The Best Australian Stories 2014
Amanda Lohrey
(editor),
Collingwood
:
Black Inc.
,
2014
7989511
2014
anthology
short story
(taught in 2 units)
'In The Best Australian Stories 2014, Patrick White Award–winning author Amanda Lohrey selects the outstanding short fiction of the year. Sometimes fantastical, sometimes raw, and always a ‘shot of adrenaline to the mind and heart’, this collection features exciting new voices alongside the established and admired.'
'The edges of reality blur in a corporate lawyer’s tale of working in a 1200-storey glass tower. A prized coffee table becomes the focus of a father’s anxieties and frustrations. Tense and fractured lines of communication shape the life of an interpreter on Christmas Island. Imaginative, remarkable, intimate – this unmissable anthology celebrates the art of consummate storytelling.' (Source: Publisher's Blurb)
Cairo
Carlton North
:
Scribe
,
2013
6008262
2013
single work
novel
crime
(taught in 1 units)
'Frustrated by country life and eager for adventure and excitement, seventeen-year-old Tom Button moves to the city to study. Once there, and living in a run-down apartment block called Cairo, he is befriended by the eccentric musician Max Cheever, his beautiful wife Sally, and their close-knit circle of painters and poets.
As Tom falls under the sway of his charismatic older friends, he enters a bohemian world of parties and gallery openings. Soon, however, he is caught up in more sinister events involving deception and betrayal, not to mention one of the greatest unsolved art heists of the twentieth century: the infamous theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman.
Set among the demimonde — where nothing and nobody is as they seem — Cairo is a novel about growing up, the perils of first love, and finding one’s true place in the world.' (Publisher's blurb)
This course focuses on the craft of fiction writing and introduces you to a range of forms and structures that arc over different fictional genres. Through workshopping your own writing and by reading a variety of fictional works you explore some of the major theories around storytelling, including: What is a story in the Western tradition? What makes a story engaging? What makes it a story? You learn about conventions particular to different forms of fiction while considering elements common to all: plot and character development, voice, point of view and the importance of narrative tempo. Through this, you gain insight into what makes a successful story from the point of view of both the writer and the editor.
