Independent Explorations: Story Samples

"Im back working with the Dragon Lady after we both went overseas, again, and changed companies, again, came back to hospitality, again, and accidentally landed in the same ... "

"I bake on the smooth clay of dried creekbed. Soak in light the colour of sandstone. Sun-heavy air. Heat-hushed noon. Stillness, silence, warmth are the things I love. I'm a length of sun-powered muscle, arrowing one way, looping eternally ... "

"My name is Nelson after the Pommy sailor who lost an eye to grapeshot. Or in my case a whip. My left eye is gristle. I can’t see Yella the newblood walking beside me. I can’t see the Goulburn River ... "

"MARLY sat on the front veranda, waiting. Shaun and Azza had been working on Azza’s car all day, driving Shaun’s ute to the wrecker’s for parts, taking Azza’s black V8 for spins around the streets, steering the big car back through the hole in the fence to lean in and bury their heads underthe bonnet like stupid long‐legged emus ... "

"The first Rita Marquand oil painting I evern saw was at a garage sale on the sloping
lawn of a huge old house in Launceston a few years ago. Ever since I was a girl at art school I have been collecting the works of lesser known and unknown Australian women painters ... "

"In the morning we woke and it was like all them mornings we’d imagined. The sun brushed the edges of the heavy, dark drapes ... "

"Henry sat despondent in The Golden Bowl. The restaurant was empty because he was early, and he was early because he had nothing much else to do ... "

"They had their hearts set on purchasing a piece of land up north, but not too far north. Coastal – or as near coastal as they might afford. Close to a town for supplies, but not too close to a town: they wanted privacy and a sense of having “got away” from it all. This wasn’t really a “sea change” (as the trendies and media would have it) – going down to the city had been that ... "

"Sensitivity!” cries Donna. “That’s what I want us to be about.” She cocks her head slightly to one side and makes a down pointing steeple with her hands at belly level. We all stare at her, silent ...

"Go down to the rock pools when the evening tide is out and there is a chance you will see them. Sometimes one will swim in among the mangroves in the tidal flats but the rock pools are best.

"In order to get my novel published, I told book publishers Allen & Unwin that I was the reincarnation of Emily Brontë. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I really wanted to get their attention. I didn’t want to be another unpublished nobody with a failed novel rotting away at the bottom of the slush pile ... "

"I never did find out what Jimmy saw in that meat – Jimmy’s a weird one. All I know is he barges in and shouts: “Boris! We have just three days to eat this ham!” Now, my name’s Jake, not Boris, but Jimmy’s never been too keen on details – the confuse him ... "

"In the beginning there is Eden. We all move into the same house. It is a new house. All the houses in this suburb are new. They look alike, too. Our neighbour’s house is just the same as ours except the staircase is on the left – a mirror flip. Our house is big and white. It smells of paint and my new mother ... "