Cirrus@Austlit

'Why would my best friend want to destroy my life? Finn and her best friend, Daphne, have grown up together in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Bonded by both having lost a younger sister to suicide, they've always had a close - sometimes too close - friendship.

'Now in their twenties, their lives have finally started to diverge: Daphne is at university and Finn is working in the Mountains, as well as falling in love with a beautiful newcomer called Magdu. Unused to sharing Finn, Daphne starts to act up in ways that will allow her to maintain the control over her best friend she's always relished.

'Then, one fateful day, Finn, Daphne and Magdu all go mountain climbing - and Magdu falls to her death. Is it suicide, or a terrible accident - or has something more sinister happened?

'Bold, dramatic and utterly compelling, Girl Falling forces us to confront the stories we tell ourselves about the people we love. Displaying all of Hayley Scrivenor's razor-sharp skills for character, landscape and narrative, this is a breathtaking read.' (Publication summary)

'My best friend wore her name, Esther, like a queen wearing her crown at a jaunty angle. We were twelve years old when she went missing.

'On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home.

'Ronnie's going to find her, she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can't be gone, Ronnie won't believe it.

'Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it, she has seen what people are capable of. She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible.

'Lewis can believe it too. But he can't reveal what he saw that afternoon at the creek without exposing his own secret.

'Five days later, Esther's buried body is discovered.

'What do we owe the girl who isn't there?

'Character-rich and propulsive, with a breathtakingly original use of voice and revolving points of view, Hayley Scrivenor delves under the surface, where no one can hide. With emotional depth and sensitivity, this stunning debut shows us how much each person matters in a community that is at once falling apart and coming together.

'Esther will always be a Dirt Town child, as we are its children, still.' (Publication summary)

'When twelve-year-old Agnes disappears  on the way home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As the police begin their investigation, Agnes’s tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find her and bring her home. When schoolfriend Lewis tells Ronnie that he saw Agnes with a strange man at the creek the afternoon she went missing, Ronnie feels she is one step closer to finding her. But why is Lewis refusing to speak to the police? And who else is lying about how much they know about what has happened to Agnes?' (Introduction)

'Fear is an overlooked aspect of the PhD experience, both for the creative writing doctoral candidate and the supervisor. The exegesis can be a source of fear precisely because of questions around what it is and what it should look like. Drawing on experiences on both sides of the supervisory relationship, this article proposes that clear structural models for the exegesis allow students to focus their efforts on the substance of the academic component of their research project. We also argue for the rewarding nature of a research project that engages both in practice-led research and critical scholarship. We propose that alternating between the exegesis and the creative project can yield surprising results for creative writers attempting a large-scale academic work for the first time.' (Publication abstract)

A woman waiting for her assistant Carl to help her into her wheelchair in the morning looks out over her backyard. She recalls the past, when she was able to walk, doing the laundry.