Cirrus@Austlit

'Jennie Ryan roughs it in the Australian Outback with Henry Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife: ‘…he told of a lived experience. His stories are populated with those who truly adopted and loved this new land…’

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'More than twenty years after his first encounter with ‘Kleist in Thun’, Ben Winch continues to be dazzled: ‘each time I gaze into that mirror—a mirror-within-mirror, and therefore, if the angle’s just right, a particularly dazzling one—I see a different face. ’'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Alison Gibbs examines how characters are shaped by politics in Nadine Gordimer’s short story, ‘The Catch’: ‘While Nadine Gordimer was known for both her fiction and her outspoken opposition to apartheid in her native South Africa, she always insisted that politics was not the driving motivation for her stories.’

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Christine Genovese finds the uneasiness of Patrick White’s last three stories: ‘To me he’s one of the world’s great writers of magic realism with a touch of mysticism. His writing style is trenchant and studded with surprises…’

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Longlisted in the 2016 Competition, Nicole Mansour appreciates the murkier side of Australia in Elizabeth Harrower’s A Few Days in the Country: ‘Few Australian writers, in my opinion, traverse these dim corners of ambiguity, or unearth this more uncommon caliginosity from far beneath its exterior, in either their characters or their writing – Murray Bail and Gerard Murnane are notable exceptions. Elizabeth Harrower is another…’

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Longlisted in the 2016 Competition, Gina Challen discovers Australia through the tales of Louis de Bernières: ‘The tales themselves are straightforward in the telling, uncomplicated, and de Bernières’ simple language creates a style that resonates with the rhythms and cadence of the spoken word…’

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Marjorie Lewis-Jones' recommends the short stories of Australian author Mark O’Flynn: ‘His short stories simmer with suburban uneasiness, dislocation and melancholy, and voices that are both familiar and eccentric. They also tap the rich vein of comedy that lurks beneath life’s awkward and painful moments…’

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Thresholds: 'home of the international short story forum' is based at University of Chichester, in West Sussex, England. Operating from 2009 to October 2018, it aimed to 'provide a creative and supportive space for anyone interested in the Short Story form – from Creative Writing and Literature students, to editors, lecturers, writers and readers of short fiction.'

'Although the short story was a popular feature of many magazines for most of the last century, in more recent years the form has too often been overlooked and undervalued, considered by many to be little more than the means by which aspiring novelists hone their craft.  At THRESHOLDS, however, we have no doubt that the short story is a vital literary form in its own right, deserving of serious critical attention and acclaim.'

Source: Thresholds website.