of us could become the next Chekhov with the right level of application and a bit of luck, I also found his thoughts quite pertinent. Enjoy!

#36: The Scarlatti Tilt by Richard Brautigan

2011-04-06T15:38:00.002+08:00

Available: Revenge of the Lawn
Further Reading: The Richard Brautigan Archives

Richard Brautigan was a novelist, poet and short story writer in the 1960's and 70's. Depending on who you talk to, his work was beautiful or depressing, funny or tragic, and perhaps both at the same time. Opinions being opinions, I won't bore you with mine, but to say that at his best, he wrote some of the most stunningly beautiful fiction I've ever read.

Brautigan's work may have been many things, but it was never predictable. With The Scarlatti Tilt, he wrote his own riff on "short" short stories with a tale to rival Hemingway's classic "For sale: baby shoes, never worn". The Scarlatti Tilt, while no match for Hemingway, is still worthy of praise, if only for its sense of humour. And although Brautigan sadly took his own life in 1984, he left behind some incredibly funny, strange and memorable poetry and prose for us to feast on.

The Story
I'll break from tradition for this particular story, in that it's only two sentences long and is better read than discussed . So, here we go:

"It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin." That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.

-Richard Brautigan, The Scarlatti Tilt, from Revenge of the Lawn, 1974, Picador.

Why it Sticks
Literature often takes itself far too seriously. In this story, Brautigan is happy to simply tell an incredibly short story with a comic touch, and for this, he's to be commended.

Revenge of the Lawn is, in my opinion, a frustratingly uneven collection of short stories, and I might be better suggesting either Trout Fishing in America or In Watermelon Sugar for those seeking Brautigan at his best. That said, it's still nice to read a collection so seemingly indifferent to literary rule or convention. The Scarlatti Tilt succeeds precisely because it cares not for restrictive rules on length, tone, or style of composition. If I could review two stories in this post, I would also tell you to read Pacific Radio Fire as well; it's also short and yet strangely difficult to forget.

Perhaps Pacific Radio Fire would have probably made a better post, but then blogging isn't always about creating the illusion of order, or dishing out meaning in bite sized chunks. Sometimes it's just a shared joke, spread over the internet, to remember a man both funny and frank...be he consistent, inconsistent, or both, all at the same time.

#35: Where We Must Be by Laura van den Berg

2011-03-28T10:02:00.002+08:00

Author Website: http://www.lauravandenberg.com/
Available: What the world will look like when all the water leaves us

While it's important to honour the classics of short fiction as truly great stories, I feel it's equally important to place modern writers within such a context. It's all too easy to suggest that today's writers struggle to compare without fully evaluating their experimentation with style, topic, and structure.

While I'm still to mention Sherwood Anderson, Donald Barthelme, Katherine Mansfield, Doris Lessing, Lydia Davis, and any number of other fine writers in this ever expanding blog, today I'm focusing on Laura van den Berg, whose debut collection what the world will look like when all the water leaves us was shortlisted for The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award in 2010.

I'm not at all surprised it was shortlisted, for if there's one things van den Berg does extremely well, it's playing with thematic elements and creating new hybrids from seemingly cliched narratives. In van den Berg's world, missionaries become obsessed with creatures rumoured to be living in the Congo; a clerk who sells Balinese masks takes solace in them as a love affair falls to pieces, and, in where we must be, a failed actress takes on a particularly challenging role.

The Story
Jean has taken a job as a Bigfoot impersonator at a recreation park in Northern California. People pay to be chased by Bigfoot; someone has to fill his hairy shoes. Jean spends her downtime with Jimmy, a lover who's fast succumbing to lung cancer. They live in a sleepy neighbourhood with rusty water pipes.

With Jimmy's time running out, Jean ponders her own existence. Having walked away from the heartbreak of countless failed auditions, she's found comfort behind the mask of Bigfoot. With Jimmy dying and her mother constantly berating her lack of career progress, Jean hides away from reality as best she can. But she's yet to meet her next customer for the day: a man who has no interest in being chased by a Bigfoot and is looking for an entirely new experience...

Why It Sticks
where we must be impressively balances the more traditional short story territory of loss and with a humourous bent on acting as escape, as affirmation and as desperation. The absurdity of the Bigfoot impersonator is extreme, yet not so extreme to be considered unlikely, as anyone who's visited a fun park will attest. In Jean, the story finds its emotional centre, a young failed actress who longs to be something, while all the time acknowledging Jimmy's increasingly fragile state.

Time here is truly of the essence. Time waiting; time planning; time slipping away while day-to-day living occurs. The relationship between Jean and Jimmy is beautifully rendered, while all around them we see decay; the softening of pears, the rust in the water, and the slow dissolution of long-term life plans.

You will not read another story like where we must be this year. The theme of loss may on the one hand feel familiar, but then perhaps this is van den Berg's greatest strength: Taking the familiar and rendering it anew, linking fear, mythology and personal experience into an all the more powerful cacophony of emotion.

#34: My Father's Axe by Tim Winton

2011-03-21T12:37:00.001+08:00

It’s easy to neglect the Australian short fiction that's shone in the past thirty years. Were one to revisit the classics, they'd find writers such as Moorhouse, Jolley, Carey, Goldsworthy, Kennedy, Tuner-Hospital, Hitchcock, and Robert Drewe, all of whom have experimented with the form to great effect. Unless they’ve been living in a commune, they’d also consider Tim Winton and his incredible talent for writing powerful, succinct short fiction.

The Story
A man mourns the loss of his axe. It has been stolen; it is not known by whom. As the story unfolds, the main character remembers his father through axe-related memories: nights chopping wood in the darkness, animals killed with its blunt head, and a child getting to know his silent, practical father. In the present day, the main protagonist fears his father’s death, and the loss of certainty that will come when it occurs. He spends nights in existential angst beside his sleeping wife, his fears overcoming him.

Alone and afraid, he goes out to buy a new axe. And to say anymore would spoil the rest of the story.

Why it Sticks
My Father’s Axe is what these days might be a called a typical Winton Story, but at the time was, with A Blow, A Kiss, one of two groundbreaking stories exploring the father/son bond in Winton's debut short story collection. What’s refreshing is the tenderness of the central relationship in My Father’s Axe, a mutual unspoken understanding. It's touching without ever straying into sentimentality.

Winton’s masculinity is a strangely inclusive one, and forecasts a shift in identity from his father’s generation to his own. What once was the domain of the strong, silent type opens up into the more conversational, sensitive characters ever so tentatively opening up to partners, mothers, or friends from distant lands.

Tim Winton has arguably written tighter, more complete stories, but what’s impressive about My Father’s Axe is its inherent approachability. Any writer who has worked through a writing exercise will recognise the simplicity of Winton's meditation on a single object, and yet also be impressed by such a layered final product. The axe in the story is totem, character and narrative device, and by the story’s end, all aspects have been thoroughly explored in only twelve pages.

Masculinity had never been so sensitively explored as in Tim Winton’s Scission. And I was uniquely touched, on reading (and rereading) My Father's Axe, by his balance of beauty and brutality.

Rocket Clocks and the Rise of Ryan O'Neill

2011-03-02T10:41:00.002+08:00

Firstly, my sincere apologies for the delay between posts. A trip to New Zealand and the unutterable joy of arranging a new ISP here in Western Australia have contributed to an involuntary break. Here's hoping you've been reading as much as I have during the break, and have found words, near perfect, on page or (i) pad.

The biggest news I received during the hiatus was that Gum Wall of Famer Ryan O'Neill has had his collection accepted by Black Inc, for publication in 2012. This union is somewhat akin to Dave Eggers hooking up with Miranda July and the two of them writing a film together. In short, it's very exciting news, and in Ryan's case, it's also well deserved. Congratulations are definitely in order.

Secondly, the gang at Rocket Clock have sent me some information regarding their next monthly slam competition (see below). Though I can't be there, I think anyone willing to host storytelling events should be encouraged. If you do go, let me know how it works/what it's like/your favourite story, and I'll endeavour to attend in late May when I'm in Melbourne.

Oh, and speaking of Melbourne, the 2011 Emerging Writers Festival is coming...and it's going to be huge. Head here:

Happy reading and writing, people. More reviews to come of stories from Laura van den Berg and Tim Winton in the next couple of weeks. I've also read Gene Wilder's autobiography, but you didn't need to know that...

Until next,

Laurie

What is Rocket Clock?
Rocket Clock is a monthly story slam competition. Ten people each have five minutes to tell a story around a particular theme. Judges in the audience rate each story on both content and performance. Everyone has a great time.

Rocket Clock Story Slam: “Small World”
We’re looking for stories of chance encounters, surprising connections and unexpected run-ins. Six degrees of separation. The Global Village. Coincidental reunions. It’s a small world after all.

Pre-register your intent to tell by emailing rocketclockss@gmail.com, or register on the night. Everyone is welcome to come along and listen, laugh, drink, cheer & weep.

When and where:
Wednesday March 9, 2011

Doors open 7.30pm; slam kicks off 8.30pm.
Bella Union: Level 1, Trades Hall
Corner of Victoria & Lygon Streets, Carlton South

Entry by donation (suggested amount $5).
MC: Jon Bennett

Upcoming slams:
Wednesday April 6, 2011: “Lesson Learnt” *Comedy Festival special*
Wednesday April 13, 2011: “Secrets” *Comedy Festival special*

More info:
rocketclock.com.au

Let's Talk about Sex (In Writing)

2011-01-25T06:54:00.001+08:00

This post was supposed to be about Robert Drewe's Baby Oil, but I reread the story and it didn't grab me.

This probably says more about me than the story, as literary tastes obviously change over a lifetime. At fifteen I was excited to be reading about sex. I did not struggle, as I do now, with Drewe's description of Anthea's oiled up nipples as big silver coins, nor did I wonder what sort of sex could make both Brian's keys and his coins rattle the way they did.

In all fairness, the Baby Oil sex scene is no better or worse than many I read, and The Bodysurfers was a landmark collection. It's just that writing good sex scenes is hard work. It's doing an Iron Man marathon with a stitch, it's writing an essay on the night before it's due, and some writers avoid it entirely. If you have experimented with such scenes in your writing, let me know how you went. Was it hard? Was it easy? Were the nipples big silver coins, or indeed any other form of currency?

The first sex scene I wrote was damn awful and I kid you not, involved a mantra-like chant and constant references to the various colours of the rainbow. I wrote it in 2004, which, according to physicsworld.com, was also the year when quantum cryptography was used in a commercial transaction for the first time. But I digress.

I won't reproduce the scene here as it's now being used to scare kids into celibacy, but lets just say it also includes both a heaving body and an ocean of feelings...and is not at all sexy.

Maybe it's a guy thing. Because of all the books I've read I remember only two interesting sex scenes, both written by women.

The first was in Julienne Van Loon's Road Story, which is also an excellent book. Why is the scene so good? Because there's no oceans, no rolling, no girth or width. There's just sweat, bodies and an urgency that keeps you reading.

I also enjoyed the sex scenes in Angela Meyer's You Will Notice That Hallways Are Painted, from Torpedo Greatest Hits. I liked these scenes because they said much about the character, touching on sex as emotional release, sex as blurred boundaries, and sex as both the culmination and the antithesis of intimacy. So maybe there's hope for us yet.

On another note, we have competition winners to announce: my congratulations to Jordi Kerr and Melanie Beer, who won our [Untitled] competition, and Boris Kelly, who won our page seventeen competition back in December. Congratulations guys, and happy reading!

Note: I'm aware at this point, that I may have missed some great sex scenes written by men. So if you've read any good one written by guys (and no, don't say Henry Miller), then let me know.

Summer Links

2011-01-18T07:39:00.002+08:00

The other day I was asked what I'd been reading this summer. The short answer is Lauren Groff's Delicate Edible Birds, The Great Gatsby (again) and a whole bunch of story submissions. The longer answer is that, in addition to these books, I've been getting back in touch with blogs. My favourite blogs are like old friends: they pass on information, they share emotion, and yet they're never indulgent. In some cases, I know the people personally and in some cases I don't, but in all cases they do more than just regurgitate: there is an interactivity there, thoughts crystalised, if only for a moment until we're left with something more or less than what we came with.

Most of these aren't about short fiction. Some include aspects of short fiction. Some say they'll call short fiction but they never do. And some blogs have funny pictures and bright colours. To them I say that it takes all sorts of ingredients to make a cake, and thank you for being the sprinkles!

Anyway, the list:

Eglantine's Cake - This blog always sneaks up on me. Poems, musings and pictures appear, and it's like watching a movie in slide show or catching fragments of a dream. Sometimes I'm happy here, sometimes sad, but more often than anything else I just feel a giddy rush and I'm unsure whether to comment on the post, eat some ice cream, or call my best friend just to hear his voice.

Ruby J. Murray - Ruby J is a deep thinker. She's also one of the sweetest people I know. Often it seems like her world mirrors our world; the blog muses on huge, almost unassailable issues, and then, i read a story like The Two People I Know Who Have Killed Someone and I'm not sure there are two worlds after all. I wonder if our personal world ultimately bleeds into the political, and I wonder what to do about that. I know that if I ever go deeper, I'll have Ruby on speed dial.

Known Unknowns - Okay, I'll admit it: Known Unknowns is my personal caffeine. I say this because Emmett Stinson is passionate about literary fiction and particularly passionate about finding Australian lit gems and giving them their dues. Ryan O'Neill and Wayne Macauley (who are both excellent short story writers, by the way) were lucky enough to find their way into Emmett's reading pile and be subsequently promoted. In short, it's hard not to be buoyed by Known Unknowns: it's that bookish delight, a site so damn literary that you expect to see a phrase scrawled in its margins.

Fly the Falcon - Chris Flynn will say things most people don't want to hear, particularly in regard to the literary life. He also loves short stories and ran an excellent 'best of 2010' post here. I like that Chris is willing to talk about contentious issues such as surviving financially as a writer, the increasingly attractive world of online retail, and the need for writers to earn their stripes through hard work and professionalism. His thoughts are not always popular, but they are always worth considering.

The Short Review - While Australian short fiction sites are pretty thin on the ground (let me know if you run one!), there are some excellent international sites. One of the better ones is The Short Review, run by Tania Hershman. To be honest, I'm not sure how she finds the time to run it; there are reviews, interviews, comps, giveaways, and a pretty decent blog too! Tania is also a writer (her collection, The White Road and Other Stories was published by Salt Publishing), so if you love your short fiction (who doesn't?) then you can grab a copy here.)

I'm back reviewing next week. In addition to Lauren Groff I'll be looking at Robert Drewe, Dorothy Johnson, and a particularly haunting story by Ray Bradbury over the next few weeks.

How to Win Books and Influence People

2011-01-11T06:54:00.001+08:00

I've often said (admittedly while at home, where no one can hear me) that great stories are workable emotion. That is, they take something seemingly sad, horrific, frightening, troubling or mundane and turn chaos into poetry. Many writers would still say that for all their attempts to create order, their world is infinitely more complex once they start writing short stories.

Assessing short stories is even more complex. To take another person's written words and pass judgment on them is a subjective but necessary process.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Where are my free books, you bastard?"

They're coming. Be patient...

Writing is hard. Editing is hard.

If you're an writer, you've chosen this path, and no one said it was going to be easy. But it was always going to be important, particularly if you did it well.

Being an editor can be painful sometimes. You never thought you'd have to write a report on a story that reads like a cross between Out of Africa and The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber, but you did, and you didn't swear once.

What results is a book. Which book? In this case, we're talking about [Untitled], the brainchild of Les Zigomanis and Blaise Van Hecke. These people are good people. They love writing, they foster the development of emerging writers, and they believe in the power of good short stories.

If you're a writer, you can submit to them in one of two ways:

1) The [untitled] short story competition: First Prize $250; Second Prize $100; Third Prize $50. One entry $10.00, two entries $15.00. A shortlist will be judged by Arnold Zable. Download the entry form from http://www.untitledonline.com.au/competition.html. Deadline 28th February 2011.

2) General Submissions: head here for more details.

In collaboration with The Gum Wall, they've decided to give 2 (two!) full sets of Issues 1-3 of [Untitled] to two lucky Gum Wall readers. To win, just email us with answers to the following two questions:

1) Which publishing and design team publishes [Untitled]?

2) Which issue of [Untitled] features Best Australian Stories 2010 contributor A.S. Patric?

(Hint: you can find both answers at this website).

Winners will be notified via email. Good luck!

A Short Look at 2011

2011-01-05T07:17:00.002+08:00

I think I'm getting grumpier in my old age. Or maybe I just have too many books to read.

At first I was excited about previewing the upcoming short story collections and anthologies for 2011, and now I just feel tired. Why? Well, It's proving difficult to find the ones to truly set my heart ablaze.

There are certainly some highlights, it's just that they're not due until much later in the year. Steven Amsterdam's new series of linked short stories is scheduled for release in late 2011, Cate Kennedy's also slated for new work from Scribe, and Sleepers compatriot Cameron Raynes has his collection The Dress and Other Stories due out in September from Wakefield Press. In the meantime, I'd suggest grabbing a Wet Ink, Harvest, Meanjin, or copy of The Lifted Brow and soaking up quality fiction directly from the source.

There is, however, one book I'm particularly looking forward to:

Black Inc, ideas men and women that they are, will be releasing The Best Australian Stories: A Ten Year Collection in late march. Anyone who has read Best Australian Stories 2010 will know that Australian short fiction is in great shape, and now's as good a time as any to see what got us there. The collection includes, among others, Tim Winton, Murray Bail, Ryan O'Neill, Nam Le, Amanda Lohrey, Luke Davies, Steven Amsterdam, Robert Drewe, Cate Kennedy, Mandy Sayer, Delia Falconer, Frank Moorhouse, Peter Goldsworthy and Eva Hornung...so basically, anyone who has ever shaped Australian literature with words so perfectly chosen. See, now I'm excited.

On the international scene, V.S. Naipaul's Collected Short Fiction is also due in late March, as is E.L. Doctorow's All The Time in the World: New and Selected Stories. There are, of course, many more collections being released, it's just that I love saying V.S. Naipaul and once I start, I can't stop.

V.S Naipaul. V....S...Naipaul. Oh yeah.

P.S Have you guys read how Chuck Palahniuk's story Guts has often caused people to faint when read aloud at book readings? Can anyone think of any other stories they've read that could have this effect? Quite an audience reaction!

page seventeen extract and giveaway

2010-11-27T09:39:00.000+08:00

This year I took on the role of fiction editor of Issue 8 of literary journal page seventeen. This issue has now been released and to celebrate I'm giving away a book pack including a copy of page seventeen to one lucky reader. To enter, simply email this address with the answer to the following question: who is the general editor of page seventeen? Hint: you can find out here.

You can also buy page seventeen here. And because we're nice people, we've decided to give you a taster, too. Reflection is a short story by Les Zigomanis. Though he'd hate me saying it, he writes excellent stories, partly because he understands the craft and partly because he's willing to take risks in both structure and content.

The Gum Wall will be unmanned from now through to early January. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank both my readers and guests in 2010, it's been a great year for short fiction!

Until I get back, happy reading and writing, and may the Christmas gods of book-giving be good to you.

Reflection
by Les Zigomanis

78.

What was that again?

74.

Ray closed his hands upon Gloria’s and helped guide the knife into their fiftieth anniversary cake. The throng exploded into applause and – when Ray kissed Gloria soundly on the lips – whistles.

‘Speech! Speech!’ the call resounded.

Ray turned to look at their guests: their children, Paul, Matthew, and Thomas, and their wives; their tribe of grandkids; in two cases, their great-grandkids; and so many friends that Ray’s memory was beyond recollecting them all. It was a collage of faces, old and young, a scrapbook of the people assembled throughout his life.

In some small way, it was unreal that everything had turned out as it had. Maybe it hadn’t all been as he would’ve chosen. Like the hardware store. He started as a clerk so long ago, worked his way up, and eventually bought the store. Not that Ray liked hardware. But he could’ve done a lot worse.

And there were the kids, Thomas an engineer, Matthew a writer, Paul a partner in a prestigious law firm – who knew that they would’ve ever been so successful? That they would’ve made him so proud, day after day?

Life hadn’t unfolded entirely to his design, but the tapestry that had been woven was far more intricate – and gorgeous – than any Ray was sure he could’ve managed. If anything, he was just another thread woven into the loom.

If anybody was responsible, it was Gloria. Maybe that was a gratitude that was cliché (and, in this day and age, overlooked, if not ignored), but it was a cliché in which there was infallible truth.

And in which that infallible truth was brilliant.

What had life been like before her?

Ray thought and thought, but he couldn’t remember.

49.

Ray grinned like an idiot. But it didn’t matter – that was something he was learning through his life: sometimes, things that seemed consequential didn’t matter at all. And if his grin was idiotic, it was only because pride had erased his composure.

He sat on a pew in church, Gloria by his side, their eyes fixed on Paul resplendent in his tux, who was staring lovingly at his wife-to-be as the priest conducted the wedding ceremony.

Ray liked to think that he and Gloria had done okay. Sure, Matthew, 23, was listless and still living at home, but the kid was smart (genius smart, Ray sometimes thought), and would find his way. Thomas was excelling in uni. And here was Paul – who’d graduated with honours and was fielding offers from several law firms, thank you very much – about to marry the woman he loved and begin his life in earnest.

The woman he loved.

Ray turned and looked at Gloria, quivering, her eyes moist. She’d blubber tonight, Ray knew that. She’d blubbered when Paul had announced his engagement a year ago, had broken into spontaneous bouts of blubbering since, and in the week leading up to the wedding had blubbered ceaselessly. Ray couldn’t believe that anybody could contain so much fluid.

But she was his wife, he loved her, and he wouldn’t change that, although sometimes, just sometimes, Sophie entered his mind. Life with her could’ve been … what? Ray didn’t know for sure. But it would’ve been something different, and he thought that mightn’t have actually been a good thing.

34.

Ray sat in his study, lounging back in his recliner, the newspaper sprawled open on his lap, his eyes hiccuping upon the same paragraph.

Outside, he heard the kids shouting. Screaming. They were always screaming. Paul and Matthew were always fighting. It was irreconcilable that brothers could be so unalike. And Thomas, the eldest of the three, alternated between arbitrator and instigator. Sometimes, Ray just wanted to soundproof the closet under the stairs and throw the three of them in there to cool off. Of course, that probably meant they’d never see the light of day, although sometimes that didn’t seem such a bad idea. He was sure they were going to grow up to be lost causes.

‘Right!’ Ray heard Gloria shout. ‘Matthew. Get inside your room now!’

‘But I didn’t do anything, Mum! Thomas took my ball—!’

‘Bedroom! Now!’

Ray could imagine Matthew walking, head-bowed, upper teeth dug into his low lip, hands crossed behind his back the way he did when he sulked, up the stairs to his bedroom.

‘Paul, what’re you grinning about?’

‘Nothing, Mum—!’

‘Clean-up this mess!’

‘But I didn’t—’

‘Clean it up or go to your room also! Choose!’

There was silence. Ray guessed that Paul had chosen to clean. It was the sane choice in the face of Cyclone Gloria.

Ray closed his newspaper, leaned back further in his chair, and shut his eyes meditatively. How had his life come to this? He loved his kids, he loved Gloria, but it seemed everyday was a new battle. The war was ongoing, and the skirmishes grew uglier. What would it be like when these kids were teens?

Red hair intruded upon his mind’s eye: Sophie. He caressed her with his thoughts, felt the tautness of her hips; the way her breasts pronounced themselves, the nipples elongated; how smooth her pale skin always felt against him. He looked at her face, her pursed lips, Imperial nose, her hazel eyes that always seemed implicit with some challenge.

Would this have been his life had she never left him? What sort of kids would they have had? He couldn’t imagine them being the terrorists that his three were, and he wondered if their behaviour was a product of his and Gloria’s relationship.

Maybe their love wasn’t right.

Maybe it didn’t relay to the children.

Maybe.

24.

Ray stood at the altar, looking back down the aisle.

Gloria was stunning in her wedding dress, a gorgeous strapless gown – from which her breasts threatened to spill – brocaded in silver, and with her nephew and niece bearing its overflowing train.

She had dieted for weeks to ensure she would fit into the dress, although Ray had quizzed why she didn’t go from a size 8 to a 10. Gloria had been horrified at the prospect and Ray let the matter drop. When it came to women and weight, he was learning even diplomacy offered few victories.

It wasn’t as if Gloria was fat anyway. Maybe she was a little plump, and Ray thought that she might be the sort who had might have trouble recovering following childbirth, but it didn’t matter because she was sweet and warm and generous and he was pretty sure he loved her.

But he was struck with the fear that maybe he didn’t, not in the right way, at least – not in the Til death do us part way. After Sophie, he’d sworn there’d be nobody else. And there hadn’t been for a while. But when he’d gotten the job at the hardware store, there she was: Gloria. Daily chatter had led to going out, going out had led to more going out, and eventually Ray had resigned himself to the fact that he was swimming in the ebbs and flows of some sort of quasi-relationship.

The problem was Gloria was just so loveable. Not in the same way as Sophie. Ray had wanted Sophie, had wanted to possess her emotionally and physically. When they fucked, sometimes he pounded her with such ferocity that it was as if he wanted to become fused to her. When they talked, Ray wanted to share everything with her.

Gloria didn’t inspire that zeal.

So, as Gloria reached the altar, and Ray looked into her oval face and her large green eyes, Ray wondered whether his love for this woman was real. Whether it was love. Or whether he developed an affiliation for her because she was non-threatening, and because there was little chance she’d find somebody else.

He didn’t know.

21.

Ray sat at the desk in his bedroom, holding his service revolver in the cups of his hands.

What was the point now? Life was fucked.

He gripped his service revolver in his left hand, lifted it, and pushed the barrel against his head. He felt the gun tap dance annoyingly against his temple. Was his hand shaking or was it his head? Maybe it was both. It didn’t matter anyway.

Nothing mattered.

Laid out on his desk before him were the pages of Sophie’s letter. He looked at the words, but they were unintelligible through his tears. They were something else that didn’t matter right now anyway. He’d read the letter so often – as if by reading it over and over he could undo what it was telling him, like a sleeper urging himself to wake from a nightmare – that its message had become inescapable.

Had become his universe.

Sophie had met somebody. She hadn’t been able to wait for him to return.

The cunt.

He slammed his revolver down on his desk, and shot to his feet. If it had been love, she wouldn’t have done this, ergo it couldn’t have been love. And he was contemplating suicide over her? He realised the reason for the contemplation wasn’t his despair (or at least not the despair exclusively), but he wanted to mar Sophie’s life. He wanted her to sit there and lament his death, feel responsible for it, and have it tombstone over whatever relationship she was in now (and might be in the future).

Fuck her.

Ray closed his eyes, closed them so tight he felt a pain in the bridge of his nose. What he should do now was get drunk. Insensibly. That seemed the best plan, and why wouldn’t it be? It was tried and true.

As for women, he was done with them.

Fuck the lot.

18.

Ray sat in a booth in Percy’s Diner, Sophie nestled into his shoulder, his cheek cradled upon the top of her head. He idled the fingertip of his index finger up and down her arm. The contact was bare, but it made her real to him, and with that came a whole extrapolation of thoughts – most of which Ray was usually embarrassed to admit to himself, but were diluted to the essence that he could not believe how much he loved her.

‘What’re you going to do, Ray?’ she asked. ‘You’re not gonna sign up, are you?’

Enlistment had been an option. Not out of any patriotism (although Ray liked to think of himself as patriotic enough) but because it could be a stepping stone to some sort of career. It could open doors when he got out. How would he be able to leave her, though? Three years. She’d wait, he knew that, but he didn’t know whether he could wait.

‘I don’t have many options, Soph. What am I gonna do? I’m not school-smart. And I don’t want to end up like my dad, working in a factory all my life. Who wants that sort of shit? I want a job that’s maybe gonna go somewhere. I want a career. You know, so when we’re married–’

She looked up sharply. It was the first time he’d ever mentioned anything as permanent as marriage. Her astonishment stunned the lines out of her face, her eyes and mouth as wide as they were when she orgasmed. He loved that look so much.

‘Married, Ray?’

‘Gotta think about the future, Soph.’

She pushed herself up onto Ray until he’d almost slid down into the booth. Her lips closed upon his mouth, and her fingers tickled the tent of his pants. His response was immediate.

‘We should get somewhere private, huh?’ Sophie asked.

‘I’m not saying now, you know. I’m just saying down the track.’

‘Just that you’re saying it is enough, Ray.’ Sophie slid out of the booth, grabbed his hand, and pulled insistently. ‘Come on.’

Ray needed no further prompting.

He got out of the booth.

16.

Ray and Sophie walked from the party, huddling close in the cold of night.

Thoughts were manic in Ray’s mind – not just thoughts, but questions. Should he put his arm around her? Seemed logical, given why they’d come out here, but still he didn’t know, and he half-reached out, before jerking his arm back to his side. Did his breath smell? He’d had three beers, but surely that wouldn’t matter, would it? How far could he go? He wouldn’t want to overreach. And what if he messed-up? Experience wasn’t something Ray had when it came to girls. The question prevalent in his mind, however, was how the hell had he ended up with Sophie Sellar?

They reached the end of the street and stopped, turning to face one another. Sophie, with her copper hair that reminded Ray of that initial explosion of flame when a match ignited, her large green eyes and pale complexion, in a shirt unbuttoned low enough to tease cleavage, and pleated skirt so tight they showcased the taut, pear-shaped butt that was the talk – and idolisation – of every boy at school.

‘You going to kiss me?’ she asked.

Ray took a step up to her and folded his arms around her. Her breasts pressed into his chest, and his erection stirred. She looked up to him, closed her eyes, and pursed her lips. Ray kissed her, and was surprised to feel her tongue invade his mouth. He ran his hands down her back, and over her buttocks. Then he lifted his right hand up her side, her waist, and cupped her breast.

She yanked back enough to relay that particular contact was prohibited, but not enough to break the embrace.

‘Easy,’ she said.

‘Okay,’ Ray said, still unbelieving that this was Sophie Sellar, a girl everybody lusted after, and he’d obsessed over since the first day of high school. He felt suddenly abashed by his erection, knowing that she had to be able to feel it. The head of his penis pulsed, like a bomb ticking to detonation.

Then he leaned in and kissed her again.

12.

Ray sat in the back of English class, elbows on the table, his chin on his hands, his eyes fixed on Sophie Sellar. Her face – with its high, rouged cheekbones, her large green eyes, and Aquiline nose – framed by unruly copper hair that beaconed her from the other girls, made her seem almost imperial, like some empress from Ancient Rome.

He wondered what it would be like to kiss her. What would she taste like? What would her body feel like against his, with her nubs for breasts and small hips?

Ray squirmed in his chair as he felt his body respond to his fantasies.

The moment he’d walked into high school and seen Sophie, some irrational attraction had mesmerised Ray. Maybe it was love at first sight – Ray had heard such things happened.

It didn’t matter.

As far as Ray was concerned, Sophie was the one and only, and he knew that there would never, ever, be anybody else.

The Best Short Stories and Collections of 2010: Part Two

2010-11-26T06:12:00.007+08:00

Just in case you didn't get your dose of short fiction magic on Wednesday, I now present part two of 2010's best short stories and collections. The stories are different (although Wayne Macauley rates a second mention) and so are the experts...aside from that, the same magic pervades throughout. More to read, more to savour.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who submitted their "best-of's". Australia's literary scene is busy at the best of times, let alone leading up to Christmas, but each expert provided their thoughts and reflections at record speed and with noted enthusiasm. Merry Christmas to you all!

Let's continue.

Jo Case - Editor, Readings Monthly, Associate Editor, Kill Your Darlings

This was a terrific year for short-story collections, with some excellent US single-author collections being locally published, Affirm Press’s Long Story Shorts series seeing the introduction of a series of Australian authors with strong debut collections, and a swag of high-quality anthologies. So, it was hard to pick favourites.

My favourite story was Sherman Alexie’s "War Dances", first published in The New Yorker last year and part of the collection that bears its name, which was shortlisted for the US National Book Award, won the PEN Faulkner Award, and was recently released locally by Scribe. His stories – particularly this one – combine black humour, intriguing characters, deep poignancy, and stark observations about race and class in America, from a middle-class Native American point of view.

"War Dances" begins with musing on cockroaches, moves on to the narrator’s mysterious loss of hearing, which threatens to point to something far worse, and then to reflections on visiting his alcoholic, diabetic dying father in hospital after his foot has been amputated. It’s highly inventive in form, broken into segments that vary from straight storytelling to a caustic "Exit Interview for My Father", to an interview with a family member about their history of fighting and dying in wars, from World War II to Iraq. But it never feels like it’s trying to be clever or original – it simply is, and it’s compelling reading that entertains and makes you think, while taking you on an emotional rollercoaster. One of the best short stories I’ve ever read.

My favourite collection was Maile Meloy’s "Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It". I’ve been a big fan of Maile Meloy since her page-turning literary soap opera about a Californian Catholic family, "Liars and Saints". So, I was very excited to encounter this short-story collection, which takes her back to the beginning of her career (her debut was the collection "Half in Love"). These stories are a silky delight to read – terrific dialogue and characters, quiet, character-based suspense, barbed humour, emotional range, a palpable sense of place, and the impressive evocation of whole, utterly convincing, worlds within each story. The scenarios range from a masterful verbal dance between a mistress and her lover’s seemingly unaware wife, where we’re never quite sure who knows what; to a dying small town and an orphan in love with his best friend’s girl, with surprising and wrenching consequences. Highly recommended for both short-story aficionados and lovers of good writing and storytelling.

Ryan O'Neill - Author, A Famine in Newcastle. Third prize winner, The 2009 Age Short Story Award

My favourite story for 2010 was "_iH_ttocS" by Warwick Sprawson, which appeared in Etchings 8. I've been reading a lot of experimental stories recently, and have discovered that there are some writers who use a fractured structure, or dispense with punctuation, or play about with typography in an attempt to conceal a weak story, or weak writing. Warwick Sprawson isn't one of these writers. His story is a hilarious and very clever commentary on the competitiveness inherent in writing (even if most writers don't admit this) and a dissection of the pettiness of creative writing classes. Even the author bio is part of the plot and used to great effect. For me, the mark of a great short story is one that makes me envious, leaving me thinking, "I wish I had thought of that." And that's how I felt after reading this story.

My favourite collection of 2010 (ish). I know this collection, "Legend of a Suicide" by David Vann, was published a bit earlier than 2010, but I have to choose it, as it is one of the best collections I've ever read. It's a series of linked stories which does something very unusual, even unique, and the annoying part is, i can't tell you what this thing is or it would ruin the best part of the book. Suffice to say Vann explores the real life suicide of his father in a way that is miraculously not depressing, but sometimes funny, and always moving. Vann's writing is always very good, especially in the novella-length longest story in the book, but it is what he does with the structure that makes the collection unforgettable. And if you want to find out what that is, you're going to have to read it yourself.

Lisa Dempster - Director, Emerging Writers Festival

My favourite story for 2010 was "Friction", by Virginia Peters, as featured in Issue Two of Kill Your Darlings. This story jumped out at me, a love story from the start. I liked the unfolding of the relationships in the story, not to slow but not given away too early. But it was the small things that captivated me, the truths about how people in intimate relationships work, and the descriptions of body bits zinged me everytime - the fat and long breast, the cactus juice spunk, a mushroom of blackish brown hair. And I loved that it was set up in such an unusual way, with the fiction/non-fiction vignettes. One to treasure!

My favourite collection for 2010 was "Emerging Arab Voices", edited by Peter Clark. As the director of the Emerging Writers' Festival attending a book fair in UAE, this title caught my eye! It's a bilingual reader of mostly-short stories (and novel extracts) by Arab writers. It's a captivating mix of writing, traversing social realism to allegory to politics to family drama, and all set in the Arabic world (Darfur, Tunisia, Saudia Arabia, Egypt) which for this Aussie reader made it an exotic, heady mix!

There's also an interesting premise behind the book, as everyone included in the book are contemporary emergings from across the Arab world who were invited to an intensive creative writing workshop, Iowa-style, and the stories flowed out of that. It's a gorgeous book to boot. My favourite find this year.

A. S. Patric- Editor, Verity La; Judge, 2010 Essence of St. Kilda Word Prize

My favourite story for 2010: "Sir Fleeting," by Lauren Groff. I read it in a recent issue of 'One Story' but it is also published in her new collection "Delicate Edible Birds."

Nostalgia for other worlds, other lives, other loves, when it's done well, is a glorious experience of being alive in a world surrounded by richness, diversity and passion. That kind of nostalgia is ridiculously difficult to negotiate however (all of us have such jaded hearts that the very word 'nostalgia' is uttered as anathema) and it's also the reason why 'Sir Fleeting' is such a remarkable story for me.

My favourite short story collection for 2010: "Demons in the Spring," by Joe Meno. Joe Meno is a genius creator; which is not to say he's a genius writer. Often his stories, like "Ghost Plane", offer up an impeccable story that for me, compares well to Chekhov's "Lady with a Little Dog," but he's often brilliant and interesting even when he fails, like in stories like "Stockholm 1973." It's that restless searching for brighter, better, braver, that I admire so much in this bold collection of stories.

Bronwyn Mehan - Author and Poet, Third Prize Winner for the 2009 Age Short Story Award

My favourite short story for 2010 is "Super Black" by Juanella McKenzie from South Australia, published in See My World, Writings by Young Indigenous Australians. The story takes place over a weekend as 18 year old Jeanne, the narrator, her sister, Vera and friends go out on the town, hang at home working on their hair and beauty routines, attend a footy carnival and get wasted at a party. It’s written in the fast-paced, smart-mouthed style typical of the chicklit genre. ‘He was the one from the bar who was interested in Vena. But she was soooo not mutual about the situation.’ What makes this story stand out is the inventive way McKenzie weaves aspects of Indigenous culture, especially the belief in mystical powers, into the narrative. Jeanne’s powers come via the medium of the hand-me-down bra she wears - in particular the inserts, aka ‘chicken fillets’ - and she uses them to fend off sexual harassment and to intervene when a footy player attempts to use his powers to rig the outcome of a game. The writing is raw and a bit wild. Great fun.

My favourite collection of stories for 2010 appears in Meanjin, vol 69, no. 3. Two of the stories deal with migration and death. In Jennifer Mills’Prospect, a young man finds a child’s body as he sifts through the belongings abandoned by Mexican ‘wetbacks’ attempting the treacherous journey into the US. And in Catherine Cole’s Home, a bereft Iraqui refugee spends his time in Rookwood cemetery waiting for his daughter and grandchildren to join him. In Simone Lazaroo’s Someone Else’s Bali, a terminally ill mother breaks grim news to her seven year old daughter, in Natalie Sprite’s Small, an pregnant woman faces up to the challenges of bringing a child into a less than perfect world and in Belinda Rule’s The Secret of the Dark Elves, a 19 year old uni student deals with the fallout of her first sexual relationship. These five quality stories, from writers who hail from the Big Smoke, WA and NT, are emblematic of the range of Meanjin fiction that departing editor, Sophie Cunningham has delivered to us throughout her tenure. Cheers, Sophie.

Josephine Rowe - Author, How a Moth becomes a Boat

My favourite short story of this year is "A Lovely and Terrible Thing" by Chris Womersley, which is a beautifully wrought gothic piece about a guilt-stricken father and his encounter with a stranger's family secret. Chris read this story at Dog's Tales - the weekly storytelling event I co-run with Chris Flynn - and it had the entire audience anthralled. "A Lovely and Terrible Thing" is not yet available in print, but if you happen to see the title in a contents page over the coming months, I'd recommend snapping up a copy of whichever journal is lucky enough to include it.

I've been on an Australian literature bender this year, and I'd put Wayne Macauley's "Other Stories" at the top of the pile for short fiction. This is Macauley's first collection of shorts, and its contents have been distilled from almost two decades' worth of stories. Favourites include "This Bus Is Not A Tram" and "Simpson And His Donkey Go Looking For The Inland Sea", and as you may be able to discern from those two titles, the motifs and settings throughout the collection as a whole are unflinchingly Australian. Just about everything that I'd like to say about "Other Stories" has already been said more eloquently by Emmett Stinson on his blog Known Unknowns. Read his review here.

The Best Short Stories and Collections of 2010: Part One

2010-11-24T06:05:00.003+08:00

2010 has seen a dazzling array of stories, anthologies, and short story collections. Rather than prescribe my own favourite short stories for the year, I've found some of the best people in the Australian literary scene to help us out. Here Australia's writers, publishers and editors share their best short stories and collections from 2010.

Their thoughts are eclectic but invigorating. See how many of their best of's you've already read... and get hold of those you haven't. And as always, let us know of any of your favourites we might have missed.

What a year it's been. Let's begin.

Emmett Stinson - Author, Known Unknowns, winner, 2004 Age Short Story Award

My favourite story from this year was “The Cap” from Thomas Bernhard’s Prose, which initially appeared in 1967, but was only translated into English this year. “The Cap”--to appropriate a classic Seinfeld moment—is a story about nothing. A lonely, sick man, who is house-sitting for some relatives in a rural town, finds a lost cap on the road while he is out walking; somehow (and you’ll have to read it to find out how) Bernhard makes this insignificant moment the basis for a brilliant and very funny story.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I think Wayne Macauley is a criminally underrated author; "Other Stories"—which is full of surreal, darkly comic fiction--represents almost two decades of his short fiction, and serves as an excellent introduction to one of Australia’s most interesting and important contemporary writers.

Louise Swinn - Editorial Director, Sleepers Publishing

My best story was Karen Hitchcock's "Forging Friendships", from Overland.
It's available for free (madness! great!) here:

I love it because it's so in-your-face real. There's never any bullshit in
Karen's stories. They are totally wysiwyg - and damn clever, to boot.

The best collection I read in 2010 was "Known Unknowns" by Emmett Stinson. The voice is both lively and despondent; it smacks of youthful vigour and at the same time the terrible feeling that all is totally lost. It feels incredibly close to home - Emmett's a fantastic writer.

Angela Meyer - Literary Minded : Writer, reviewer and editor.

I'm only half-way through Janet Frame's "The Daylight and the Dust": Selected Short Stories but I'm picking a story from it anyway. 'One Must Give Up' is just devastating. It speaks of the weight of everything. And the descriptions! It can speak for itself:

'The butcher arranges the white trays, pooled with blood, in rows in his window, while the cashier in her question box, puppet theatre or cave tries to find the reason for the stains on her white overall, since she never handles the meat and steps quickly through the wilderness of sawdust to reach her sanctuary. The thought occurs, Does money cause bloodstains? Have I been knifed in secret by weapons disguised as coins?'

Every passage is this good. Frame makes me want to simultaneously give up writing and rush to my computer to try to do better and better.

"The Daylight and the Dust" is eclipsing everything else. It's the best collection I've read since reading the collected stories of Richard Yates last year. I was surprised, when I got to the second section, that she wrote fantastical stories as well as realist ones. There's a moving story about a scream that everybody in the town hears but doesn't acknowledge. When a visitor brings up the subject he is of course convinced he is unwell. There is a story about a man, a writer, so distracted by his body and its needs that he rids himself of it (with the aid of some mice and a magical dustbin lid). His head learns to fly and he is free to think but then of course he cannot write his thoughts down. There are many stories from the point of view of children - taking you back to the time when it seemed like other kids had more interesting lives and there was so much to discover in the grass, the trees, down by the creek. And every sentence in Frame's work is a revelation - description, events, thought and dialogue flowing freely into one another in a perfect rhythm. Tense and POV shifts are seamless. I feel enriched for having read her work.

Johannes "Jojo" Jacob - Editor, Voiceworks Magazine

"The Boy" by David Foster Wallace (Available to read here)

I spent this entire year falling in love with DFW, and so maybe it's cheating a little to choose a posthumously published short of his, but it's excellent nonetheless. It's somehow beautiful in its form, the story feels 100% appropriate for how long it is, how it's paced emotionally, etc. It's an amazing idea executed with the insight and humour you would expect from him, and I love the way the very focused research, the anatomical terms, are applied to sort of first demystify and then remystify what is a self-effacingly magical endeavour.

The best collection I read for 2010 was the "Sleepers Iphone App". Putting aside the fact that all these stories are great, this one is just ridiculous value for money. I suspect that most people already know about this one, but I don't see why that should stop me from pointing out that it's the best thing to happen to short stories this year. Favourite story from the most recent Almanac is Nick Levey's 'Sue and Joe Chase a Light Hovering above the Treeline'. The figurative and literal potential of people fascinated with UFOs and aliens has been criminally under-explored since the end of the X-Files, and this does it really well.

Paddy O'Reilly - Author, The End of the World, winner 2002 Age Short Story Award

I've read too many wonderful stories this year to have a single favourite so I thought I'd mention one I loved which has stuck with me because it's different. In A. G. McNeil's "Reckless, Susceptible" in New Australian Stories 2, every moment and every object is suffused with longing and despair, and the whole story thrums with a soft but insistent menace. It's new gothic, beautifully done. I hope there are a lot more A. G. McNeil stories coming soon.

As for a collection, or anthology, this year was a bumper year, but who can go past the release of an IPhone app of the whole Sleepers stockpile - six editions of Sleepers Almanac to dip into. I guess Sleepers will be issuing future Almanacs on the IPhone or some other gizmo, but I doubt we'll ever see 240 stories arrive in one hit like this again.

Chris Flynn - Fiction Editor, Australian Book Review

With judging the ABR fiction contest and all the journals I subscribe to, I must have read close to a thousand short stories this year, so this is a big call. Zoetrope All-Story have been printing some corkers though and I'm going to plump for "The Space Elephant" by Téa Obreht, from Zoetrope Vol.14 No.3. about a strange invisible sea creature that helps an old man paint Dali-esque murals on all the houses in his small town. At 25, Obreht is the youngest person on the New Yorker 20 writers under 40 list (one of only 2 in their twenties on the list in fact) and she hasn't even released a book yet. Her novel, "The Tiger's Wife" is due out in March and is supposed to be out of this world. She's the one everyone will be talking about next year. My 2nd favourite not far behind would be T.C. Boyle's "The Wreck of the Beverly B." from McSweeney's 34, about a woman trying to survive in the ocean after a boating accident. But oh, so many great short stories out there. I don't think the form has ever been so alive and exciting.

"The Dead Fish Museum" by Charles D'Ambrosio came out in the U.S. in 2006 and was finally released in Australia by Text this year. Eight 30-page stories, six of which first appeared in the New Yorker, which gives an indication of their quality. The highlight is perhaps "Screenwriter", in which a Hollywood scribe falls in love with a pyromaniac ballerina whilst incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. D'Ambrosio's style is slightly old school, reminiscent of early Tobias Wolff, but he works hard to craft complete, utterly convincing worlds in each story. It's like reading 8 mini novels, all of them amazing. The title is how a Salvadorian character refers to his refrigerator. A close 2nd in this category would be Maile Meloy's collection "Both Ways is the Only Way I Want it."

#33: Squeaker's Mate by Barbara Baynton - guest post by Ryan O'Neill

2010-11-23T03:34:00.000+08:00

Available: The Penguin Century of Australian Stories

A confession: Up until six years ago, I had never read an Australian short story. Not a word by Henry Lawson, Peter Carey, Murray Bail or Cate Kennedy. In fact, the only Australian book I had read was Marcus Clarke’s “For the Term of his Natural Life” which I found to be overlong and overwritten.

Then, in my first few weeks in Newcastle I picked up a copy of The Penguin Century of Australian Stories and opened a page at random. By a stroke of luck, I straight away came across one of the great Australian short stories, Squeaker’s Mate by Barbara Baynton.

The Story

Squeaker, a feckless and lazy bush farmer, is cajoled into helping cut down a tree for fencing by his “mate,” a woman whose real name we never learn. When the tree falls on top of Squeaker’s mate and leaves her crippled, the venality of Squeaker and bush society is laid bare. Squeaker shows less concern for his mate than for the dog, and the woman of the local town feel sympathy only for Squeaker, being shackled to a cripple.

Over time Squeaker’s treatment of his mate worsens. He allows their property to go to ruin as he spends their hard-won savings on drink. Yet Squeaker’s mate never upbraids the man for her ill treatment, for she loves him despite his many faults. When one day Squeaker moves his old mate out of the house to a shed, and brings in a new, much younger mate to live with, events gradually come to a terrible climax.

Why it Sticks

Barbara Baynton knew what she wanted to write. Her influences were the great Russian novelists of the nineteenth century because they “are always doing something. They write about love and death, and war and violence- not about infantile romances and tea parties.” In Squeaker’s Mate Baynton writes powerfully about love, death, violence, cruelty and hypocrisy with a complexity that is lacking in most early Australian short fiction. She creates two unforgettable characters, the selfish “Squeaker” and his stoic, loving mate, all too aware of the worthlessness of Squeaker, but unable to stop loving him. In Squeaker’s Mate Baynton certainly “does something.” The final image of the story lingers in the mind for days.

On a personal note, Squeaker’s Mate opened a door for me into the Australian Short Story, leading me eventually to such writers as Peter Cowan, Glenda Adams and Gillian Shears amongst many others. And for that, I’ll always love this story.

#32: The Swim Team by Miranda July

2010-11-17T19:13:00.001+08:00

Available: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Other stories (full text available): The Shared Patio, Birthmark

Miranda July came to me at a time when I was feeling especially fragile. It was a time when every noise was too loud and I kept finding myself behind people who seemed to have no idea where they were going. I wasn't sure of the antidote. I thought rather than honouring my desire to disconnect, I should connect more with people, feel their sadness, wonder what they were thinking about when they smiled on trains and in moments otherwise not noted in the great books of history.

And so, my decision made, I opened the door to reconnect...and along came Miranda July's The Swim Team to take me back to old emotions.

The Story

The narrator is a girl. She has broken up with her boyfriend. Their separation now complete, she tells him a story about what she used to do in Belvedere. Contrary to flights of fantasy, her life there was plain... except, that is, for her time heading up the swim team.

The swim team are three elderly people who visit her apartment to take swimming lessons. These are not normal swimming lessons, however. The narrator places bowls of water on the floor. The three elderly people (Elizabeth, Kelda, and Jack Jack) put their faces in the water. They kick and flail, and along the way they learn how to "swim" from the narrator, their coach.

Now, long after the event, she still finds meaning in these simple morning rituals. And somehow there is a relation between these lessons (or their current absence) and her running into her ex-boyfriend, arm in arm in a bookstore with a woman in a white coat.

Why it sticks

This is one of those weird stories. It reads like a dream that's frightening and comforting at the same time. Its dream logic means separation-anxiety melds effortlessly with the narrator's earlier feeling of belonging; of being needed.

The Swim Team works because it deals almost exclusively with the narrator's inner conflict. Were this a traditional kiss-off story, it would read like any one of a hundred stories about a break-up. July's genius lies in her ability to place a surreal image (in this case the elderly people "swimming" on the living room floor with their coach) within the context of longing, belonging, and the creeping feeling of death, be it literal or in an emotional context and thus create an original take on an often tackled subject.

The Lit Launch Cometh

2010-11-10T06:14:00.001+08:00

On Saturday, November 13th, we'll be launching the new issue of page seventeen. I strongly encourage you to come along as this launch promises to be something extra special. Why? You'll have to come to find out.

I feel especially blessed, having worked with some excellent stories this year. Of these stories, there will be readings from A.S. Patric, Sam Van Zweden, Patrick West and many more on the day.I'm also looking forward to meeting poetry editor Ashley Capes; we've put together one hell of an issue, thanks mostly to some extremely hard work behind the scenes and many talented writers and poets.And to top it all off, we get our own cafe in which to hold the launch!

Come along, have some lunch, share an inspiring conversation or two and let some legends of language blow your mind.

The Details:
Launched by Graham Nunn on Saturday 13th November
from 1pm, at Burrinja Cafe
351 Glenfern Rd, Upwey.

Looking forward to meeting you all! To those who can't make it, buy yourself a copy as soon as you can, as Issue 7 sold out and it's expected that issue 8 will do the same. To order a copy, head here.

#31: Procession by Paddy O'Reilly: guest post by Bronwyn Mehan

2010-11-02T14:26:00.000+08:00

Available in: Going Down Swinging No. 30

Author website: Paddy O Reilly

Images from Paddy O’Reilly’s Procession have stayed with me since I first read it over a month ago in Going Down Swinging No. 30. So when Laurie invited me to stick a story I’d been chewing onto his Gum wall, the choice was easy.

The Story

Procession begins when the narrator takes her five-year-old daughter, Sienna to see the spectacle of dogs walking on their hind legs and talking. This is a world in which only children and a very few adults are able to understand what dogs are saying, while the rest look on with horror. ‘That was the moment I knew everything had changed,’ the narrator says. ‘Not the hind leg walking but a dog gazing at me as if we were equals.’

In this new world, dogs that were once compliant workers or mild-natured pets have rebelled. There is intimidation and fear amongst the human population. And there is recrimination. ‘We never had a dog,’ says her angry neighbour. ‘It’s cunts like you that bought this is on.’

The story shifts to ten years later. Sienna is now a member of the Dogteens, a Hitler youth-style organisation run by dogs bent on recruiting the young to its canine cult. The narrator tries to intervene, washing the smelly collection of pelts Sienna has taken to wearing. But Sienna not only wants to smell like a dog, ‘she doesn’t want to be reminded she is human.’

‘Can’t you get her to take a shower?’ says the narrator’s husband, as if it’s his wife’s responsibility, his wife’s fault. He is still doing this as he watches his daughter take her triumphal place in the sinister show of dog pride that is the pack master procession.

Why it sticks

Procession works very cleverly as both speculative fiction, in which dogs are in the ascendancy, and as an allegory about parenting. ‘She’s a teenager, I told myself the night I heard her grunting and barking in the backyard with the boy who looks like a dingo.’ Aside perhaps from the barking, this could be any parent commenting on their teenage daughter’s sexuality. And like many parents, these two squabble over child rearing, accusing each other of not doing or caring enough and praying that the rebellious phase will simply pass.

Paddy O’Reilly’s Procession is a chillingly imaginative, darkly comic and beautifully crafted tale.

Bronwyn Mehan lives in Darwin. Her short fiction has been published in Southerly, Meanjin, Sleepers Almanac and page seventeen. She blogs at http://bronwynmehan.wordpress.com

The EWF Reader Volume 2: writing, editing, and the pursuit of great literature

2010-10-30T15:39:00.001+08:00

The EWF Reader has just about arrived! Launches are imminent, glasses are being polished and I've washed my publishing pants in preparation for one of the two big launch events...which are as follows:

Sydney:

Sat 6 Nov, 8 – 10.30pm
Applebee Orchard, 4 Lackey St, St Peters
Readings by Darryn King, Gabrielle Maait, Felicity Castagna and others

Melbourne:

Tues 9 Nov, 6pm
Horse Bazaar, 397 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne
Readings by Lou Sanz, Sean M Whelan and Sharne Vate

Being generous folk, editor Aden Rolfe and co. have also encouraged me to post my article from The Reader online (see below).

I've already read my copy and it's a cracker. There's fiction from Josephine Rowe and Derek Motion, excellent articles from Sam Twyford-Moore and Sean Whelan, and a particularly funny take on writing without interruption by Darryn King. To find out more, head here. And to buy a copy, head here.

Hope to see you at the launch!
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The Same Page: writing, editing and the pursuit of great literature

God I miss my angry days. I used to thrive on them. I would get rejection letters that read like bank statements, ready to be torn up and set on fire. I’d show stories to friends and family members who’d say they liked them, then make excuses to promptly leave.

I took writing classes too. Most of the time, I just wanted to meet whoever was teaching them. I thought they might know who I was because I’d been published in Marginata (an aptly named publication that no longer exists) and if you googled me, something actually came up.

I was an angry writer, or at least an angry person trying to be a writer. I wrote 1500-word stories about alarmingly emotive people. I wrote first person urban, because third person rural typified everything that was wrong with Australian literature. I wanted people to understand me, readers to come up and say I feel your pain and it is breathtaking.

In all of this, it wasn’t my passion that stopped my stories from getting published. What stopped me was that I wanted so badly to be a writer that I never considered the needs, wants and workloads of those who might publish me.

This year, I’ve gone from being anonymous to slightly less so, and some way to understanding these considerations. I now teach publishing, work at the Small Press Network (SPUNC) and have been published in journals I’d secretly always wanted to be part of. I’m also the Fiction Editor for issue eight of page seventeen.

My life hasn’t changed that much. I still sit at the same desk with the same motivational quotes and the same old piece of A4 entitled why I write – first scrawled in 2004 – stuck to my wardrobe with Blu-Tack. My net connection lags, my HL 2040 printer makes strange noises, and today I’m working from bed because it’s too cold to let go of the doona.

While I’m not at Going Down Swinging, Sleepers or Overland, I imagine their circumstances aren’t so different. Most lit journal editors are not sitting in high rises, cancelling one o’clock appointments and swapping war stories with Henry Rosenbloom. They are getting by, getting high, and reading submissions, ever hoping for that elusive one that makes all the effort worthwhile.

And so it goes. Writers write, and write, then write some more hoping that someone, somewhere, will see their genius and get them published. Editors search and search some more for that same writing gold, because they love the feeling that comes with a good story. They love the thought of launching or relaunching a talented writer to greater exposure.

The complexity of such a parallel often leads one to drink. Thankfully, liquor-laced launches are yet another part of Australia’s literary culture. In my angry days I would enjoy these events; now I feel increasingly divided. As a writer, I want to catch up with other writers. I also enjoy talking with the editors because I find the act of selection so incredibly fascinating. Once an agent walks in the room, I am tempted to both French kiss them and hide behind a curtain, and therein lies the rub. There is nothing, it seems, more confusing than the delicacies of social interaction in a room full of scarves, egos and tight jeans.

A decent literary scene is like a nightclub. Some people are nice, some are dicks, most are drunk, and the good majority just want to be let in. The hierarchy is defined by a journal’s age and cultural importance. Page seventeen has a little of the former and slightly less of the latter. We do, however, pride ourselves on giving new writers an outlet, so in that sense, we’re often a starting point for those too frightened to go to a salon, soiree or re-enactment of key scenes from Dave Eggers’ You Shall Know Our Velocity.

Writers love you when you’re a writer and an editor, but they’re scared, too. You’re still one of them and they can relate to you, but they think you’ve been given a magic key that opens writing doors. They assume you’re working less for every writing breakthrough. Suddenly you’re one of those people they want to rally against, or be best friends with. It’s complicated.

I can’t say I blame them for such confusion. As an editor, I’ve asked friends to submit only to have their work rejected at the selection meeting. You know you’ll see these people again and when you do, it’s awkward. You feel a dissonance not usually felt outside the bedroom. You want to know why they couldn’t write what you wanted, and they want to know what kind of a bastard invites people to submit only to reject them once they’ve sent their work.

Being an editor means selecting the best quality work from what’s available. Sounds simple, but it’s not. Name writers send us their b-sides because we’re not Meanjin or Sleepers. We get stories with cover letters to other journals attached, and submissions that are obviously early drafts, complete with spelling mistakes, missing punctuation and coffee stains. The sad truth is that if you can’t write well to begin with, then not even Sophie Cunningham can save you. And while networking is important, if you write like Tori Spelling, it doesn’t matter how many drinks you buy an editor.

With such variations in quality, it’s not that certain writers get preferential treatment. Editors select these writers because they send their best work, when it’s ready, and treat every publication as important as any other. This isn’t nepotism, it’s common sense.

My own experience with editorial nepotism is borderline comical. Two friends of mine have stories in issue eight of page seventeen. In one case I read the author’s work blind, and in the other, I wasn’t the one who shortlisted the piece. Being previously published did help them, however, and I was pleasantly surprised when they surfaced to the top of the pile.

What’s sad is that you can’t please everybody and I’ve rejected more friends than not. In the world of editing, you either make or break people’s days, and no amount of kindness can soften the blow of another no in a year already marked by disappointment. It’s all the more difficult when you both know the person and can see how their writing could develop with appropriate advice, time and development.

These days, I’m a writer and an editor, a copywhore who tries to create scintillating writing to impress editors, all the while passing judgement on people just like me. Does being a writer mean I look at the editorial process differently? Does being an editor mean I can no longer be a fully-fledged, down-and-out writer?

Here classifications are mostly unhelpful. Calling yourself a writer limits your opportunities because you’re so busy trying to impress editors that you forget to produce good work. But calling yourself an editor can harden the soul. A bit of this will help your journey as a writer, but too much is the death of creativity and will result in the sort of intelligent but completely banal writing you sometimes find in the world’s more esteemed journals.

It’s the middle-ground that has the potential to save modern literature, but not all writers can be editors, and many editors aren’t suited to a writer’s lifestyle. And there are still differences.

When writers hit gold they pump their fists. They play imaginary drums and guitar. They stand up from their desk, sit down, and then stand up again. It’s like life itself just flowed right out of their fingertips.

When editors find gold they make approving noises. They feel shaken and stirred, and sit silent, ever hesitant to go back to the real world. They say you have to read this to friends, and hope to one day meet the writer and share their feelings. It touches them deep down and they thank God, Allah or Obi Wan that they chose the life of an editor.

When I create, discover, or stumble upon gold these days, I react according to the context, or the hat I’m wearing at the time. With either role, it’s about the pursuit of quality, a pursuit that brings both chaos and order. Writers, editors and readers come together, all searching for the same thing. We gasp, lose language, then celebrate: for nothing is as potent or invigorating as great writing.

Covered in Shame: A (Very) Occasional Series charting Short Fiction Cover-art Misfires

2010-10-28T06:32:00.007+08:00

It seems odd to mention cover art on a blog that celebrates individual short stories, but it's important to think about what these covers suggest to an audience. A recent chat with my friends Bronwyn and Ryan, for example, revealed that we all thought the cover for the recently featured Olive Kitteridge was particularly misleading for the style and tone of the book:

Misleading in what way? Well, Olive Kitteridge (the book) offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires. Olive Kitteridge (the cover) offers profound insights into an unnamed woman's back.

With that in mind, I decided to find THE cover that seemed so ugly and so inappropriate that it deserved singling out (although I am open to new contenders, should you know of any). Ladies and gentlemen:

#1: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Read the book. Look at the cover. Read the book again. Look at the cover. Throw the book in the fire and go buy the one with this cover instead:

Ah, everything's back to normal. As non-prescriptive as the second cover is, it works because it feels edgy. Something about the use of binding holes and red inks suggests a) this is the first collection in a long career and b) it has edgy, uncomfortable stories within (or at least, that's what I got from it).

In short, mission accomplished.

Laurie is reading Miranda July with a smile on his face, although sometimes he gets sad when he reads her stuff, but it's a good kind of sadness; it says hey, things aren't always great but life's pretty cool when you think about it. He's wondering why, when he goes to most Australian bookstores, he cannot find any short story collections by Tao Lin, Donald Barthelme, Amy Bloom or Ali Smith. He knows many bookstore staff who love these authors. He's figuring these titles have gone to firm sale (or aren't available locally) and the buyers aren't willing to take the risk of ordering them in, only to have them sit on the shelf indefinitely. This makes good business sense, but it also means less and less people will go to bookstores and will order these books online instead of waiting the same amount of time (or longer) and paying more once the book arrives in store.

He's not blaming anyone, it's just one of those things that bugs him about the modern world of retail.

Living the Dog's Life

2010-10-12T10:05:00.001+08:00

Hello Gumwallers!

Just a quick note to let you know that I'll be appearing at Dog's Tales Storytelling with Toni Jordan next Tuesday, 19th of October. The details:

Dog's Bar, 54 Acland Street, St Kilda

Tuesday 19th October
8pm-9.30pm

If you want to know more about Dog's Tales, Angela Meyer gives a great overview in her Dog's Tales post over at LiteraryMinded.

All are welcome, so, come along and say hi. Angela mentions in her post that there's an open-mic section between readings too; am guessing that's still happening if you're feeling particualrly adventurous. And finally, being a bar, they also serve meals and alcohol, so you can indulge in your cheese and liquor related vices until the cows come home.

Hope to see you there!

Your flight has been delayed...

2010-10-06T16:46:00.000+08:00

Hello Gum-wallers,

My sincerest apologies for not posting in a few weeks. I took on far more than I could reasonably manage for October. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say it has included two book reviews, 45 essays to mark, my usual undergrad teaching allotment, working at SPUNC and organising a wedding!

Laurie, you foolish, foolish man. The upside was that one of my review books was Wayne MacAuley's Other Stories; my review will come out in November's issue of Australian Book Review, if you're interested. Suffice to say it was definitely a gum wall-able collection, however, and balanced out the sheer bummer that was Tom McCarthy's C. If you can't say something nice about a book...

I'm still reading a lot of short fiction. I'm flying out to WA for a friend's wedding and have both Kill Your Darlings Issue 3 and Tony Birch's Father's Day to read, so no doubt I'll be posting again within the next week or two. In the meantime, let me know if you have any recommendations, or read any of the collections featured so far and found them intoxicating/annoying/unforgettable.

Laurie Steed is listening to Old Fitzroy by Dan Sultan and wondering why no one in Perth ever writes a song about Balga, Maylands or Mount Lawley. He likes the sound of an ice cream sandwich being unwrapped and can tell you, without Googling it, who won the last five Miles Franklin Awards. He is waiting for the day when this information comes in handy.

#30: American Dreams by Peter Carey

2010-09-15T07:06:00.001+08:00

Available: The Fat Man in History, Collected Stories

First, I got the recommendation.

Ryan told me I should read The Fat Man in History, and he should know: he's slowly working his way through the back catalogue of Australian short fiction.

Then came the kudos.

I told my friend Dave I'd just read American Dreams and his eyes went a little misty. The Fat Man in History, he said, smiling. Awesome collection.

Normally I wouldn't congratulate myself on simply reading a collection of short stories, but this time I'm going to make an exception. I'm congratulating myself because somehow I missed this collection in all these years, and yet, thanks to the kindness of great men (and women too, I'm sure my friend Ingrid would slap me if I told her I'd never read this), I have found a classic.

The Story

"What has happened is that we all, all eight hundred of us, have come to remember small transgressions against Mr. Gleason, who once lived among us."

Someone has offended Mr. Gleason, recounts a boy. it could have been Dyer the butcher, or the people who stole his apples, the boy's not sure. All he knows is that someone offended him.

This town's people dream American dreams. They watch American films at the Roxy cinema, and dream, if not of America, then at least of their capital city. They dream of wealth, of modern houses, and of big motor cars. Their home town, it seems, is little more than a hindrance to their greatest aspirations.

For a while Mr. Gleason is a regular face around town, but once he retires, he builds a ten-foot high wall around his plot up on Bald Hill, topping it with barbed wire and broken glass.

The town grows in the meantime. Tourists come; some make the trek up to Bald Hill. Our main character works at the petrol station, often staring up at the walls high on the hillside.

With Mr. Gleason locked behind his barbed wire wall, the town embraces modernity. The people paint their houses bright only to find the paints quickly fading. The main character hits adolescence and barely thinks about the wall or Mr. Gleason.

Then one day Mr. Gleason dies, and it's time for the walls to come down.

Why it sticks

This story revolves around a brilliant central concept. By having Gleason's walls erected so early in the story, Carey creates immediate curiosity. What is behind the wall? Will we get to find out before the end of the story?

A reader could come away with multiple readings from American Dreams, and I am hesitant to prescribe any. Carey himself said ten years after the publication of The Fat Man in History that "The trouble with academics is that they try too hard to understand these stories .... They should relax. The stories are only about what they seem to be about."

What can be said is that Carey's vision of commercial enterprise seems mostly a reality now. The selling of experience is now commonplace in Australia, and said experiences are often sold as material items. If you ride the Kuranda Skyrail, for example, they'll take a photo of you as you come into the station, and sell it back to you as a souvenir, a memento of your expeirence.

Life, it seems, is to be possessed rather than lived. We live our lives vicariously through ill-fitting fantasies that someone else designated as appropriate for us, and we pay them for the privilege.

Perhaps Carey was trying to warn of this, or maybe he wanted to take his own snapshot of a town at a particular time and place. Whatever the case, in American Dreams, Carey created a modern masterpiece, a story that rewards most simply as an image of beauty, a 'what-if' scenario so lovingly recalled that it deserves to be read and reread whenever the opportunity arises.

We have Winners!

2010-09-07T13:58:00.000+08:00

Yes, it's cheesy 80's clip time again, and that can only mean one thing. Copies of Gretchen Shirm's Having Cried Wolf are headed to:

Doreen Sullivan

Josephine Clarke

Marie Christodulaki

Thanks for entering and thanks to Affirm for the prizes. Enjoy the books!

WIN! Gretchen Shirm Giveaway

2010-09-06T10:19:00.002+08:00

Small towns harbour secrets. Rising and returning like the tides lapping the fictional coastal town of Kinsale, these stories revolve around Alice and Grace. Friends since childhood, they have grown into young women with vastly divergent lives.

Having Cried Wolf draws their partners, families, friends, neighbours and strangers into a rich tapestry of shared experience: of love, tragedy, success and failure.

Here's what Cate Kennedy thinks about the book:

There are two kinds of pleasure found in reading this work from such a powerful new talent - feeling yourself in the hands of a born storyteller, and looking forward to whatever Gretchen Shirm writes next.

Having Cried Wolf is the fourth in Affirm Press' Long Story Shorts series of short fiction collections. Thanks to the gang at Affirm Press, The Gum Wall has two copies of Having Cried Wolf to give away.

To win, simply email the name of the three other collections in the Long Story Shorts series with the email subject heading as "Long Story Shorts".

(Hint: you can find a clue or two here.)

You can also read a sample chapter from Having Cried Wolf here.

The first two entrants with the correct answer will win a book and will be announced tomorrow. Good luck, and may the day be kind to you.

#29: Grandpa Does the Melbourne Shuffle by Dan Ducrou

2010-08-25T06:18:00.001+08:00

Available: Sleepers Almanac No. 6 (available September 1st)

Dan Ducrou is in my writing group, but I have never met him.

He took a break at about the time I joined. He has a book out now and he appears every now and then, like a literary shooting star.

I really like his stories. His writing reads as though it's effortlessly constructed but I know a lot of work goes into making something as complex as a short story look “effortless.”

His latest work appears in The Sleepers Almanac No. 6 and finishes off what, on the whole, is an excellent collection of stories. I’m proud to have my own story The Punch included alongside Jon Bauer and Ruby J Murray, Ryan O'Neill, Kalinda Ashton and Steven Amsterdam, and I’m over the moon to have my work immediately preceding Cate Kennedy’s. She’s kind of a hero of mine.

The Story

An eleven and a half year old boy sells Cancer Council products to raise money, having lost his dad to testicular cancer three-and-a-half years ago. His mum is dating again and the boy spends Saturdays with his grandpa.

His grandpa's worried about the boy; he doesn’t have many friends his age. There’s a talent quest coming up, and the boy’s grandpa thinks he should enter. The boy shows him a Youtube video of new dance “the Melbourne Shuffle” and in doing so inadvertently introduces his grandpa to the internet. Needless to say, grandpa is hooked.

A plan springs into action. The boy has dancing lessons with instructor TonyG and Grandpa joins in when he can. He promises to donate an absolute fortune to the Cancer Council if the boy wins.

The day of the contest draws ever closer. But why are the boy’s grandpa and grandpa’s friend Maddog saving up all their painkillers? And how come Grandpa has taken to wearing suits and a new fedora hat?

Why it sticks

The Sleepers Almanac has always managed to surprise the reader in its scope and variety. From Max Barry’s werewolf baby in The Sleepers Almanac No. 4 to Craig Silvey’s lunatic Finn Again: A Time to Rejoice in The Sleepers Almanac: 2007, The Sleepers Almanac has become known for presenting the very best in all forms of short fiction.

I emphasise this because, as stated by The Age on the front of Almanac No. 6, Sleepers’ role really is intrinsic in Australian literary diversity. While other journals publish short fiction, more original perspectives can get lost in the pursuit of safe, bankable stories. It’s just my opinion, but to me there is nothing more exciting than short stories that are willing to take risks in both style and format.

Grandpa does the Melbourne Shuffle well and truly falls into this category. It is willing to slow us down to a more relaxing pace and take us on an emotional journey of function rather than dysfunction. It’s a world where harsh realities are met with kinder eyes, and characters look to connect rather than divide.

In the boy’s Grandpa, Ducrou has created a believable, distinct and utterly lovable old man. The story itself is allowed room to unfold and the relationship between grandfather and grandson is beautifully told in all its complexity.

The Sleepers Almanac No. 6 really is a standout edition, and Ducrou’s story is one of many reasons you should check it out (I also recommend reading Ryan O’Neill’s The Beginning of the Sentence and Jack Cassidy’s Grey Sky Morning). Personally, I suggest you start or finish with Grandpa (it's the last story in the almanac) and then let the book take you where it will... because you never know what you'll find when you dip into a Sleepers.

Dan Ducrou is in my writing group. I have never met him, but I’ve read his stories. For now, that’s more than enough to keep me hopeful, smiling, and inspired.

#28 Pharmacy by Elizabeth Strout

2010-08-18T09:03:00.000+08:00

Available: Olive Kitteridge

Things have a strange way of coming together.

Short story writing superstar Paul Mitchell recommended Olive Kitteridge a month ago and I was sceptical. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was the incredibly naff cover, as featured above?

I rented the book from the local library and was about to start reading when my friend Ryan emailed. We talked about books; what floats our boat and what sinks our dinghy. Well Ryan, if you're reading this, Olive Kitteridge is definitely no Jackson's Dilemma. The only dilemma I'm facing now is how I juggle both Olive and Miriam Zolin's Tristessa and Lucido, another pleasant surprise in an already excellent week.

The Story
For those who don't know, Olive Kitteridge is a short story collection linked together by the presence of the title character. Each story fleshes out the many contrasting characters around her; Strout writes male characters particularly well, charting their loss and loneliness almost effortlessly.

Pharmacy tells the tale of Henry Kitteridge, Olive's wife. His days are spent with Mrs. Granger at the pharmacy until she dies in her sleep and he must find a suitable replacement.

Enter Denise Thibodeau, a young girl in her early twenties, who Olive describes as "looking like a mouse." As the story progresses, Henry's days with Denise are contrasted with his nights with son Christopher and the grumpy, forthright Olive.

Henry grows to know both Denise and her husband, also called Henry. When the young Henry is accidentally shot by a friend while hunting, it opens up emotional depths for both Henry and Olive. Each find an echo of the past in Denise, in both her hope and vulnerability. Unconsciously, their lives shift to accommodate a deeper shade of grey.

Why it Sticks
It sounds as if I've told the whole story above, but believe me, it's just the beginning. Having now moved further into the collection, I have even deeper admiration for this first story. Reading it as a standalone, you would think you had Olive pinned, but believe me, her character grows ever more complex as the stories unfold.

Themed collections are very much in vogue, but this is something a little different. By letting each character "discover" Olive, the reader is given great insight into the way a person's core is open to interpretation. One person's wench is another's messiah, and surliness can exist hand in hand with compassion, once you get to know the person deep inside.

Ryan and I also talked about awards recently, and how their attribution often heralds a book that is at best badly written, and at worst, almost unreadable. In 2009, the Pulitzer Prize Committee definitely got it right with Olive Kitteridge, simply because they stuck with emotional resonance over convoluted wordplay. It's such a simple way of charting a story's effectiveness, yet one so often neglected in pursuit of artistic in-jokes and exclusivity.

My Kingdom For a Story

2010-08-13T10:51:00.002+08:00

I love Fridays.

It feels like they've well and truly distanced themselves from the work-based ethic of Monday-Thursday. Friday opens the mind up for exploration, for relaxation, and a whole lot of writing.

With that in mind, I thought I'd open up the floor for story suggestions for the coming months. While I always have a few on the go (at the moment I'm reading Olive Kitteridge on Paul Mitchell's recommendation and reacquainting myself with some Chekhov) I'm always keen to head in new directions.

Male, female, local, international, whatever floats your boat, changed your life, or keeps you sane. I've nearly completed the selection process for this year's page seventeen and want to keep reading stories that inspire, challenge and entertain.

All thoughts welcome! All tippers to be tweeted and retweet with thanks (or bought hot and cold beverages next time I see them in person).

On another note, my friend Maxine Clarke wrote some killer poems for SPLOG a week or so back. Check them out here.

Have a good weekend. Read, write, and be merry.

Laurie listens to Gotye's Like Drawing Blood and reads Salinger with his mouth open, eyes wide with admiration. He recommends the spinach, rice and feta pie at Pie in the Sky and hopes to see you soon at a shindig, festival or other social gathering.

PUBLISHER PROFILE: Gininderra Press (2/2)

2010-08-11T12:29:00.002+08:00

Collections Featured: Svetlana or Otherwise, The Nine Flaws of Affection

It is with some trepidation that I approached reviewing these two collections.

For starters I know both Tiggy and Peter fairly well. Both work with me in my current capacity as fiction editor for page seventeen.

What resulted was a different kind of review. In each collection, I found fault-lines which tied good writing to editing, good stories to living one's life in all it's startling variations, and most importantly, strange connections from male to female and back again.

Svetlana or Otherwise does not pretend to know the intricacies of the male mind, but it does dabble with them in Labels and Mason's Shed. In the former, a man arrives home to find clues but no definitive answer as to whether his wife is cheating on him. In the latter, two boys vent their anger on an old man's shed, because they can.

Elsewhere Johnson explores far thornier subjects. Two stories, A Dash Of Milk and Possum take narrative tension and amp it up to near breaking point. Possum is particularly strong in this regard, with a twist to die for. If you guessed the ending here, then I'm betting you had already skipped to the last page.

Svetlana showcases an array of styles and genres. The semi-autobiographic merge with the more dramatic. For this reader, Johnson's work excels when taking greater narrative risks; though not pleasant, her darker stories carry a "what if?" sensibility that merges tension with dread until you're almost begging for the denouement.

The Nine Flaws of Affection is thematically focused on damaged men in all their guises. Here sadness mingles with regret, and finally, acceptance into a flawed canon of the misguided, the unloved, and the forgotten.

Farrar uses language pared back. Characters ache as they speak (or choose not to) their truths, however murky these might be.

In Comas we enter the mind of a coma patient, struck dumb but able to hear his family's bickering. Both this and Two Thirds of the Truth deal with infidelity but in a strangely muted way. The main characters struggle to justify or articulate their desires; when they finally face them, they're too far gone for it to make a difference.

In other stories such as The Twenty Faces of Lorraine and Journey With My Father Farrar explores loss and longing. Here, the object of love is less important than the legacy it leaves behind. In such isolated trauma, the characters must decide what and how they chose to remember the object of their affection.

Both of these stories are excellent collections. Farrar's is awash with sadness, longing, and begrudged acceptance. Johnson's explores the things we do when we're trying to not to feel things. In each, there's a willingness to tell uncomfortable truths. A Dash of Milk, The First Casualty, and Breathing in the Cold will have you re-evaluating bonds and the hidden ties that cement them. All three stories take the ordinary and explore it's flip-side; the words unsaid, the promises not kept, and the company we keep in the name of maintaining a family.

PUBLISHER PROFILE: Ginninderra Press (1/2)

2010-08-03T11:11:00.000+08:00

Collections Featured: A Famine in Newcastle, Last Days of Summer

You couldn't find two more different writers than Vicki Thornton and Ryan O'Neill.

One writes reflective, elegiac takes on people and years gone by, the other infusing political conflict into the personal and experimenting with the form. And yet, if you read both in succession, there is a point when their journeys cross.

Here, it is the last story in A Famine in Newcastle, O'Neill's second collection of stories after 2005's Six Tenses. The story in question is Halfbook, a girl's recollection of a father forever lost in books. It meets a girl's recollection of a summer spent in a weatherboard house with "pale lino floors" in Thornton's Drowning, the second story in Last Days of Summer

The stories succeed because they dare to be personal, they dare to be intimate, and they dare to speak uncomfortable truths about uncomfortable relationships.

The imagery in each is stunning and parental legacy runs deep. For Thornton, it's fear, be it fear of the father as he beats a snake to death, or fear of her mother's piercing scream as a brother brings a rat into the house. For O'Neill, it's distance, the intimacy of fantasy versus real life, and the potential for parents to distance themselves through books, drink, or any number of other distractions.

There is much to like in both collections. O'Neill's is the more worldly, perhaps because of his own real-life travels in Rwanda, Lithuania, and China. The men and women in these stories seek meaning in at times meaningless world; they seek connection with those too quick to dismiss them; they make sacrifices (as in the title story) while all around justify their own greed and ignorance. There is a pulse of humanity throughout, and like most of O'Neill's stories, reading A Famine in Newcastle will leave you wanting to read more of his work to see what he does next.

Thornton's stories soar when characters awake (or refuse to awake) to a greater level of understanding. For A Moment has your hoping for a character to fly, despite logic trying to pull you down. The Sweetness of Musk begins with a boy buying a bag of lollies and ends in a memory.

Both collections showcase a respect for life's various shades of grey; in O'Neill's characters deny them until life trumps their black and white vision; in Thornton's such complexity creeps up on each character as they recount a seemingly simple story.

In July's Year of The Short Story class, Paul Mitchell said that to write memorable fiction, you need to take risks and you need to write about things that scare you. O'Neill and Thornton do just that, and the end results are all the better for it.

#27: Stars at Elbow and Foot by Amy Bloom

2010-07-26T11:16:00.001+08:00

Available: A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
Author's site: Amy Bloom

Amy Bloom is fucking excellent.

She's excellent because at no point does she let the voice of hesitancy enter her writing, or if she does, it has left long before the final draft of the story. She writes frank, perfectly paced stories about emotions. Some of these emotions are ugly as hell but she'll be damned if that will stop their surfacing within the narrative.

Even better: the cover of this book looks like bloke-lit hell, a Tony Parsons wander through middle-aged lad-ville with an obligatory pause for a kinks memory, a rant about men and women, or a scooter montage as the main character finds himself on the streets of Manchester.

Thankfully, this is an Amy Bloom book, and all that has been left to thicker books with thinner plots.

The Story

I had to toss up between this and Hold on Tight, both of which are incredible stories. I chose this because I had a stronger visceral reaction to Stars, rather than the sadness I felt at the end of Hold Tight.

I want to move on to Stars now, but Hold Tight is still gnawing away at me. It holds a greater truth for me. The truth is Stars is assumed, but it's a woman, a child and her husband, and I can't say if I will ever understand that; the massive shift that motherhood brings, the cocktail of emotions that surface within such a huge biological shift. I can't say what it would feel like to lose a child (and I'm not giving anything away here, the story starts at this point), or how such loss might take you to unexpected thoughts or pathways, a mutation of traditional maternal desire.

What I do know is a more general loss, people leaving before their time, and Hold Tight overflows with this. It's about a mother, a father, and a daughter. It's about art too, and illness and identity, and by the end it's a strangely positive take on what we have, what we lose and what remains.

Why it Sticks
I realise I have painted myself into a corner. I'm meant to be writing about one story, and yet I'm still discussing both. All degrees of worthiness are blurring. Why should Stars win out, when Hold Tight clearly resonates more with me as a reader? Does Hold Tight resonate more because of what's going on in my own life, and if so, does that make it a more worthy story?

I could do a post on both stories but that would be cheating. This blog is about recounting a great story, as and when it is read. Amy Bloom had to go mess it up by writing two (more actually, but we won't go into that) stories that have left me struck dumb with emotion.

So what do I do? I put my hands up in the air, say "alright, you got me" and walk away. And then, before I leave, I turn back, and tell you to read this collection, not because no one has ever written fiction of this quality (they have, and will continue to do so) but because only Amy Bloom writes like this, moments lost and found, and whether it barely touches you or blows you away, your life will still be better for reading her.

Sowing and Reaping: New Fiction Callout

2010-07-13T07:01:00.000+08:00

I really want to host Rage one day. If you know anyone on the production staff, please let me know.

I promise I will only mention ABC's premier music show one more time in the blog.

I'm writing today because the literary world really is tops sometimes. Journals help writers. Writers help journals. What a beautiful cycle!

After a tumultuous week, Extempore journal is now looking for new submissions of quality fiction. Even better they're looking for fiction...inspired by music.

Or, as they've put it:

We’re inviting submissions of short fiction inspired by music for our Issue 5…

Whether you’re an established, known writers or a new new fresh voices, we want your short fiction before 15 August!

Your submission does not have to be about music. All we need is a link, which you can supply separately and which can be as simple as ‘I was listening to an intensely emotional guitar solo by James Muller on my car radio as I barrelled down the highway from Cairns, and was inspired to write this story about loss and alienation’. See? Easy. Stretch out a bit and let the music in…

Oh, and we like lots of different kinds of music, but we specially like the jazz and improvised variety – if you’ve got any of that we’d love to see it!

Submission deadline 15 August 2010

This is very cool news for those of you who enjoy music while writing. Sam Cooney did a great post on music and writing a while back and it's had me thinking about it ever since. What is this strange melding that occurs between the written and the sung word? If you listen to Celine Dion, do you really end up writing Jeffrey Archer novels?

For the record, I like all kinds of music, but am particularly keen on Iron and Wine, Morphine and Eluvium's Copia when needing sonic inspiration. Any other favourites?

More short story posts to come. I am still working my way through Page Seventeen submissions and have read a dazzling array of the good, the great and the incomplete.

Write up a storm, those writers amongst you. Read up a storm, those readers amongst you. And if you're in Box Hill, try the crispy mock duck at Veggie Hut.

Laurie Steed reads The Nine Laws of Affection by Peter Farrar and chooses to stay in apartments with roofs. His clothes are provided by shops and one day, he hopes to host Rage.

Lit lovers Unite!

2010-07-05T16:09:00.000+08:00

I hate to see a lit journal struggling.

It hurts even more when they're filling a niche; were it someone producing Masterchef cookbooks, I would happily picket their perimeter until they closed!

The point is that literary journal Extempore is struggling right now....but you can help. Issue Five promises to be a cracker, but it won't happen at all without a bit of luck and a lot of support.

There are any number of ways you can contribute to the journal's continued presence in Australia's literary scene. If that weren't enough they're offering some crazy packs and discounts to sweeten the deal:

Subscribe – essential for their survival

Subscribe before 15 August and take advantage of their special ‘cry for help’ deal of a free back issue!
$30 per year (online edition)
$55 per year for the print journal and access to the online edition too!

Or there are always individual copies

Issue 4
Issues 1, 2 and 3 are available here at a great discount

Talk to Miriam here miriam (at) extempore.com.au

for a great discount on orders of five or more copies of any combination of issues 1-4, or
if you want to help but can’t afford $30 per copy or the $55 print subscription.

Free ways to help!

Go to the Facebook page and 'like' Extempore
Follow on Twitter extemporeAus
Sign up for the Newsletter
Spread the word by linking to http://www.extempore.com.au from your website or blog
Tell your mailing lists about extempore and recommend us (some sample words below, ready to cut and paste)
Have you heard about extempore? It comes out twice a year in a print journal or an online edition. It’s full of fantastic information about Australian jazz and improvised music, including interviews, essays, fiction, poetry and photographs, plus a bonus CD with every issue. Check out the website at www.extempore.com.au

If you can spare the funds to subscribe, then please subscribe. Otherwise every little bit helps.

In Australia, we are blessed to have such a vibrant literary scene. Let's keep it that way.

#26: If I loved you by Robin Black

2010-07-04T23:27:00.000+08:00

Available: If I loved you, I would tell you this
Author's site: Robin Black

“Many fiction readers slight the short story as a form less compelling or engaging than the novel. If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This may be the collection that changes their minds.”

- The Australian

I may have to revisit my take on negativity in short stories, or at the very least allow a post's break while I examine If I loved you from Robin Black's debut collection of short fiction.

The Story
A woman imagines a letter to her next door neighbour. He has planned a fence that will wall them in, a fence that means they will have to park further down their driveway to get out of their car. By the time the woman has put pen to paper, it is clear they've tried reasoning with him. It is clear they have appealed to his kinder side. None of this is working.

Instead, she starts with simple enough words so as he might understand: If I loved you, I would tell you this. And then, at the risk of diving deeper into an already dark place, she proceeds to tell him.

Why It Sticks

This is a story that benefits greatly from a lack of prior knowledge. What you need to know is that this story kicks like a mule. It surprises again and again, it presents familiar characters in a ludicrous but believable situation and its simple premise hides any number of questions about compassion in a modern, self-motivated society.

Its key strengths come not from blood or gore but from defining moments, ones we have faced or may have to face in life. The character Robin Black creates for our journey is truly unforgettable, a mix of pathos, anger, compassion and sadness.

Not all the stories in the book are as strong as If I loved you, but they all share a willingness to explore the realms of domesticity. This elevates Black above the overly-academic, the deliberately melodramatic and the unacceptably vague authors that plague modern literature. For Black, all that matters is the story itself, and for that we can be ever grateful.

#25: You're Ugly Too by Lorrie Moore

2010-06-27T21:18:00.000+08:00

Available: Like Life, The Collected Stories
Like Lorrie?: Tao Lin, Laura Moriarty

Some days I do not feel like reading longer short fiction.

This was another story I listened to first as opposed to reading; it benefitted massively from being read by Moore herself. In case you’re wondering, her voice is monotone at times, but her deliciously dry wit was made for Moore’s change in tone. She is one of the few writers who, when reading her own work, is able to suitably capture the spirit of the writing.

You’re Ugly Too could not have been a sentence shorter. I am glad I chose this as one of my longer reads, as firstly, it is mysterious enough to keep you reading, and secondly, its length allows for greater character development.

The Story

Zoe Hendricks is a history lecturer at a liberal arts college called Hilldale-Versailles in North America. She has more than her fair share of problems: she cannot sustain a long-term relationship, is getting poor student feedback, and is jealous of her sister’s recent announcement of her engagement. What would be a recipe for disaster in a lesser writer’s hands seems strangely poetic in Moore’s. By spending time with Zoe, we delve deeper into the reasons for her difficulties.

She decides to visit her sister for the annual Halloween party and embraces the costumes, celebrations and camaraderie. Zoe eventually finds herself alone with Earl, who’d been earmarked earlier as possible boyfriend material. They talk, and as they do, we find out a little too much about each of them on a windy, almost cliched Manhattan night.

Why It Sticks

Apart from the aforementioned opportunities for intense characterisation, the real reason You’re Ugly Too succeeds lies in much subtler narrative technique. In this story dialogue twists and turns, subtle details coming to light. The resulting trail suggests a mind (Zoe’s) almost devoured by darkness. Her reactions come not out of anger or sadness, but from a place of inward emotion, a souring of hope and possibility.

Earl’s exchanges with Zoe are biting, awkward and full of discomfort; never has the divide between man and woman seemed so achingly wide, or attempts at bonding so forced or misunderstood. Beneath the dialogue lie greater truths on how men and women often face differing desires yet still labour on in pursuit of a greater connection.

Whether they eventually reach it is another question altogether.

Away away, in WA

2010-06-19T08:57:00.000+08:00

The above picture of Emmett Stinson is really old, but I like it! I love pictures of people smiling with piles of books because I often smile near piles of books but no one takes a photograph.

His picture's featured because he will feature this coming Monday at Debut Mondays (more of that later).

I will be on holiday this week, catching up with friends and family in the sunny (but quiet in a literary sense) state of Western Australia. With this in mind, there'll be no post this week, but I'll be back with bells on around Wednesday next week, with Lorrie Moore's You're Ugly Too. In the meantime:

1) You should check out BookFox, one of my favourite book blogs in the world. I haven't met John Matthew Fox, but if he ever comes to Melbourne, I'm buying him a latte and maybe an Anzac biscuit (If I buy him one, I have to have one, right?) in the spirit of appreciation.

2) For those of you in Melbourne, Known Unknowns author Emmett Stinson is reading as part of Debut Mondays on June 21st at The Wheeler Centre, along with Joel Magarey, Vivienne Kelly, and Stephen O'Connor (this is the later mention that I mentioned earlier). It starts at 6.15 and it's free, i tell you, free!

3) For those of you in St. Kilda, friend and colleague Kent MacCarter is reading alongside Sean Condon as part of Storytelling at The Dog's Bar arts hub on Thursday, June 24th, 54 Acland Street, St. Kilda from 8pm. More info here . Kent's cool and Sean is controversial; it's the perfect combination.

Till next

Laurie

#24: The Second Tree From the Corner by E.B. White

2010-06-13T22:08:00.000+08:00

Available: The Best American Short Stories of the Century

"Ever have any bizarre thoughts?" asked the doctor.

So begins one of the most beautifully written stories I have ever read. I came back to this story after a strange week. I had seen the documentary Man on Wire on Thursday night and had been thinking about the nature of beauty ever since. I thought about timeless stories, those which defied easy classification and instead seemed greater meditations on the almost indescribable; aspiration, ambition, and the search for an elusive something that often occupies our time.

Truth be told, I've not read this story on the page; I have, however, listened to it countless times on audiobook. It seems strangely fitting then, that at past eleven pm on a cold and quiet Sunday night, I woke from sleep and listened to it once again. It's a story that deserves your full attention.

The Story
Trexler visits the doctor in the hope of him curing his bizarre thoughts. Trexler's thoughts turn out to be more compassionate than unstable. That said, Trexler is also a different type of patient than most; he is so deeply compassionate that he cannot help seeing things from others' points of view.

The doctor says Trexler is scared, although Trexler is not so sure. He continues seeing the doctor until the fifth visit, when the doctor asks Trexler directly: "What do you want?"

Trexler turns the question back on the doctor, who answers meekly: "I want a wing on the small house I own in Westport. I want more money and leisure to do the things I want to do". Such a response leaves Trexler stunned, and scrambling for the cause of a longing, so deep and persistent in his own soul.

Why it Sticks
It is not easy to make one man's inner monologue compelling. While the doctor plays a supporting role in this story, The Second Tree is Trexler's story. By letting Trexler think in real time, and more importantly, by opening up the character to such vulnerability, we get a greater picture of Trexler than could ever have been obtained through dialogue or any other form of exposition.

Many emerging writers make the mistake of amping up dramatics instead of letting their characters develop. In this story, White sits with the character, knowing the story's arc will be strong enough so long as Trexler keeps developing. As a reward for perserverence, the story unfolds ever so delicately, with the subtlest of narrative hints left lingering to be discovered on the third or fourth read.

Pacing is also important in The Second Tree: Questions are asked and repeated; characters shift their chair an inch; Trexler and the doctor size each other up. Such pacing shows White at his most assured, for while many of his other works share a similarly languid pace, never have they seemed so irresistably focused on the beauty of one man's life, his sense of compassion, and his propensity for "bizarre thoughts."

#23: A Perfect Day For Bananafish by J.D. Salinger

2010-06-07T06:56:00.000+08:00

Available: Nine Stories

Influence on: John Updike, Haruki Murakami, Jonathan Safran Foer

What makes a twist ending different from one which simply continues on from themes already developed?

To my mind, A Perfect Day for Bananafish falls clearly in the latter category but there are many who’d argue its surprise ending is unwarranted given what has come before. Like much of Salinger’s work, it divides people, if only because of the ambiguity in which Salinger presents seemingly black and white events.

The Story

Bananafish begins with Muriel Glass calling her mother on the telephone from a hotel on the beach. As the conversation unfolds, we discover various threads revealed masterfully through dialogue. Muriel’s husband Seymour has been displaying erratic behaviour of late: he has recently written off the family car, he’s been saying horrible things to Muriel’s grandmother and he’s done something with their pictures from Bermuda. He has also recently been discharged from military service, although the army psychiatrist has his doubts about Seymour’s sanity. Muriel and her mother argue, with the former thinking Seymour is just fine and the latter convinced they need to head home as soon as possible.

The scene shifts to a young girl Sybil on the beach. She bumps into Seymour sunbaking and they start up a conversation. They head out into the water and talk about all sorts of things including the imaginary bananafish of the title. Eventually he leads her back to the shore and heads back to the hotel.

Why It Sticks

Salinger is a master of dialogue. In his collection Nine Stories (released in the UK and Australia as For Esme, with love and Squalor), stories such as Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut, For Esme, and Teddy all construct vivid characters primarily through conversation. What is said and not said helps create reveals so subtle that as a reader, you often want to reread a story to see the things you unconsciously understood but consciously skipped over while following the plot.

Personally, I have found Salinger very influential in helping me consolidate my own writing style. There is something about the way he writes that encourages experimentation with the medium, or at least it did in my case. In reading his stories (Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut in particular uses mirror characters, memory, and a mother's projection onto her daughter to illustrate the internal world of main character Eloise) you are given a masterclass in narrative techniques, all of which slide gracefully under the radar as you read a seemingly simple story.

Salinger's other strength is in articulating the ordinary, gracing the everyday with a sense of connectedness. Children behave as adults, adults as children, and philosophical debate comes from both. In such a democratic forum, Salinger seems to suggest knowledge as universal, to be acknowledged or ignored as one sees fit. Such a unique take may be attributed to his religious readings; it may combine a traumatic military history with life experiences after battle, or it may simply be that he is a most extraordinary writer.

Whatever the case, Nine Stories is a standout in the history of short fiction. It is provocative, insightful and so intricately compiled that writers and readers continue to debate the messages held within more than fifty years after its initial release.

New Storytelling Night at St. Kilda

2010-06-04T14:08:00.000+08:00

Dear Gumwallers,

firstly, an apology for my lack of posts over the last fortnight. I have been unwell and bogged down with marking my kick-ass undergrads.

I will return next week.

On another topic, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood (or keen to make the trek), there's a new storytelling night in town. Head on down to Dog's Tails in St. Kilda every Thursday. Their June/July lineup is seriously impressive, featuring:

Claire Halliday, Joel Deane, Patrick O'Neil, Mischa Merz, Eleanor Jackson, Leah Kaminsky, Kent MacCarter, Sean Condon, Luke Stickels, Kim Kane, Steven Amsterdam, Dan Ducrou, Eric Dando, Bryan Whalen, Anna Krien, Andy Murdoch & Emile Zoe Baker.

St Kilda Storytellers

Thursday nights, 8.30-9.30

Dog's Bar
54 Acland Street, St Kilda
FREE

To get a good idea of what this night is all about, have a look at an article in The Age or a post on Crikey's Literary Minded blog.

Hope to see you there!

The LiteraryMinded Competition: We Have Winners!

2010-05-19T15:22:00.000+08:00

I love celebrations.

Like Kool and The Gang, I like to bring my good times and my laughter too...and when I'm hanging with LiteraryMinded, its' all about the books. And Hot Chocolate.

Thanks to all that entered the competition and congratulations to Jordi Kerr, Chris Somerville, Sam Cooney, Colin McNeil and Kristin Johannesson for being our winners!

The Gum Wall plans to give away more books in the second half of year; we will keep you posted. In the meantime, we've got EB White's The Second Tree from the Corner, Lorrie Moore's You're Ugly, Too (to date, she's our only multiple entrant), and JD Salinger's audience divider, A Perfect Day for Bananafish all to come in the next few weeks.

Thanks again to LiteraryMinded (aka SheRa) for joining in on the fun, thanks to everyone who entered the competition, and happy third anniversary, Angela!

Birthday Giveaways

2010-05-12T08:00:00.003+08:00

I love giveaways.

I love birthdays too, so when LiteraryMinded (aka. Angela Meyer) told me her blog was turning three, I couldn't help but get the party poppers out, bake a series of elaborate cupcakes, and put Kool and The Gang's "Celebration" on repeat.

Three years is a long time in the blog game, and not only has LiteraryMinded been around that long, she virtually rules the world of lit-blogs, not unlike a modern-day She-Ra.

The good news is that in our part of the blogosphere, we celebrate in style. In short, The Gum Wall and LiteraryMinded have come together for the big occassion, and we have lots of books desperately seeking a suitably bookish new flat, house, or office to call home.

How do you win said attractive, stylish and knowledge-giving accessories? It's really quite simple. We have three questions. When you have the answers, email The Gum Wall here. On Wednesday May 19th we'll announce our lucky winners, chosen at random from the correct submissions.

Your questions:

1) What was the first short story ever reviewed on The Gum Wall?

2) On April 17, LiteraryMinded showed us some books in her 'tower of hope' (that is, books she has in her possession but not yet read. Name two of them.)

3) Who wrote the short story collection Dark Roots?

Enter now, or forever hold your peace. And in the meantime...

The Gum Wall Hall of Fame: Franz Kafka - Guest Post by LiteraryMinded

2010-05-12T07:06:00.002+08:00

‘In the Penal Colony’
Franz Kafka
The Complete Stories

After visiting the Kafka museum in Prague (detailed in this blog post), I decided I must and would read everything Kafka had ever written.

It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only was I enraptured by his fiction, notebooks and diaries; I felt an intense affection for, and even affinity with, the author who felt he was ‘literature and nothing else’, whose ‘fear’ was his substance – his tortuous, complex inner life (and vivid dreams); and his intense sensitivity to contradiction and forms of oppression, real and imagined.

It’s difficult to choose just one of his affecting, off-kilter short stories to talk about. Among my favourites are ‘The Judgment’, ‘The Metamorphosis’ (its brilliance is not exaggerated), ‘A Country Doctor’ (influential for my writing), ‘A Report to an Academy’ (and in fact, all his animal stories) and ‘A Hunger Artist’ (haunting). And these are just his longer stories. Many of the shorter works and fragments also appeal, featuring moments of unraveling, sadomasochistic drives, nonsensical time, more intuitive animals, interrupted solitude and more.

But ‘In the Penal Colony’ is the story I would cite as my favourite. It is odd, cruel, fascinating, sad and unresolved. An impartial explorer is visiting a penal colony and being shown an apparatus for torture. The officer showing him passionately explains the machine’s function and purpose. The machine used to be an entertainment, a spectacle (even for children), and now no one comes to watch the executions. It is supposed to write ‘exquisite’ justice onto the victim’s body. The officer shows the explorer the ‘script’, which is used by the ‘Designer’ (part of the machine), and the explorer cannot interpret it:

‘”Yes,” said the officer with a laugh, putting the paper away again, “it’s no calligraphy for school children. It needs to be studied closely. I’m quite sure that in the end you would understand it too. Of course the script can’t be a simple one; it’s not supposed to kill a man straight off, but only after an interval of, on an average, twelve hours; the turning point is reckoned to come at the sixth hour. So there have to be lots and lots of flourishes around the actual script; the script itself runs around the body only in a narrow girdle; the rest of the body is reserved for the embellishments…”’

The turning point – a kind of absurd awakening to suffering? Where the condemned person loses their resistance to the end that is coming? ‘Nothing more happens than that the man begins to understand the inscription, he purses his mouth as if he were listening.’

The condemned, on whom the machine is supposed to be demonstrated, has been arrested for sleeping on the job, and instead of apologising, grabbing his master’s legs, shaking him, and saying something nonsensical. It is explained to the explorer, too, that the condemned man does not know his sentence (and has obviously not been given the chance to defend himself). So there is the common Kafkan theme of injustice.

An unknowable and remote power is also in the story, as it is in other Kafkan works, such as The Castle. In this, it is the old Commandant, who ran the penal colony in its heyday of spectacle-punishment, and whom the officer fears. The officer reflects on those old times of glowing, popular punishment: ‘“…How we all absorbed the look of transfiguration on the face of the sufferer, how we bathed our cheeks in the radiance of that justice, achieved at last and fading so quickly! What times these were, my comrade!”’

I won’t ruin the ending (because it’s a must-read), but things take an unexpected, squeamish turn. It’s a confronting story, one you won’t forget anytime soon.

The last thing I’ll mention is the way Kafka manages to inject his sentences with a seductive and vivid strangeness – describing things that are only just off the spectrum of normality. You can see why his imagination would have both driven and tormented him. A line that sprung out on re-reading, where the officer is still comparing the differences between the good old days and the present, was: ‘“…Anyhow, the machine is still working and it is still effective in itself… And the corpse still falls at the last into the pit with an incomprehensibly gentle wafting motion, even though there are no hundreds of people swarming around like flies as formerly…”’ The incomprehensibly gentle wafting motion of the body is made comprehensible. This is how many of his narratives work, such as The Trial, where characters explain (or unexplain) something until it is fact. And of course this comes back to notions of the constructions of power, and by entities of power (again real or imagined), and is one reason Kafka’s stories are ever-relevant.

Angela Meyer’s short fiction, reviews and articles have been published widely. She is a former editor of Bookseller+Publisher magazine. She chairs panels at many writers’ festivals, teaches workshops on blogging and social media, and is currently undertaking a Doctor of Creative Arts. Her popular blog LiteraryMinded has just turned three.

#22: Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver

2010-05-06T08:00:00.001+08:00

Available in: Where I'm Calling From
My Favourite Carver stories: Neighbours, Cathedral, A Small, Good Thing (full story linked)

Damn, Carver gives me the blues.

Some of his stories are really sad. Some are hopeful, but the hope usually comes after a lot of sadness. Some are urban, some are rural, and some of his stories feature characters so remarkably unpleasant that I've decided never to reread them. Yes, Jerry and Bill from Tell the Women We're Going, I am talking about you.

The Story
Where I'm Calling From is not as crippling as Tell the Women We're Going, but it's still pretty depressing. An alcoholic hangs out with a bunch of alcoholics at rehab, including poor Tiny, who has a heart attack along the way and from then on, is scared to leave. Hell, everybody there is scared to leave rehab. Why wouldn't they be, when their wives are cheating and their girlfriends don't want to speak to them?

Carver's work is well written and often exquisitely pared down. This story is one of his longer ones and feels a bit like running on a treadmill while eating McDonalds and drinking Jack Daniels. On the one hand the narrator and J.P. seem like nice people, but at the same time, their alcohol addiction has destroyed both them and their relationships. That said, the ending suggests there may be hope yet for J.P. and the main character.

Why it sticks
This is an intricate story. Both alcohol and storytelling play important parts in the narrative. The main character and J.P.'s 'stories' both echo a similar pattern: their life before alcohol, the way alcohol affected the marriage, and the events that led them to Frank Martin's (the rehab facility they now both call home). Two of author Jack London's stories, To Build a Fire and The Call of the Wild are also mentioned in the story, and The Call's half-dog, half-wolf creature most closely mirrors the dual lives of the patients at Frank Martin's.

These are not likeable characters, but they are forgiveable ones, and really, their biggest folly is their dependency for alcohol. As Natalie Merchant once sang in Don't Talk, "The drink you drown your troubles in, is the trouble you're in now."

Carver's people are easily led astray, and perhaps this is what makes them so compelling. Personally, I think his world view was very much coloured by his own alcoholism; any victories in Carver's stories are small at best, and transient for the most part. There are exceptions (Cathedral, mentioned above, is perhaps the best example) and maybe these resonate all the more for the bleak cultural landscape Carver usually explores.

Sometimes the answers are not so clear. Perhaps he was just a writer wrestling with his demons... and to the end, he was still trying to work out whether the glass was half-empty or half-full.

#21: The Thing in the Forest by A. S. Byatt ~ Guest Post by Karen Andrews

2010-04-28T16:17:00.004+08:00

Available: The Little Black Book of Stories
Influenced by: Henry James, George Elliot

I first read A. S. Byatt’s ‘The Thing in the Forest’ the way in which many of my happiest reading experiences occur – that is, by complete chance.

Several years ago I came across this story in an anthology of O. Henry prize winners, and recently I found it again in her Little Black Book of Stories. It was an unexpected delight, a fine balance of cool and creepy. A story – on the surface – of how two little girls during World War Two are evacuated to a large country mansion where, while on a secret walk, they encounter the thing in the forest. What they see gets carried with them, in different ways, for the rest of their lives.

The fairytale qualities of the piece (its historical roots, the lure and temptations of youth as they explore social constructs and boundaries) are juxtaposed nicely with its contemporary elements: it is a tale of ‘our’ world now, and of ‘theirs’. What I also enjoyed, although this only occurred to me after I finished, was how it was a ‘womanly’ story: the author is female; all the characters are female. The ‘Thing’ is sexless – or at least, that question is open-ended. Not that it especially matters: the theme of the story is how the loss of innocence – by whatever means, through accident or cause – is a fact of life. But how one chooses to face these hardships is a test of character. This is what the two girls (now women) learn by the end of the story.

When I finish the story, I usually sit and think for a moment about the hurdles I’ve had to jump in my life. What those characters inspire within me is a drive to develop resilience, to not be afraid of what life throws up (the repetition of the word “anxiety” several times at the beginning is obviously deliberate), both for me and my daughter as I raise her.

This is why I love it.

Karen Andrews has been blogging officially since 2006, but can date her online journaling back to 2003. Her site is Miscellaneous Mum and is ranked well so far as those ranking algorithms go, but she’s happier more with the opportunities it has presented thus far. She’s also a published, award winning writer. She also publishes over at Miscellaneous Press.

5 short story sites you might not know about

2010-04-25T16:32:00.001+08:00

The other day I felt lonely.

Being a part of the digital generation, I first logged onto Facebook, but not much was happening. I also read a book on obliquity (ask me if you want to learn more about obliquity!) and while it excited my mind, my soul still felt low. Needing connection, I reached out into the World Wide Web for a hand to hold, and was surprised when so many reached back! So here, in their entirety, are five short story sites you might not know about:

1. I Read A Short Story Today: Site run by Patrick Rapa out of Philadelphia. Each entry notes a short story read by Patrick, and some posts link to entire stories. Although this is isn't really possible for The Gum Wall (most publishers are hesitant to offer entire stories online for free access), I admire Patrick for thinking outside the square and sourcing stories from jornals which do offer free access to past stories, such as The New Yorker, Tin House, and Ecotone.

2. Fifty-Two Stories with Cal Morgan: Fifty-Two is a short fiction/social media experiment run by Harper Perennial. As a sample site it's pretty solid, with a new story each week, and a theme for each year. This years theme is discovery...so go discover!

3. The Short Review: this is a review site run by UK-based Tania Hershman. The sites reviews 10 books per month, and where possible, include interviews with the featured authors. The short review also runs an accompanying blog to keep you up to date with all things short fiction.

4. One Story: a literary mag with a twist; it sends out one story every three weeks to its 7500 plus subscribers. Run by Brooklyn-based professor Maribeth Batcha and a dedicated team, this not-for-profit project is deservedly well-respected. At $51 US currency for 18 stories it's not cheap, but it always feels good to help out a not-for-profit organisation.

5. Flash Fiction: No prizes for guessing that this site predominantly explores the shortest of all short stories, that strange beast called flash-fiction...it's always great to see people experimenting with form, length and structure. I look forward to reading (and maybe writing) some flash-fiction in the coming year or two!

Sad to say, I was unable to find any Australian short fiction sites or blogs, but I may have just missed them. If so, let me know! In terms of general Oz lit review sites, we are extremely well catered for: head to Spike, Killings, Literary Minded , Known Unknowns, or Hackpacker for your daily dose.

Buzz me if you know of any other great short fiction sites... and until next time, happy reading.

#20: The Third and Final Continent By Jhumpa Lahiri

2010-04-21T06:40:00.001+08:00

Available: Interpreter of Maladies
Discussion: Atlantic Interview, March 2008

Always trust your instinct.

In this case, our instincts guided us to St. Kilda. On an autumn evening we had gorged on curries, pastas, salads and lassi at Soul Mama. Myself and Zia then had an overwhelming urge to gorge on something even more delicious; some perfectly formed, low-calorie short story collections.

Walking into the local independent bookstore of choice, we found writer, booklover and friend of the Gum Wall, A.S. Patric. It was one of those serendipitous moments you often find in Melbourne, but for me these moments usually involve cake, karaoke or a group of guys singing "Sweet Caroline" as we search for a taxi on Latrobe street.

Alec recommended two books for us, and although both are superb, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies is so damn good that both me and Zia read it within a week, and are now looking for extra copies to give to the ones we love. Lahiri also won a Pulitzer for this collection, putting her amongst such esteemed company as Junot Diaz, Cormac McCarthy and Jane Smiley.

Though it's hard to pick a standout story, I'm going for the one that made me smile the most...it's the simple things that always get me the most.

The Story
A young Indian man comes to Boston to continue his studies at MIT. Having spent the last few years studying in the UK, he will soon invite his wife-to-be from an arranged marriage to live with him. First though, he moves in with Mrs. Croft, an old woman with a gruff manner, who likes her lodgers to always check if the front door is locked. She is also surprisingly besotted with the use of the word "splendid" and indeed implores her lodger to use the word himself.

Most nights he perches on the piano bench alongside Mrs. Croft, and at times it seems she is permanently fixed to the spot, forever in the same clothes. They also seem to have the same conversation with only slight variations, and yet still they enjoy each other's company.

To tell much more of this story is to discredit its subtlety, and to be honest, it's the type of story you must read for yourself, soaking up every detail, not always sure where the story is taking you, but guided by the accumulation of emotion as you read on.

Why It Sticks
For the first time, since starting The Gum Wall, I am at a loss to apply my usual criteria for story greatness. In many ways, this story is far removed from the free-form madness of Johnny Panic, the weirdness of Etgar Keret's Your Man, and the bleakness of Denis Johnson's Work. More than any other story I've reviewed here, The Third and Final Continent is something both smaller and larger at the same time. Like precious few others, Lahiri introduces beautiful characters that shine because they are so startingly like us, whatever their backgrounds or futures. There is a quiet humility in this story that challenges those who would ladle melodrama and discord in the hope of writing high quality, well-received fiction.

Why does it stick? Because stories like this feel right. They leave you lighter than when you started, yet even more aware of what is precious and sacred. Perhaps transcending here comes in the very act of connecting with the people around us; such are the small steps towards compassion and a letting go of expectations.

The Gum Wall Hall of Fame: Tobias Wolff ~ Guest Post by A. S. Patric

2010-04-19T07:01:00.004+08:00

Buy, steal, or borrow: Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
Listen: Say Yes, Read by Tobias Wolff
Insight: 1996 Salon Interview

There are some authors who write as though they’re searching for new ways to create stories. They could instead do what most writers have done, and just look for a new story to tell, using tried and tested means. Tobias Wolff is the kind of writer claimed by both the pioneers and homesteaders but there is unanimous agreement that he’s a master of the short form.

In his PEN/Faulkner winning novella ‘The Barracks Thief’ he explores men, ‘young, dumb, full of cum,’ being prepared for Vietnam. It is written in radical shifts of perspective and narrative technique, past tense to present tense, third person to first with instances of second person. Meanwhile the whole thing is entirely natural and does not announce itself as experimental in any way. With every Wolff story there is a balance of startling innovation and traditional storytelling; there is always a search for a new way to break through.

Wolff won the O. Henry award for one of my all time favourite short stories, ‘In the Garden of North American Martyrs.’ It couldn’t be more different to ‘The Barracks Thief’ or any number of stories that might be told about the fading hopes of an old maid being put out to pasture. I know that doesn’t sound interesting. It sounds catastrophic actually, as far as story ideas go. It is a testament to the versatility, and virtuosity, of Wolff the storyteller, that it moves well beyond a summary of narrative features.

‘In the Garden of North American Martyrs’ is a story that breaks your heart in ways you don’t expect; and it lets in that rarest of human emotions, human pity. There might be billions of songs, poems and stories dedicated to love, a great many to hate, jealousy, vanity — but pity is one of those experiences we’d prefer to avoid. For a writer it’s certainly far easier to appeal to any of those other experiences, or if taking on the subtleties of pity, smother it in humour so that we barely need to taste it.

Perhaps it is so very rare, that we forget how vital it is to our humanity, this experience of pity. Wolff shows the reader with a masterful hand, which pushes aside maudlin appeals and avoids sentimental platitudes, that pity is perhaps the most vital of all our impulses. In this way, there is a surprising gift that Wolff bestows on readers lucky enough to find this story.

Alec Patric is a writer, poet and bookseller. He has been published in Etchings and Page Seventeen (amongst many other journals) and his first book of Poetry, Music for Broken Instruments, is due out soon from Black Rider Press. He blogs at the Overland blog and at http://aspatricink.blogspot.com/ .

Why so Serious?

2010-04-08T09:45:00.003+08:00

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

-High Fidelity

It has been a long couple of months.

Having read Wells Tower, Karen Hitchcock, Adam Haslett, Robin Black and Roald Dahl in quick succession, me and my fiancee Zia found ourselves a bit depressed. Not Morrissey depressed or Radiohead, water filling a glass bowl around your head depressed, but depressed nonetheless.

Haslett and co. were all fine examples of top-notch thought provoking fiction. But in reading them, I often read of cancer, death and infidelity (and, thanks to Wells Tower, I saw the ocassional appearance of a sea cucumber.)

I eventually found glimpses of light in Maile Meloys Both ways is the only way I want it. This was surprising as the book features more than its fair share of duplicity and betrayal. Where Meloy differs from the madding crowd is in her depiction of said events. Melodrama is stripped back to simple reportage, but the emotion remains; indeed, it is deeply embedded within the characters, their journeys, and their relationships.

Meloy's fiction is meditative and predominantly interpersonal. Some stories (Lovely Rita, for example) show a brutal world, but one often saved by the smallest acts of integrity. Not all the stories were as powerful, at least to me. In my own humble opinion, Travis, B., Lovely Rita, Red from Green, and The Children best showcased Meloy's ability to chart conflicting desires in her characters.

Her strength is in exploring the atypical relationship: a man and his friend's girlfriend; an awkward youth and his night-school teacher; two brothers and their daughter/niece. It is here that the author's compassion comes to the fore, her understanding of the complexities of love, respect and intimacy guiding the reader into understanding.

Both ways got me thinking about short fiction and I asked myself three key questions

Is it the writer's job to evoke emotion, or simply lay the groundwork for the reader's own background to be explored?
Does a writer connect best with the reader by the intensity of an experience (upsetting or otherwise) or the familiarity of it?
Do stories that lack a final "kick" suffer by comparisson to the dramatic finales of stories like JD Salinger's A Perfect Day for Bananafish?

In short, I've decided to read some uplifting short fiction, or at least mix it in amongst my usual diet of Munro and Moore. The last really uplifiting book of short stories I read was Patrick Cullen's What Came Between. The last funny story I enjoyed was Peter Goldsworthy's Get a Life . How about you?

*Note: the cover featured for Both Ways is not the local cover art; the local cover was designed by WH Chong and looks more like some shadow people forming a cheerleader pyramid on a camel coloured background...it's striking, confusing and memorable all at once.

Future Gumwallers Unite

2010-03-29T07:15:00.000+08:00

Griffith review is searching for the best new fiction and writing for its second summer fiction edition, Griffith review 30: Writing from the Rim. Predominantly fiction, this edition will focus on the Pacific region - from the Americas to China, Japan, South-East Asia, the islands of the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand - but will also include travel memoirs and insider guides to cities on the Rim.

The last fiction issue (pictured) was solid throughout, with Frank Moorhouse, Will Elliott, Maria Takolander and Georgia Blain included. This issue should be similarly classy, and I'm even hoping to see one or two Gum wall predictions in there...

For more information on upcoming themes and writers' guidelines, Click here. If you know someone who might have a fresh new story, be sure to forward this callout to him or her.

#19: Those Cousins from Sapucaia! by Machado De Assis

2010-03-26T08:52:00.002+08:00

This edition Released: 2009
Available: A Chapter of Hats
Influence on: Carlos Fuentes, Jose Saramago, Harold Bloom

Machado De Assis is long dead, but thanks to Bloomsbury, his writing still lives on. Born in 1839, De Assis lived his life in Rio De Janeiro, the son of poor parents. He made his way up to becoming a civil cervant and writer and was revered in his lifetime, although some argue his work was not fully understood until much later. Since his death, he has been touted as the greatest Brazillian writer in history.

We live in a world of change, but good writing often stands the test of time...note also that bad writing is still bad writing. I'm looking at you, Joan Collins.

The Story
The narrator has three cousins from Sapucaia. They are a nightmare. They are a blessing. It's complicated.

Why It Sticks
In a few key phrases, De Assis says much about family and obligation. The author charts benefactors and victims, with roles interchanging as the story unfolds.

The narrative develops as a tale half-forgotten, with the narrator often interjecting with other thoughts that loosely relate. Reflected back, the story takes a different turn, from a simple tale of opportunity lost and found to a larger meditation on what is fair and unfair, and how malleable these concepts can be from moment to moment.

Like A Singular Occurrence, also featured in A Chapter of Hats), Those Cousins explores obsession and it's abiilty to cloud rational judgment. It also explores duty and responsibility, touching ever so sublimely on the selfishness that often leads us astray in a world so interconnected.

In the world of De Assis, stories rarely exist outside of their social context. There are stories within stories, tales told to friends on the steps of villas and churches and it seems as if every woman that wanders by is part of a different story, every man yet another fool at the gates of love. At the same time, these tales are far from simplistic. He charts a moving kaleidoscope of images, themes and longings in a city perpetually in motion, and in doing so, says much about the universal, regardless of time, location or background.

Note: A special thanks to Allen and Unwin and particularly Jessica for this post, without whom... well, it would be hard to review a book I didn't have. I could have made some stuff up...you know, about a guy, and some hats, but it wouldn't have been the same. And for that gift I am infinitely richer. Many thanks.

Ink Tears and the Importance of being Cooney

2010-03-22T10:17:00.003+08:00

Local blogger and bon-vivant Sam Cooney tweeted something interesting the other day.

Amongst other people's recollection of nights out, bad coffee and mobile phone difficulties, he alerted me to the presence of a new short fiction site, Ink Tears.

So what exactly is Ink Tears? Well, it's complicated. If you're a writer, it could be a place to submit and possibly reach a bigger audience. If you're a reader, you can subscribe and get a new short story every month. And if you're a poet, you might want to avoid the phrase entirely... It's too direct.

Check out the site and out and see how it suits. Anthony Howcroft, the man behind the project, hopes to harness the power of electronic publishing to reconnect writers and readers. I'm now subscribed, so I'll keep you posted as to the quality of the stories and efficiency of delivery, although hopefully we're on a good wicket with this one.

On a different, although related note, I found out after writing this post that Sam picked up a high commendation in Ink Tears' 2009 short story competition. This is a great development, and to me in no way diminishes him tweeting it in the first place. That's how writing works, in ripple effects and tremors felt far from the original source. Nice work Sam! Looking forward to seeing more in the future.

#18: Weightlessness by Karen Hitchcock

2010-03-15T06:14:00.000+08:00

Released: 2009

Available: Little White Slips

Originally published: Sleepers Almanac No. 3

I first came accross Karen Hitchcock in Best Australian Stories 2006, and she has been in every edition of Best Australian Stories since. This is not by chance; reading Karen Hitchcock's work, you are drawn in from the first line. She takes her motivations from marginal people, and by this I mean people who find the very act of living throws them to the margins: people who have distant husbands; people who eat for comfort and protection; people who struggle to connect with 'difficult' fathers.

The other thing I like about Karen Hitchcock is her sense of humour. In her world, it seems both men and women are out to enrage her central characters, and their rebuttals are often pure gold, both funny and jarring, all at once.

The Story

Weightlessness tells the story of Alice and her brother Chris, two siblings raised on ice cream sundaes, chips and orange jelly. Through childhood they gorge, each growing larger. By adhulthood, Chris has sculpted Alice in his image: they are both overweight and addicted to pancakes, tarts and other sweet treats.

Chris becomes a chef and marries a thin woman, "her nose as sharp as her tongue". Alice is ashamed of her body and is constantly trying to reshape it, despite Chris' and her husband Peter's best efforts to keep her well fed. She eats because she must, but despite so much consumption, she still tastes "mouthfuls of nothing."

The wife leaves Chris while Alice juggles jogging and degustation. Both are spiralling. Both are suffering from something "sick and unsatisfied" within themselves.

Chris keeps getting bigger. He rings Alice one night from the restaurant, says there has been an accident. When she arrives she finds him with a tea towel wrapped around his hand, the towel staurated with blood. Somehow, somewhere, there is a connection between the food that satiates them and the pain they cannot escape.

Why it Sticks

C.S. Lewis said that "Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." Weightlessness, if not a miracle, is at the very least a succinct articulation of a truth found deep in our culture, a craving for sustenance to feed the gap between body and malnourished soul.

In Weightlessness it is as if the act of eating is both dance and collapse; fingers dip into tubs of cinnamon yoghurt, tangy berries explode in Alice's mouth, and yet by linking pain and consumption, the mix is almost repellent; you can taste the food, yet already feel the guilt.

More importantly, Weightlessness is a story about love, about wanting to soften the edges of a world too harsh for some. In following Chris and Alice, Hitchcock charts love as something unprejudiced and unconditional, a unifying thread that links anyone who has ever felt lost or undeserving.

#17: Work by Denis Johnson

2010-03-09T11:21:00.003+08:00

Available: Jesus' Son
Originally published: 1992
Influence on: Chuck Palahniuk

I read a lot of short fiction, but rarely have I been more spoilt than last weekend, reading this and Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, back to back. I will get onto Wells Tower later this month (and indeed, he's no major discovery, having received deserved attention around the world for his short fiction). Denis Johnson is a rarer find. Chuck Palahniuk recommends him at his personal website, but I was otherwise unfamiliar with his work.

The last time I saw Zoe Dattner she said I had to read Jesus' Son, originally released in 1992, and so began a week long quest for this elusive collection, my fervour dissipating only once I had it in my hands. I boarded the plane to Sydney and read this from cover to cover. It was the one time I actually enjoyed a flight on Tiger airways.

The Story
Jesus' Son is harrowing. It's bleaker than Junot Diaz, Johnson's world more threatening than the melancholy home lives explored by Alice Munro or Lorrie Moore. In Work, we find a momentary respite from rock bottom, although the story starts soaked in heroin. From an early morning fight with his girlfriend, the main character travels to a bar, meeting his old friend Wayne.

They drive to the riverbank and find an abandoned housing estate, a flood having turned the owners' investments into waterlogged memories. They break into a house, pry open the walls and pull the power cables away, intending to sell the copper wire for scrap.

Having gutted the house, they head to the riverbank where a boat sails past, a kite attached. On the kite, almost one hundred feet in the air is a woman, "naked except for her beautiful hair." They pause for a moment to watch the woman fly past.

After a brief visit to a woman that Wayne once knew, they head to a bar. By story's end we meet two women, each known by one of the men. By some symmetry not easily understood, the men find solace in a day that reflects their past and present, and is strangely forgiving of both.

Why it Sticks
Jesus' Son is a kaleidoscope of despair, desperation and transcendence. Though it's tough going at times, it is also strangely life affirming.

In Work we meet both Wayne and the narrator, and though they've made decisions in their lives, they come across more as lost than deficient. Put simply, Work is one of the few stories in the collection that lets Johnson's characters dream of a different type of world, that offers hope that they may one day escape their own shortcomings.

On its own, Work is a beautiful story. As part of Jesus' Son, it is a necessary part of an otherwise grim collage that is at times intense, often heartbreaking, but always immediate.

Gum Wall, meet Sydney...

2010-03-09T07:01:00.001+08:00

I love a city where writers are commemorated in the pavement. I also love independent bookstores. Combine the two and what do you get? A hapy gumwaller. Thank you Sydney. Thank you Ariel Books...and thank you to a lesser extent, to the pavement.

Ten Things I have learnt since starting The Gum Wall

2010-03-03T07:13:00.002+08:00

1) That the best short stories are like waking dreams: intangible, yet unforgettable.

2) Sitting in a room full of mothers and their babies is more relaxing than you might think.

3) Johnny Panic and The Bible of Dreams is still incredible.

4) I'm not the only one who thinks short fiction will benefit greatly from the move into digital distribution.

5) Gala nights of storytelling change lives. More please.

6) Emmett Stinson, Jessica Au, AS Patric, Ryan O'Neill and Ella Holcombe (more a poet than a writer of short fiction, but talented nonetheless) are all names to watch in the future.

7) Louise Swinn is still the only Australian literary figure who wears a hat well.

8) There are two Vonneguts, Kurt and Norb. Norb scares me.

9) I am not alone in my love of Wolff, Diaz and Keret (great minds, hey Alec?)

10) That the best Australian stories I've read are as good as any from around the world.

Thanks for coming this far on the journey. Let me know if you want to recommend any stories (Thanks to Jessica, Zoe and James for their suggestions, they'll feature in the next month or two).

Till next post,

Laurie

#16: Walking into the Wind by John O'Farrell

2010-03-01T06:30:00.002+08:00

Available: Speaking with the Angel

This book was a pleasant surprise in a week ground down by emotionally heavy but fulfilling short story collections. Speaking With the Angel has a lighter touch and was also created with noble aspirations: to raise funds for the Treehouse trust for autistic children. Contributing editor Nick Hornby's own motivations are clear from early on; his introduction charts his son's Danny's struggle with autism. Indeed, Hornby's opening words are as moving as anything else in the book. Here at The Gum Wall we are all about celebrating short fiction, however, and so we will instead celebrate John O'Farrell's Walking against the Wind.

The Story

Guy is a mime artist on the way to the top of his profession. His friends are glad to attend, at least at first, until they realise that most of his mimes are similar in style and duration. For the guy, the world is nothing if it cannot be explained in mime. A lover of his art, he suffers a variety of highs and lows in his quest for success. As he struggles on, his friends Richard and Neal grow wealthy, get married, and stop coming to his gigs. Guy becomes a father and realises that juggling the contrasting roles of mime and father is more difficult than he imagined it would be...

Any plot synopsis of this story fails to illustrate how funny it actually is. The reader is transported not only to the tougher times in Guy's life, but also to the absolute absurdity of a life crafted in mime, where Guy constantly offers his miming services as a superior version of life's eccentricities. When Guy finally stages his own life in mime (complete with final vocal ouburst), I felt a mixture of pity and joy for Guy, a winner in some regards, but ridiculous to society's more serious eyes.

O'Farrell should be commended for taking on a difficult subject and imbuing it with both humour and humanity. It does pose the question, however; would this story have worked with any other creative art? How important was the use of a mime (as opposed to a writer, musician, or artist) in creating the right mix of humour and pathos? What do other readers think?

#15: Fiesta, 1980 by Junot Diaz

2010-02-22T08:46:00.001+08:00

Available: Drown

Junot Diaz is probably best known for his first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but Drown, released in 1996, is well worth a look. In tales that explore the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the rougher parts of New Jersey, Diaz creates a paradoxical world where ugliness and beauty lie awkwardly together, where characters are the walking semi conscious, half drunk from the kick of drugs, alcohol, and unreliable relationships.

The Story

Fiesta, 1980 starts with a family drive to an aunt's house. The children Yunior and Rafa sit in the back while the parents drive. Yunior is petrified; he is often sick in cars and his father has promised to beat him should he be sick again.

The father is cheating on his wife with a Puerto Rican woman, and often takes the boys with him in the van. At the party Yunior watches his mother in the crowd, unable to process his parent's seeming compatibility when combined with his father's philandering ways. By story's end, the stray parts (infidelity, Yunior's sickness, brother Rafa's predisposition to the female of the species) all combine to create a geographically alien but emotionally familiar tale of adult contradiction as seen through a child's eyes.

Why It Sticks
Junot Diaz makes a familiar tale original by a shifting in both tone and perspective. By placing the father's infidelity within a family setting, it seems just as repugnant and yet strangely ordinary. His father's cheating is not an escape, a masterful act of deceit or a catastrophe that reshapes the family's world. The narrator Yunior would rather it wasn't happening, but what is really destroying him is the duplicity that such infidelity requires, and the knowledge that his mother, who whether aware of the cheating or not, will have died a little by the end of this foolish game.

#14: I Can Speak! by George Saunders

2010-02-16T06:17:00.003+08:00

Available: The Burned Children of America

Zadie Smith was riding on the success of her debut novel White Teeth in 2001. By strange circumstance, she met Italian publishers Marco Cassini and Martina Testa during a literary festival in Mantova. Cassini and Testa ran a publishing house from home and one of the manuscripts they were working on was a collection of US fiction writers exploring what it meant to be an American citizen. David Foster Wallace once described it as “a stomach level sadness... a kind of lostness (sic).” Smith took this original collection and pitched it to Penguin, with her own words as a new introduction. By 2003, The Burned Children of America was released, including Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Myla Goldberg, and David Foster Wallace, all of whom were either already on their way or went on to major literary success*.

The Story
The story here is in fact a letter from Rick Sminks, Product Service Representative at Kidluv, Inc to disgruntled customer Ruth Faniglia. Ruth has purchased an I Can Speak 1900 model from the company. As the story progresses, we realise both that the I Can Speak is a micro chipped mask placed on a baby’s face to verbalise their thoughts, and that Ruth was deeply dissatisfied with her model’s lack of interesting vocabulary and the mask’s tendency to make her baby look like a nervous middle aged woman.

Rick tells her he is writing this letter at lunchtime, so passionate is he about the I Can Speak. Moreover, he is keen to visit her house personally, and fit the newest model for her baby, one that takes a cast of the baby’s face to replicate their unique features of her first born. He goes on to explain how much joy him and his wife get from their son Billy’s model, and that not only will she improve her life, but the baby’s life too, who can’t be happy sitting around all day going “glub, glub, glub.”

The story continues, but giving more away more would spoil the many surprises in this story.

Why It Sticks
As mentioned by Zadie Smith, our generation (however loosely it may be defined) is the first to grow up with truly invasive advertising. Today’s advertisers no longer want our dollars, they want our commitment, and they want to be ingrained in the very acts of living we once considered exclusive. A certain soft drink now has “Open this can to hear the sound of happiness being unleashed” on its side, and a brief stroll in Malvern yesterday uncovered two shoe ads offering you the opportunity to reinvent yourself.

In this story, Saunders takes his product that next step further, where retail not only redefines your life, but that of those around you. Sminks’ tone in the letter is one of an old friend, yet beneath the surface friendliness is his patronising tone, a chilling belief that corporations really do know more about life than the consumers they serve.

At turns horrified and amused by Saunders story as I was, beneath these emotions was indeed a sadness. I felt lost, left gazing at a world where even our most basic loves and life journeys are under the threat of being commodified at any given moment.

Note*: David Foster Wallace's life was sadly cut short when he hung himself in September 2008, making this collection all the more relevant; of all the authors featured, his spoke most often about this sense of loss, wrtiting stories about the American experience that were in turns tragic, funny and provocative. Though his writing was also challenging (featuring elongated footnotes and at times distressing subject matter), his voice was authentic, and it's this authenticity that must remain in writing, in speech, and in our interactions with the world, when and wherever possible.

#13: True Short Story by Ali Smith

2010-02-01T07:39:00.003+08:00

Available in: The First Person and Other Stories

Writers recommended by Ali Smith: Ciaran Carson, Alice Thompson, Rebecca Brown, Grace Paley

Given that we here at the Gum Wall are all about celebrating the short story, it is only fitting that Ali Smith's True Short Story is the next inclusion on the site. While this book is uniformly strong throughout (The Child is a fine example of Alice Munro's adage that every short story is at least two stories, and No Exit is impressively creepy given it has fire-exits as its main topic), True Short Story is simply a sonnet of the short form, and an impressively moving meditation on life as it occurs.

The Story

A woman (Ali) overhears a conversation in a cafe. A father and son are debating the difference between the novel and the short story. The younger man says the short story is a nimble goddess, a slim nymph, while the novel is a flabby old whore.

Their conversation segues into Ali's relationship with her friend Kasia, an expert on short stories who also has cancer. Their continuing dialogue on the difference between novel and short story bounces back and forth, with Kasia often calling Ali with her latest definition of the all too malleable short story.

By story's end, they have something of a definition, and are aided by similar definitions of the short form, from Hemingway to Munro to Ozick. Somewhere in these definitions comes a clarity previously thought unattainable, and we are left with Smith's final lines, which are breathtaking.

Why it Sticks

Ali Smith is a master of wordplay, and is particularly skilled at taking a minor snippet of conversation and expanding outward from a seemingly innocuous point. In True Short Story, the overheard dialogue echoes outward, resonating far beyond its initial setting. In less skilled hands, the story might have seemed forced or overly fanciful, but Smith's juxtaposition of the flippant and the life-changing here leads to a surprising and genuinely rewarding climax.

A brief note: I read this story in an empty park on a sweltering Sunday afternoon. Upon finishing, I rested the book on my chest and closed my eyes, feeling full, alive and complete. I read hundreds of short stories every year, and yet only a precious few resonate like this one did. Thank you Ali.

2010: Year of the Short Story (again?)

2010-01-25T08:09:00.002+08:00

It's only January, but already 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for quality short fiction. The four titles featured below are all due within the first three months of this year, and each promises great things.

Nineteen Seventy Something

Release date: March 2010

Publisher: Affirm Press

Gravel

Release Date: March 2010

Publisher: Penguin

Gravel is the latest collection of Peter Goldsworthy's short fiction. If anything, Goldsworthy's prose gets even tighter as time passes, his subject matter even more intriguing. I am halfway through this as we speak, and Shooting the Dog and The Bet are both raw and confronting, with killer endings.

The theory of light and matter

Release Date: March 2010

Publisher: Text Publishing

Under Stones

Release Date: February 2010

Publisher: Affirm Press

This year also sees Age Short Story Award winner Emmett Stinson's debut collection of short stories Known Unknowns in June, which is already getting rave reviews around the traps. Internationally, Bookfox did a list of upcoming 2010 short story collections to be released, including authors such as T.C. Boyle and Amy Bloom. You can find it here.

More to come as information comes to hand. Enjoy!

Best Short Story Collection of 2009: #1 New Australian Stories by Aviva Tuffield (ed.)

2010-01-21T03:59:00.003+08:00

Available: Scribe Publications

New Australian Stories was extremely popular in this year's poll, and it's not hard to see why when rereading the collection. While not all the stories hit the mark, those that do are first-class. Patrick Cullen's Corkscrew, Max Barry's How I Met My Daughter and Julie Gittus' Over the Waterfall are just three of the many stories that challenge the reader to interpret their own meaning of events, while Paul Mitchell's A Mansion on the Hill breaks your heart, paragraph by paragraph. In all of the above cases the writers are willing to tackle difficult subjects and humanise them, leaving the reader at times shaken, but open to a world of grey, where doing "the right thing" is a battle between the needs of the self and the expectations of partners, family, or the community.

I remember the launch of New Australian Stories on a hot night at the Bella Union Bar, sun streaming through an open window. I also remember hearing Max Barry, Demet Divaroven and Tony Birch read that night, and was struck by the variety on offer in this collection. Last but not least, I remember Aviva Tuffield speaking with passion on how this collection had come to life, and why it was important to celebrate the wealth of talent Australia currently has in regards to short fiction.

Over the Waterfall by Julie Gittus

Sarah lives in a tropical rainforest community with her partner Mick. The days melt together, whether they involve chasing away intruders, heading to the swimming hole, or stewing in the oppressive heat. Sarah's world is one of muddy boots, mice, and cockroaches, and at times, she'd rather be anywhere but with Mick.

One particular afternoon, a man pulls up in a Mercedes and scales the fence, headed to the community waterfall. Mick decides to follow the man, but after pressure from Sarah, decides to join her first at the watering hole.

They stop at the Mercedes on the way down. Sarah slides behind the wheel, despite Mick's protestations. Sitting in such pristine surroundings, unsoiled by mud, sweat, and vermin, she sees herself on the coast, away from the heat and the rats. When Mick asks what she's doing, she says: "I'm positioning myself in someone's property deliberately. It's called trespassing. Just like what he's doing."

Heading down to the water, her perspective has shifted. They swim together and soon start kissing. Just when it seems they have rediscovered each other, however, Mick again remembers the intruder. Sarah meets both the Mercedes and the driver on her way back, and is left with a choice that will have wide-ranging consequences, whatever her decision.

Why it sticks

To me, Under The Waterfall is about the idea of trespassing, and this idea is explored in any number of ways: Sarah and Mick are living on land that is not really their own. The animals that live in the rainforest are often found trespassing too, whether in Mick and Sarah's house, or the shoes she checks before she puts them on. The arrival of the intruder is another type of trespassing, as is Sarah's entering the Mercedes, and the final love scene, cut so short, is another type of trespassing, a moment of intimacy in an otherwise unforgiving environment.

The cyclone gate that borders Mick and Sarah's property is the boundary that creates the very notion of trespassing in the story, its presence an oppressive reminder of restriction, and yet scalable by those who would wish to do so. More importantly, it raises the age old question of a fence is to keep people out, or to lock people in.

This story succeeds primarily because it's about the little choices in our lives that either release or constrict us, and the shades of grey that permeate both realities.

Best of 2009

Each of the publishers celebrated in this year's poll raised the bar for Australian publishing: Sleepers won their first Age book of the year award for Steven Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming, Scribe launched Patrick Cullen's first short fiction collection and New Australian Stories, and page seventeen Issue 7 debuted a record seventeen new writers, with the quality of fiction within maintaining a uniformly high standard throughout.

Thanks for voting in this years poll. We'll be doing it again at the end of the year; in the meantime, there's more to come for 2010, and before the end of January, I'll go through some of this year's highlight releases in short fiction.

Best Short Story Collection of 2009: #2 page seventeen Issue 7

2010-01-18T17:40:00.000+08:00

Available: Page Seventeen

As Tiggy Johnson said at the launch is issue 7, 2009 was a particularly good year for page seventeen. Not only did the issue debut seventeen talented new writers, it also featured established poets Sean Whelan and Emilie Zoey Baker. Throughout issue 7, the writers within take risks, and for that reason alone it deserves its place amongst the best titles in a particularly good year.

In Utero by Richard McEvilly, from Page Seventeen issue 7

The Story

In Utero is a simple story, but well told: a man moves in next to a single mother, Dorothy. She sometimes sits in the park across the road from his house, rocking her pram back and forth; other times he sees her scraping weeds or hanging clothes out on the line. One day, they finally meet. She is walking the baby, who is strapped to her in a baby-bjorn, the baby's back to him, head covered in a beanie. She asks him to come over and help get rid of a snake that has slithered into her kitchen. He agrees, and from there, the man learns quickly that things in Dorothy's house aren't always what they seem...

Why it Sticks
There is an assuredness of tone in this story from the first line. McEvilly writes clever slow-reveals, at times even throwing the reader a red herring, or at the very least, encouraging them to second-guess the narrative with their own expectations. In Dorothy, he has created a well-rounded and believable character for the mother, and the voice of the narrator suggests he's not entirely aware of his own needs and desires.

Most importantly, the story effectively creates tension out of very little at all. The tension here is about the unfamiliar in the everyday; the spaces we share with strangers and neighbours and the moments of connection in a disconnected society.

Best Short Story Collection of 2009: #3 Sleepers almanac No. 5, What Came Between

2010-01-10T12:09:00.003+08:00

Available: Sleepers Publishing, Scribe Publications

That both the Sleepers Almanac and Patrick Cullen only came third in this year's poll says something about the quality of short fiction published in Australia in 2009. The Sleepers Almanac is deliciously democratic in its approach, and is worth reading for the opportunity to read such a wide range of voices and styles and bookmark favourites and literary stars in the making. What Came Between is a fine example of a particular type of voice in literary fiction; domestic, compassionate, and almost Carveresque, Cullen writes lovingly on the minutiae of life and understands the inherent links between internal emotions and the external manifestation of said emotions.

Alex Gets a Job by Eleanor Elliott Thomas from The Sleepers Almanac No. 5

Writing a readable story in second-person perspective is difficult. There are a couple of ways of making second-person narrative more palatable, and in Alex Gets a Job, Thomas employs the use of letters to ease the logistics of having an off-screeen narrator telling the character their own story.

The Story

A former barfly has joined the real world of the nine-to-fivers in their sensible undertakings and regular hours. The narrator (and it is never made clear whether they are a friend, lover, mother or the main character themself) discusses the contrasts between the two worlds and is pitying, sympathetic, and cruel in various doses. Whoever is the source of the letters, one thing stands out; they have one of the most unforgettable voices in a short story in a long time.

Alex Gets a Job sticks because it discards any elements that traditionally work in short fiction and takes risk of creating a fully-fleshed but flawed main character in Alex. Though it's style is a little difficult to take at first, by the story's end, we as readers have been privileged to a strange, possibly interior exchange between the contrasting voices of love and loathing in an homogenised society.

Mauve by Patrick Cullen from What Came Between

Mauve is one of a number of stories that make up Cullen's debut collection What Came Between. The book covers the lives of three couples in the wake of both the 1989 Newcastle earthquake and the closing down of the city steelworks ten years later. Along the way they tackle lies, infidelity and the delicate act of living in the face of uncertainty.

The Story

Paul is pulling down old boxes and searching through them. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but is certain he'll know when he finds it. Later, he is writing, although he hasn't written for a long time. His wife Sarah, meanwhile, is noticing a house in disrepair, distressed as her husband becomes ever more insular. The bathroom needs tiliing, for example, and has needed to be done for a long time now.

Undone household jobs parallel with a relationship left dormant, and when Sarah decides to stay at her sisters for a while, Paul realises there is far more than just the bathroom at stake.

I first read Mauve in Best Australian Stories 2005 and was struck by how easily I could visualise the story as it unfolded. Whether picturing the main character surrounded by boxes, or the looks from wife to husband, or the stringline accross the floor in the still to be tiled bathroom, I felt fully immersed in Cullen's world. Cullen's style is ulitmately meditative, and it is the building of his selected small details that really breathe life into his characters' worlds.

A Slight Delay

2010-01-08T05:08:00.000+08:00

Due to unforseen circumstances, results from The Gum Wall Lit Poll have been delayed, but will be up within the next seven days. Thanks for your patience.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T13:49:00.000+08:00

The Gum Wall will be offline from December 25th through to January 4th. Happy reading in the meantime, and we'll be back on the 4th with results from the poll and more quality short fiction.

Best wishes,

Laurie Steed

#12: Singing My Sister Down by Margo Lanagan ~ Guest Post by Vicki Thornton

2009-12-18T04:59:00.000+08:00

Available: Black Juice
Influenced by: Alan Garner, Tove Jansson, Russell Hoban, Anne Tyler

The Story
Singing My Sister Down, the first story in the collection, is about a young boy watching his sister being executed, by tar pit, for the murder of her husband. This is the basic premise, but in truth there is so much more to the story. We are drawn along as Ikky’s young brother and her family walk out onto the tar with her. They feast, play music, talk to her as the tar slowly draws her down. Surrounded by friends and onlookers, as well as those who wish to see justice delivered, Ikky’s family sing.

They sing their love, their pain, and their hopelessness, and slowly she is enveloped in the blackness. All the while her young brother tries to understand. He watches as his aunt finally walks onto the tar to say goodbye, all the while talking of the shame that she has brought onto the family. The brother struggles not only with the why of what Ikky has done, but why such justice is metered out and whether it is really deserved. Trying to understand his mother’s words warning him not to love someone ‘who’ll rouse that killing-anger in you, if you’ve got that rage, if you’re like our Ik-’.

The image of a flower wreath, almost bridal in appearance, lying on top of the tar in the place Ikky has vanished, is an image that lingers long after the end of the story.

Why It Sticks
I don’t read fantasy. In fact, I never would have read Lanagan if it wasn’t for a reading list given to me for a course in which I was enrolled. It was a list of fantasy and science fiction authors for children and young adults. I wondered what I would have to wade through and admittedly when I began, I kept thinking ‘you can always put it down’. As it happened, after reading this story, I immediately read it again. I have reread it several times since, always finding more to enjoy.

I’m an observer and like stories about people, about the inner mechanisms that make them who they are, that try to explain what they do. Lanagan’s fiction is dark and surreal. Her writing involves worlds which, although similar, are not our own. She invents words and phrases – and she delivers characters that captivate.

Vicki Thornton is a writer living in the Dandenong Ranges. She has had short stories, poetry and articles published in a variety of publications; and is the author of four children’s books and her first collection of short stories Last Days of Summer was released in 2009 by Ginninderra Press. www.vickithornton.weebly.com

Christmas Ideas for The Weary Shopper

2009-12-17T05:47:00.006+08:00

Right now, many people are Christmas mad. They are so Christmas mad that they run the risk of buying crap gifts for very special people in their lives, such as the new Dan Brown novel, or a plastic fish that sings old Otis Redding songs.

This thought troubles me greatly. So here, in the spirit of quality gift-giving are the best of what's old, new and all things in between:

1) Brothers and Sisters, edited by Charlotte Wood
Almost all of the writers represented in this book have either novels of short story collections that, as gifts, could win friends and influence people, but Brothers and Sisters is the only collection that combines them all in one neat and rewarding package. Nam Le, Cate Kennedy, Christos Tsiolkas, Paddy O'Reilly, Tony Birch, Robert Drewe, and Charlotte Wood, herself, all feature, and their stories are complimented by fine work from newcomers Michael Sala and Virginia Peters. Simply put, this collection is pure class, and is the perfect gift for a brother, sister, or friend.

2) Best Australian Stories 2009
2009 Australian Small Publisher of the year Black Inc. has delivered another quality collection with Delia Falconer's last year as editor of the anthology. As a chart of all things literary in 2009, it more than serves its purpose, with Sleepers alumni Steven Amsterdam, Jo Case and Karen Hitchcock all featured, as well as perennial contributors Peter Goldsworthy, Gail Jones and Robert Drewe. Though it varies in accessiblity, it is nonetheless an established and authoritative brand that covers, to Falconer's credit, a fair range of what's on offer in Australia's numerous short story outlets.

3) Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
If you're not already on the Amsterdam boat, then you may have been hiding under a rock for the last six months, but that's no reason not to hop on board now and savour the Age Book of the year winner. What really lifts Amsterdam above the pack is the humanism inherent in his writing, and though the setting may be bleak, Things We Didn't See Coming is by no means a downer of a present.

4) Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff
For those who've not read Old School or This Boy's Life, I envy you greatly, for Our Story Begins raises the bar on what is already a stellar literary career. Simply put, Wolff is one hell of a writer. Unlike many of the new breed of writers, Wolff tells stories in the most traditional way, from a distance and with incredible power. In Our Story Begins, we get only quality stories that can be enjoyed from anyone between 15 and 60, such is the range of topics. If Our Story Begins is sold out, get Old School. Either way, you're a winner.

5) The End of The World by Paddy O'Reilly
Though it has been out since 2007, it's always a good time to recommend reading some Paddy O'Reilly. Her stories are really quite special; in a genre that can at times be weighed down by its own grittiness, O'Reilly chooses far simpler tales: Overworked housewives share beers with paunch-carrying blokes; people long for things, even if at times, they don't know what they're longing for; and in one particularly interesting story, something small, living and pink is found on a front lawn. Through it all, there's a distinctly Australian flavour about proceedings, and a fair deal of charm too. Highly recommended, but a little harder to find nowadays; head to the hub of all things literary in Carlton, though, and you should be able to track down a copy.

Merry Christmas everyone, and may the good will out over soaps, socks, and joke books by Billy Brownless.

#11: The List of All Answers by Peter Goldsworthy

2009-12-13T08:20:00.003+08:00

Available: The List of All Answers
In Another's words: "Goldsworthy is the Chekhov of his time and place...poised, controlled,acute, funny, mean, miserable." ~ Heather Falkner, The Australian.

Thanks to school curriculums, many an Australian teen will be introduced to Goldsworthy at an early age: his debut novel Maestro is a common high-school text, and has been for a fair while now. What's sad about this is that in reading and rereading Maestro, they may never get around to reading his short fiction. The stories in The List of All Answers are drawn from his earlier collections Archipelagoes, Zooing, Little Deaths, and Bleak Rooms, and run from his latest at the time (the incredibly creepy The Kiss) to his earlier works.

For anyone wanting to read or study Australian short fiction at its finest, I cannot recommend this book enough. His stories range from explorations of infidelity (The Car Keys) to notions of personal responsibility (The Afficmative Action Dinner Party), from family ties to selfish needs in times of a crisis. Throughout, Goldsworthy takes seemingly innocuous events and crafts masterful, engaging narrratives from them. And the title story, The List of All Answers, is no exception.

The Story
A year 5 teacher makes dinner with her husband, as her young son asks why onions makes his eyes water. Having answered questions all day, she wants only escape from further questions, when an alternate solution comes to her.

"Three," she answers.
"What's three?"
"The answer to your question is - three."

Three is, in fact, number three on the recently created "list of all answers" created by his mother, a piece of paper with one-size-fits-all responses to any number of questions.

At first, the list works well, stopping-short the infinite curiosity of a child. But as time goes on, the mother starts to realise that certainty is as evasive as the very answers she crafts day by day.

Why it Sticks
It takes a clever writer to start with a couple and their son, and then craft something completely unexpected from it. Though it is short, The List of All Answers draws both parents as complex and highly believable characters in only six pages. The list itself is a masterstroke, and says much both a human's need for structure in an essentially limitless world, and a parent's need to appear authoritative in the face of all manner of uncertainty.

Selecting a standout Goldsworthy story is indeed difficult, as his work is of a uniformly high standard. Though he may have arguably published better-written stories since The List (which was originally published in 1986), here he takes a seemingly standard parent-child interraction and makes it extraordinary, itself a feat to which only the best writers can aspire.

Lit Poll is up and running!

2009-12-05T05:17:00.003+08:00

The more astute of you will have noticed there is a Lit Poll on the top right of The Gum Wall. Vote now and vote wisely.

Why a poll for short story collections? Well, quite frankly, I don't think short stories get enough respect in the Australian publishing industry. Thankfully, certain local publishers are endeavouring to change that, and 2009 was a great year for original and extremely well-crafted short stories. As for the writers themselves, they definitely deserve much of the credit for rejuvenating a much misunderstood genre.

Results will be posted early January. Let the voting commence!

#10: Memories of a Friend by Lisa Fitzpatrick

2009-12-04T04:25:00.003+08:00

Available in: Page Seventeen Issue 7
Other writers/poets featured: Sean Whelan, Nathan Curnow, AS Patric, Emilie Zoey Baker, Sam Rutter

Lisa Fitzpatrick is local writer from Byron Bay, who, according to her bio, also teaches yoga. If she’s as good a yoga teacher as she is a writer, then I’m on the next bus to Byron Bay to get busily working on my
down-dog position.

The Story
Jen has broken up with her husband Phil. They have two children together, and Jen’s doing her best not to take it out on the two kids.

She left the relationship because he was beating her, and now busies herself with the day-to-day process of raising her kids. She packs the lunches, considers the housework, and makes a mental list of things to pick up from Phil’s. She has an additional task today; going to see her friend Sal, along with Sal's newborn baby.

Jen has to work first, watching elderly residents knit, thread by thread at Clarabell Hall, with “nursing home stares”. She heads off at one, leaving them to their world of inactivity, time frozen.

She has reasons to be hesitant about seeing Sal, but wants to be there for her friend, and so pushes her grief down, at least for the time being.

Jen drives to the hospital, stopping first to pick up food and gifts for Sal and the baby. And then, with dahlias in hand, she visits the maternity ward.

Why it Sticks
With good stories, you barely notice the seams as you read. Even better stories have any number of subtly linked scenes, narrative echoes of the overall theme. Fitzpatrick’s story is filled with narrative echoes and thematic symbols, many of which I missed the first time around I was so engrossed by the character's journey. On subsequent readings, you can literally see motif upon motif, all contributing to articulate the story’s common themes of grief, isolation and guilt.

Memories of a friend also succeeds because it is willing to take risks with its characters, where grey is most definitely the colour. These are not mere caricatures, but real people, with their own flaws, mean-streaks, and petty insecurities...and that only makes their story all the more compelling.

#9 Dance in America by Lorrie Moore

2009-11-30T05:40:00.001+08:00

Released: 1998

Available in: Birds of America, The Collected Stories

Influenced by: Margaret Attwood, Alice Munro, John Cheever, John Updike

I first read this story in a writing class in 2004. What struck me was the combination of humour and compassion within, an intricacy of emotion beneath what seems like a simple story.

And what is Dance in America about? I think it's probably best to go the story itself for that answer, where in the first par Moore describes dance as "the heart's triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It's life flipping death the bird."

What ultimately sets this story apart from so many other melancholic literary digressions is its spirit, its undeniable life. As a meditation on "small" things, it is both beautiful and eloquent.

The Story
An unnamed narrator visits her old college friend Cal at his home in Dutch country, Pennsylvania. She's a dancer now, and he's married with a son. His son, Eugene, has cystic fibrosis. He's likely to die before he reaches adulthood.

The two get reacquainted and then share dinner with Cal's wife Simone and Eugene. From there, the story touches upon life, restriction, and celebration in unique and quite touching ways. And, despite nothing really happening for much of the story, by its end the reader feels as if they've travelled fair distances with most, if not all of the characters.

Why it Sticks
Dance in America is a great example of a small-scale story that, in focusing in on the minutiae of life, says much about greater topics. The story's humour diffuses the potential for melancholy, and each character is refreshingly humble in facing their own personal catastrophes.

To me, at least, this story feels "like life." And rather than providing doom-and-gloom scenarios, or band-aid endings that release the reader unscathed, Moore chooses instead to welcome her readers into an uncertain but intoxicating world, in all its extremes of emotion.

Read once or twice, or as many times as required... and I guarantee that you will feel better in the morning.

#8: Meeting Elise by Nam Le

2009-11-23T09:18:00.004+08:00

Available: The Boat

I know I'm not the first person to wax lyrical about Nam Le's talents, and I certainly won't be the last. As recently as last week, The Boat was voted #3 in Meanjin's poll for the best Australian Fiction of the 21st Century, where Chris Flynn described it as "the best short story collection of the 21st century so far, Australian or otherwise."

Once you read The Boat, however, you'll realise Le deservers every bit of praise that he gets. His writing is vivid, multi-layered and often leaves you stunned in its wake.

The Story

Henry is an aging artist, long-estranged from his wife and daughter, Elise. We first meet Henry on the day he's meeting Elise for the first time since she was taken to Russia by a resentful ex-wife.

Henry has written to her often, but rarely heard back. Of the few occasions when they have contacted him, one was to ask for $520,000 for a 17th century Gaudagnini cello.

Cut to the present day, and Elise is due to perform at Carnegie Hall and has invited Henry to both the show and for lunch beforehand.

On the same day, Henry has an appointment with a gastroenterologist Eric Hingess. Hingess discovers adenomatous polyps in Henry's anus, which will most likely lead to colorectal cancer.

More than a little shaken, Henry shows up in a tuxedo for his lunch appointment with Elise. After 90 minutes, Elise calls and says she's not ready to see him, and also requests that he not show up for the concert. He shows up beforehand to apologise and is given a note from his daughter, which says again that she does not want to see him, but he can meet with her partner later to discuss payment plans for the Gaudagnini.

He goes home and remembers choices made and their consequences; seventeen years previous he had started an affair with 17-year old Olivia, an event which led to the departure of his wife and daughter. He draws the memory while in the bath, the paper stained by stray droplets.

Henry returns to Carnegie Hall to watch his daughter perform, and in fact sees something else entirely, in the light and shadows of a rainy night.

Why it sticks

Meeting Elise resonates more and more with each successive reading. It takes a skilled writer to evoke sympathy for Henry, who is not the most likable character ever drawn in fiction. Le skillfully manages the various characters that compose the story, which itself is drenched in pathos. Choices made go awry, phone conversations lead into misunderstanding, and in the middle of it all is a flawed father trying to reconnect with his daughter.

If you haven't read The Boat yet, do yourself a favour and get started. Best Australian Stories 2009 editor Delia Falconer suggests Le has spearheaded an Australian resurgence in the longer short story. While that remains to be seen, Le is undoubtedly a talented author and his stories show case a writer who is never afraid to step outside of his comfort zone in search of a good story.

#7: Endgame by Louise Swinn

2009-11-15T19:19:00.001+08:00

Available in: Best Australian Stories 2007

Also featured in the anthology: Cate Kennedy, Alice Pung, Patrick Cullen, Paddy O’Reilly

Lou Swinn is a publisher, review and small-press advocate. She wears a hat far better than most and is also one of the nicest people I know.

Once you read Endgame in Best Australian Stories 2007, you’ll see she’s one hell of a writer too. For unlike David Malouf, who is also a great writer, but whose story length here ventures well into Benjamin Button territory, Lou knows that sometimes the best stories are also the shortest.

The Story
An unnamed narrator sits in class and remembers what has come and gone in a particularly tough year. His mother has passed away, burnt to death in a fire, and now he has to get by, despite the aftershocks from the enormity of what has happened.

He looks after his brother and two sisters while his father works long hours. On this particular day in school, he wins an award for a piece he wrote for the local paper.

Later in the day, his English teacher, Tanya, takes him aside and asks if he wants to be in the play this year. Unable to hold in the emotion any longer, he starts to cry, though he tries his best to hold it in. His tears lead on to a wholly fulfilling and unexpected denouement.

Why it Sticks
Endgame is a simply told story steeped in everyday reality. The vision of the narrator, clearly upset, but trying to fill the gap his mother has left (he makes Milo for his sister, strives to cook chicken tandoori, and irons his own shirts) is heartbreaking. We find him and his sister forced to grow up far too quickly, struggling to get by in the adult world, when they’ve barely gotten used to being teenagers.

As a short story, Endgame shows what can be done with a strong voice and the right setting. Had the story been set solely at school, we would lose the fleshing out that comes from the characters interactions with the rest of his family. Had it been set solely at home, we would have lost the emotional trajectory of the character’s journey. And, by choosing a first person narration, we get an intimacy that would have been lost in the third person.

The best short stories make you feel as much as they make you think, and with this criteria in mind, Louise Swinn’s Endgame well and truly earns its place in Best Australian Stories 2007.

Note: This story echoes Samuel Beckett's play of the same name. The play's implication is that the characters live in an unchanging, static state, with each day containing the actions and reactions of the day before, until each event takes on an almost ritualistic quality. Given the events in Swinn's Endgame, we find a similar journey for the motherless children, each adapting as best they can to a forever changed world.