Paul Dalla Rosa Paul Dalla Rosa i(8949370 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 8 y separately published work icon An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life Paul Dalla Rosa , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2022 24067411 2022 selected work short story

'Whether working in food service or in high-end retail, lit by a laptop in a sex chat or by the camera of an acclaimed film director, sharing a dangerous apartment in the city, a rooming house in China or a vacation rental in Mallorca, the protagonists of the ten stories comprising Paul Dalla Rosa's debut collection, An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life, navigate the spaces between aspiration and delusion, ambition and aimlessness, the curated profile and the unreliable body.

'By turns unsparing and tender, Dalla Rosa explores our lives in late-stage capitalism, where globalisation and its false promises of connectivity and equity leave us all further alienated and disenfranchised. His stories are small masterpieces of regret, futility and tenderness, dripping with acuity, irony and wit.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 The Fame Paul Dalla Rosa , 2018 single work short story
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 77 no. 1 2018; (p. 166-173)
1 Day Spa Paul Dalla Rosa , 2017 single work short story
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Winter no. 108 2017; (p. 49-63) 'I wanted to tell them that our funding was being cut and that in six months we would all have nothing. But I didn't. I couldn't.'  (Introduction)
1 Writing the Vanishing Body Paul Dalla Rosa , 2016 single work prose
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , March no. 29 2016; (p. 67-72)
1 That Plot Problem Paul Dalla Rosa , 2015 single work short story
— Appears in: Seizure [Online] , April 2015;
1 Phantasm Paul Dalla Rosa , 2015 single work short story
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Summer no. 102 2015-2016; (p. 28-33)

'Over November I house-sat and did things like flick through the books on their bookshelves and go through their home movies, watching and rewatching their children being born. I found the family's Christmas stash, deep in the master bedroom's closet, and from that stash took out the foot bath and slid it back into its box after use. I didn't feel bad about this as I took great care to wipe out any dead skin and reasoned that the water and salts in the foot bath were hot enough to kill anything that might linger. Afterwards I would dry my feet on their carpet and slowly paint my toenails...' (Publication abstract)
1 Survivor Paul Dalla Rosa , 2015 single work short story
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Winter no. 100 2015; (p. 9-15) 'I sat in the waiting room and tried not to stare. There were fresh flowers on the reception desk, beautiful purple orchids, and a girl in her twenties sitting behind them, her face hidden by a giant flatscreen. Bubbles of air rose in the water cooler and light filtered through windows that if I stood at would let me gaze down on Treasury Gardens, eleven floors below. There were no magazines on the tables, the edict being that the staff would not stock them and none of us were allowed to even so much as bring in a morning paper. So we all sat on wooden minimalist chairs and tried to avoid each other's lines of sight. Some of us you could recognise in the same way you recognise distant family at a belated function, not so much by name as by a voice or the vague contours of a familiar face. It has you whisper involuntarily to your sister or husband, now ex-husband, even though the person's right there just two tables away. Whisper about whose husbands left them, whose teenage sons had already fathered children, whose daughter's stomach had once been pumped to bring up over-the-counter Panadeine. You don't mean to be horrible, but that's all you can recall...' 

 (Publication abstract)
1 A Lost Boy Paul Dalla Rosa , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Spring no. 98 2014; (p. 16-19) 'I travel a lot, a real lot, and sometimes I wish I didn't have to. It's because I get too excited too quickly. Sometimes I climax within seconds, on a good try a minute, and then what I'm left with in my hands, often twitching, is all limp and spongy. It's starting to become a problem. I suppose in one way it's okay because no-one ever sees me do it, or if I'm truthful nobody it happens with is around to repeat it. But I know and I worry about it. I repeatedly obsess over it, trying to steel myself for my next performance but thinking about it just makes things worse...' 

 (Publication abstract)
1 Care Paul Dalla Rosa , 2013 single work short story
— Appears in: Seizure [Online] , July 2013;
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