New Australian Stories 2

Editor's Note

I am pleased to introduce readers to this second instalment in our
New Australian Stories
series. Once again, I strove to select a wide range of stories in order to provide a snapshot of what's happening in short fiction. Moreover, given the limited opportunities to publish short stories in book form these days — whether p-book or e-book — one of the central aims of the anthology is to offer new and emerging writers the chance to appear alongside more established names.

Those dwindling opportunities for single-author collections concern me, both as an editor and as a reader. Many of the foremost novelists in Australia today — Gail Jones, Kate Grenville, Peter Carey, Joan London, Peter Goldsworthy — began their publishing careers with story collections, but that trajectory no longer seems available. Yet short stories are vital training grounds for our writers: they allow a flexibility and scope to experiment with an idea or a character or a voice — to perfect something in miniature.

Scribe Publications would like to thank all the writers who submitted their work either directly to us or to our partners. For
New Australian Stories 2
we collaborated with Varuna, the Writers' House, for general submissions. Varuna received 825 stories from a total of 330 writers. Ultimately, I chose stories by Claire Aman, Sonja Dechian, Anne Jenner, Jane McGown and Jennifer Mills.

We also teamed up with the Ned Kelly Awards, which in 2009 introduced the S.D. Harvey Short Story Award in memory of the fearless investigative journalist Sandra Harvey, who worked first for
The Sydney Morning Herald
and later for the ABC's
Four
Corners
. Scribe has committed to publishing the winning stories: Scott McDermott's ‘Fidget's Farewell' in 2009, and Zane Lovitt's ‘Leaving the Fountainhead' in 2010.

On a personal note, I want to thank Ian See for his meticulous copy-editing, his invaluable advice and his constant good humour.

Short stories are often much more open-ended than novels: they kickstart your imagination, whereas a novel gives you the whole flight path. I hope these stories will send you off on many satisfying and unexpected journeys. Happy reading!

Aviva Tuffield

Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
PO Box 523
Carlton North, Victoria, Australia 3054
Email: [email protected]

First published by Scribe 2010

Copyright © this collection Scribe 2010
Individual stories copyright © retained by individual copyright holders

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data

New Australian Stories 2.

Edited by Aviva Tuffield.

9781921753503 (e-book.)

Short stories, Australian–21st century.

A823.0108

This project has been assisted by the Australian government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

www.scribepublications.com.au

Contents

How to Write a Short Story

PADDY O'REILLY

Ingredients
A person
Another person or more people
A place

Method
Take the first person, gender her, name her, crack her, separate the body from the soul and set body aside. Place Meg's soul in a bowl and whisk to a soft peak.

Put the remaining people into the place. Name the people and the place. Leave Tanya, Laird and Pauli to marinate in the Fitzroy share house for at least a week.

Preheat the situation to at least 250 degrees, or 230 if fan-forced.

Fold Meg's soul back into her body, making sure not to overbeat or the air will go out of her and she will be flat.

Transfer Tanya, Laird and Pauli into a large bowl. Beat well. Add Meg slowly, stirring after each addition.

Grease the share house. Pour everyone into the house and place in the superheated situation. Cook for 2500 words.

Test whether the story is done by inserting a reader. If the reader comes out clean, the story is done. If the reader comes out sticky, place the story back into the situation for another 500 words.

When cooked, remove the story from the situation, turn onto a piece of paper and allow to cool.

Serve with a title and bio. For a special occasion, sift a few asterisks in Copperplate Bold over the transitions.

Flyover

GEORGIA BLAIN

Sometimes, as I wait in a line of traffic near the turn-off to Glebe, I glance up to the three apartment blocks pressed tight against the tangle of roads. I wonder which of the windows in which of these buildings looks out from the room where I once spent the night with a man I didn't know. I have no idea, although I think perhaps he was living in the first block, the one closest to the flyover.

I had just turned nineteen when I stayed with him. Sydney was new to me, and I had no work, little money and only two friends, both of whom had come from Adelaide as well. Each Friday night we went to a bar that had once been a funeral parlour. Upstairs the music was loud, a deep thud in the smoky darkness, while downstairs it was quieter, and you could sit in armchairs and drink.

He was the barman.

He was certain he knew me, or so he said the first time he took my order. He leaned across the counter, his long black fringe falling over his eyes, his skin pale in the blue light from the mirrors behind him. He had given us double shots, he told me, and I could taste the bitterness of the gin before I even had a sip, the inside of my mouth dry with the memory of what was to come.

The next time he asked me what I did, and I said I was looking for a job.

‘Modelling? Acting?' He slid the money I was offering back towards me, one hand still on top of it.

I said that I wanted to be a journalist, ignoring the notes he had pushed across the counter.

Cate was bemused by my refusal. ‘It's not like we don't need it.' She examined him, eyes narrowed. ‘Not bad-looking,' she decided. ‘But not my type.'

She was the only one of us who had a job. As a production assistant on a television show, her wage wasn't high, but she was earning, and had hopes of a rapid ascent to something better. Loene and I were staying on the floor of the house she was minding until the end of the month, nibbling away at the edges of our savings, anxious about each dollar we spent.