Cirrus@Austlit

'Invented Lives, Andrea Goldsmith’s eighth novel, explores how and why people construct the lives they live. The novel’s four protagonists come to understand how they have formed the identities they project and how these differ from how they perceive themselves. To invent is derived from the Latin invenire: to find out or discover. By discovering how they have created their identities, Goldsmith’s characters can decide how best to understand themselves.' (Introduction)

'A Constant Hum (2019) by Alice Bishop and The Glad Shout (2019) by Alice Robinson are new Australian additions to the burgeoning genre of climate fiction – or cli-fi. They depict the impact of a natural disaster – fire and flood – precipitated by climate change. It is the human consequences of such events that are the core of each book. The stories are set in areas around Melbourne where the two authors have lived. Both are narrated in the present tense. Both titles refer to sound: a low reverberation and a rallying cry, which set the tone for each text. Neither book makes comfortable reading. The questions Bishop and Robinson ask are linked: could these disasters have been prevented? But more importantly, how do we keep going?'  (Introduction)

'It is difficult to know where to begin with The Erratics. For the story begins many times, at different places and points. The book begins near the end of the story, although more follows, and what happened before is revealed fleetingly, in slow unravellings and chronological leaps. So let us begin here firstly with the context, why I am writing about this book and why you might have heard of it.' (Introduction)