AustLit

'On the day before Christmas, Senor Muy Rico was happy. He strutted about his pen proudly, his feathers puffed out, showing off to his lady friends and putting his male competitors to shame. If the peasants on whose farm he lived had owned a mirror, and if he had had the mental capacity to recognise his own reflection, he would have been most pleased at his dangling purple gobble and glossy black fan of tail feathers. Senor Muy Rico's life was filled with simple pleasures: mating, strutting, eating - living moment by moment. So simple was his approach to life, in fact, that he did not even know that his name was Senor Muy Rico.'  (Publication abstract)

 

'Charlie waits for me outside the school gates, leaning against his Ford and smoking Camels. Charlie's cooler than anyone I know. He wears a black windbreaker and has his hair done real high and slick. I run to him as soon as the bell rings and let him kiss me right there against the car. I don't care what the girls in my class say - none of them have a boyfriend as cool as Charlie, who's been out of school for years and doesn't have to earn his wages on some dumb old farm...' 

 (Publication abstract)