Short stories, features and poems from our writing community.
Anton got out of the cab a short distance from the party and walked across the park. He liked the aspect, heading west through Sydney Park with the ruined brick works looming on the horizon. On a hot day like today, the pollution from the road and the industrial area beyond shimmered in the humid air and if you squinted you could imagine the ruins were still smoking.
I dropped my bike and plonked down on a patch of grass on the edge of the muddy campsite, trying to catch my breath. The tent was one of those big ones with two rooms and a kitchen tacked on the front. The flaps were all pulled down because of the shimmery rain, with the Parents shut away inside. Dad was always pissed when I interrupted Parent time. But I knew he’d be more pissed if I got blood on my windcheater, so I poked my head ‘round the flap.
The night was dark and hummed softly with static in the air. The faint warm glow emitted by the streetlights pulsed quietly through the rain as it slithered down from the purple grey sky. Their weak lights illuminated dark, cloaked figures as they glided across the footpaths into the promised warmth of closed doorways. A lazy wind draped itself against buildings and street signs with great, melodious sighs as the rain wet its back and slowed its progress.
A man walks into a parking building. He thinks about climbing to the next level but decides to take the lift. But the lift does not come. He longs for a cigarette. But he has run out. A glance around nets two butts, a metre away. One has at least two long puffs left in it. Rapture runs circles round him. He extends two long fingers, like tweezers, picks each of the butts up and secretes them in his pocket.
Dear future reader,
I imagine you are not too dissimilar from me when I was younger, just starting out and eager for knowledge. How did those writers who touched me with their words – changed me, even – weave their magic?
If I make a conscious effort to observe my surrounds – not to look directly, but to concentrate on the periphery of my vision – I can discern the generous design of the person who hovers beside me. If I allow myself to deviate from what occupies me for just a moment longer, I can hear her imploring me with words that are muffled and unintelligible; sounds that are disconcerting and make me wish to escape, back to the tunnel vision that protects me from acknowledging such scenes and affords me time to finish what I have started; and cannot stop until finished.
On the event of her passing, I had a stark realisation (one seen only through clouding tears): that Carrie Fisher was my mental health icon, for at least a decade, if not longer. I am fast coming up to a decade of living with a diagnosis of Bipolar II, something I don't really think (or talk or write or tweet) about anymore – although here we are – because I’m so well medicated and supported that I sort of stink of sane.
Each of us has a story to tell, but it can be hard to know where to start (or how to finish).
That’s why Writers Victoria's workshop programs include a full range of life-writing workshops to help aspiring writers identify what their stories are, how they can get them down and how to craft them so they sparkle (and so their family members still speak to them afterwards).
If you’d told me two years ago that I’d soon be the author of a picture book published in over ten countries, I’d have laughed.
I loved creative writing in school, and had won numerous writing competitions including an international poetry competition run by the Vatican, but I was eventually convinced that it wasn’t going to lead to any kind of career. I studied one year of journalism instead, but dropped out to do a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Arabic, and a Graduate Diploma of Teaching. It was a long, fun and interesting road
A story by Syrian-born actor and writer Jean Bachoura is the winner of the 2016 Deborah Cass Writing Prize.
'Night Falls', an extract from a larger work in progress, tells a gripping story of a young Syrian-Australian, Eyad, returning to war-destroyed Damascus to meet his mother and revisit his childhood home.
The runners up were Edita Mujkic for her story about leaving Sarajevo under bombardment, ‘From There to Here’, Linda Judge’s Latvian journey ‘...
