Cirrus@Austlit

'Fleeing her cruel husband, 60-year-old Ruby Marie Wilson finds herself broke and living in her car in a strange city with her beloved old Kelpie, Roo. She jumps at a Housing Commission offer of a tower bedsit in cosmopolitan Prahran.

'As Ruby searches for meaning in her new world of high-rise compatriots, itinerants, their dogs, public parks and talking trees, she struggles to learn the ropes of living on a pension and mourns her loss of status. She soon makes friends, but just as she begins to feel safe, disaster strikes, causing her to question who she is and what it means to truly belong.

'Set in 2004, They Who Nicked the Sun is a touching and often funny story of one woman’s journey from violence to peace as she builds a new life.'  (Publication summary)

'It is 1962 and, at 19, Katherine Forster wants to find a husband. She decides to join her publican parents when they buy the only hotel in an outback railway town where rumour has it, men outnumber women, ten to one. But nothing is as she hopes.

'Katherine fears for her sanity as she is drawn into a vortex of family dysfunction, hard men, garrulous older women, frontier violence and rape. Aboriginal friends provide succour but, when tragedy strikes, she must choose a way forward.

'The Publican's Daughter is a poignant tale of a young girl's brutal awakening through dashed expectations, betrayal, and loss at a time when sexism and racism flourished. With compassion and clarity, this debut novel offers a unique insight into the Australian outback, seen through the eyes of a naive city girl.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This collection by Lindy Warrell has no pretensions other than to invite readers to dance to the tune of a curious mix of words held together by the absence of form: free verse.

'Each poem strikes a mood with variations from serious or dark to light and funny. Some are wise, others nonsensical with the overall aim to entertain.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

New poems