AustLit

'From the 2020 winner of the Thomas Shapcott Award comes a sophisticated, impressive and rich collection of poetry that unpacks the complexity of family, grief, and cross-cultural and queer identity.

'These richly allusive poems weigh violence and tenderness, wound and cure, history and future. Boldly and tenderly, they balance loss and gain, adventure and quiet, as they hum to one another of love and loss. This is a scintillating and exhilarating collection from an accomplished and distinctive new voice.' (Publication summary)

'The stories in this impressive, thoughtful collection explore the human heart and its desire and capacity for joy.

'A divorced woman discovers a growing sinkhole in her yard, a lonely man finds an abandoned toddler, a second wife in a fundamentalist community questions her religion, a young Australian veteran of the Afghanistan conflict is haunted by a memory from his last mission. Fiona Robertson’s stories traverse the globe to reveal people at moments of change or crisis, as they struggle to repair fractures in their lives and search for something close to happiness.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'After committing an audacious act of revenge for her brother’s murder, Disa flees with her son Sindri through the fjords of Iceland. She has already endured the death of her loved ones. Now she must run to save her son, and her honour.

'In a society where betrayals and revenge killings are rife, all Disa has is her pride and her courage. Will it be enough for her and her son to escape retribution?

'Dramatic and urgent in its telling, The Sorrow Stone celebrates one woman’s quest, against the dramatic backdrop of the Icelandic countryside. In this gripping novel, the co-author of the bestselling Saga Land takes a sidelined figure from the Viking tales and finally puts her where she belongs – at the centre of the story.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Jay’s life is devoted to the care of her twin teenage sons, who view the world as differently as it views them. Frank is sweet, overweight and bullied, while Teddy is whip-sharp, despite needing an iPad to speak. With an absent husband, and embroiled in an endless battle with social services, Jay comes to depend on Keep, her lifelong half-real friend. But in the corner of her eye lurks her mother, and a childhood Jay knows she can’t ever outrun.

'Jay believes she is managing things quite well, with a half-grip on this half-life of hers. That is, until Teddy starts to get sick, refusing to eat, while doctors refuse to listen, confounding everything Jay thought she knew about what lies ahead.

'The Keepers is an incredible and fiercely honest debut about the damage done by parents who can’t love, the failures of a community that only claims to care, and the resilience of those whose stories mostly go untold.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'April thinks if her town was a colour, it would be grey. Everyone is too busy to stop and look around. How can she help them slow down?

'When she remembers the happiness that dandelions brought her grandmother, April comes up with a plan ...

'Bursting with colour, this is a sweet story about flowers, family and the wonders children wish for.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'A groundbreaking work – and a call to arms – that exposes the ongoing colonial violence experienced by First Nations people.

'In this collection of deeply insightful and powerful essays, Chelsea Watego examines the ongoing and daily racism faced by First Nations peoples in so-called Australia. Rather than offer yet another account of ‘the Aboriginal problem’, she theorises a strategy for living in a social world that has only ever imagined Indigenous peoples as destined to die out. Drawing on her own experiences and observations of the operations of the colony, she exposes the lies that settlers tell about Indigenous people. In refusing such stories, Chelsea tells her own: fierce, personal, sometimes funny, sometimes anguished. She speaks not of fighting back but of standing her ground against colonialism in academia, in court, and in media.' (Publication summary)

'Sarah Holland-Batt’s highly acclaimed and popular poetry columns from The Australian are collected together for the first time in Fishing for Lightning – suitable for the general reader as well as poetry aficionados.' (Publication summary)

'This brilliant collection of short fiction explores the shifting spaces of desire, loss and longing. Inverting and queering the gothic and romantic traditions, each story represents a different take on the concept of a haunting or the haunted. Though it ranges across themes and locations – from small-town Australia to Hokkaido to rural England – Permafrost is united by the power of the narratorial voice, with its auto-fictional resonances, dark wit and swagger.

'Whether recounting the confusion of a child trying to decipher their father and stepmother’s new relationship, the surrealness of an after-hours tour of Auschwitz, or a journey to wintry Japan to reconnect with a former lover, Permafrost unsettles, transports and impresses in equal measure.' (Publication summary)

'Isaac is running from his old life when he steps off the bus in a small town. He doesn’t plan on sticking around and has nowhere to stay, but a local café owner's kindness offers him a chance to change his story. Then Isaac meets Sophie and learns he’s not the only one wanting to repaint his life.

'As he did so masterfully with The Simple Gift, Steven Herrick delves into the universal themes of rising above the past and taking control of your future.' (Publication summary)

'A powerful and lyrical collection of poetry by the winner of the 2020 David Unaipon Award.

'the end of the world was marked with beautiful light we should have known

'Simmering with protest and boundless love, Jazz Money's David Unaipon Award-winning collection, how to make a basket, examines the tensions of living in the Australian colony today. By turns scathing, funny and lyrical, Money uses her poetry as an extension of protest against the violence of the colonial state, and as a celebration of Blak and queer love. Deeply personal and fiercely political, these poems attempt to remember, revision and re-voice history.

'Writing in both Wiradjuri and English language, Money explores how places and bodies hold memories, and the ways our ancestors walk with us, speak through us and wait for us.' (Publication summary)

'An unforgettable and profound novel about three generations of one family and the healing power of understanding where you've come from.

'As a teenager in the 1970s, Sarah is forced to leave her home in upstate New York to accompany a missionary to Idaho. When she falls pregnant, she is despatched to relatives in Sydney, who place her in a home for unmarried mothers. Years later her daughter, Bet, pieces together her mother's life story, hoping to understand her better. As she learns more about Sarah's past, Bet struggles to come to terms with her own history and identity, yet is determined to make peace with Sarah's choices before it's too late.

'Lucy Neave's moving and deeply personal second novel, Believe in Me, explores the relationships between mothers and their children across three generations of one family. The book questions what we can ever truly know of our parents' early lives, even as their experiences weave ineffably into our identities and destinies.' (Publication summary)

'Luke and his big brother Ben spend the summer on the banks of Cabbage Tree Creek. Quiet Luke sketches birds, while Ben leaps off the Jumping Tree. The boys couldn’t be more different but they share the same dream: winning a boat so they can explore the creek properly.

'Then Ben starts high school and the boys drift apart. When Luke catches Ben sneaking out at night, he knows his brother's up to something, but what?

'A timeless story of birds and boats, and of brotherly love that is bigger than a wedge-tailed eagle, bigger than the sky.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Eleven-year-old Killarney thinks school is boring. She’d much rather be exploring the wilderness around her Tasmanian hometown or helping her hairdresser mum. When strange things start to happen – ear-splitting screams in the dead of night and missing items found under the house – there’s even less chance of Killarney doing her schoolwork. She’s too busy solving the mystery.

'Before long, Killarney discovers the culprit: a wild Tasmanian devil, denning under the house! Killarney is excited, but many of the locals are terrified. When rumours about dangerous devils begin spreading, Killarney is determined to protect her precious visitor. But can she convince an entire town these wild creatures are worth saving?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'We live in a world that expects us to be constantly in control of ourselves. Our bodies and minds, though, have other ideas.

'In this striking debut, artist and writer Sarah Walker wrestles with the awkward spaces where anatomy meets society: body image and Photoshop, phobias and religion, sex scenes and onstage violence, death and grief. Her luminous writing is at once specific and universal as she mines the limits of anxiety, intimacy and control.

'Sharp-witted and poignant, this collection of essays explores our unruly bodies and asks how we might learn to embrace our own chaos.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Mina wants her own bedroom more than anything else in the whole wide world. And it’s almost ready! Just one more lick of sunny yellow paint and it’s hers.

'But when Mina's parents take in an unexpected guest, they give her room away. At first, Mina is too upset to speak. She doesn’t care that this new kid, Azzami, needs a place to stay.

'At school, the other kids call Azzami names, and Mina wishes he’d stand up for himself. Then she sees his drawings, and for the first time really thinks about the life of the quiet boy in front of her.

'Told in candid verse, here is a story about finding friendship where you least expect it and making room for everyone across this big wide world.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'A heartfelt story of one girl’s determination to save her beloved home and the lyrical companion tale to The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn.

'When Melodie Rose is abandoned on the doorstep of Direleafe Hall, she realises she must be a ghost. Strangely, she is not sad. With the three other ghostly girls who haunt the school and a gloomy crow on her shoulder, Melodie has never felt more at peace. Finally there is a place for her to call home.

'So when a lady in white arrives with plans to flatten her beloved school, Melodie Rose must act fast to save all she holds dear. But what can one powerless ghost do?

'The Ballad of Melodie Rose is a life-affirming tale of belonging, being brave and being seen.' (Publication summary)

'A timely and important collection of poems by the award-winning author of The White Girl and Blood. Divided into three sections – Blood, Skin and Water – the poems in Whisper Songs address themes of loss (of people and place), the legacies of colonial history and violence, and the relationships between Country and memory.

'Tony Birch invites the reader into a tender conversation with those he loves - and has loved - the most. He also challenges the past to speak up by interrogating the archive, including documents from his own family history, highlighting forcefully the ways in which the personal is also intensely political. Whisper Songs reveals Birch at his lyrical and intimate best.' (Publication summary)

'When Dymphna Stella Rees – named after family friends Dymphna Cusack and Stella Miles Franklin – finds bundles of love letters buried in her parents' archive, she is intrigued by the discovery.

'Leslie Rees and Coralie Clarke Rees were a power couple of the Australian literary scene in the mid-twentieth century. They took their shared dream of being writers from Perth to London and launched themselves in Fleet Street, interviewing some of the century’s literary greats, including James Joyce, AA Milne, and George Bernard Shaw.

'After settling in Sydney in the 1930s, they embraced the city’s vibrant arts scene and established prolific careers. Leslie became an award-winning children’s book author and the ABC’s national drama editor, while Coralie was one of the country’s first female broadcasters. They influenced the development of an authentically Australian arts culture and included among their friends Mary Gilmore, Ruth Park, D’Arcy Niland, Mary Durack and Vance and Nettie Palmer. Their partnership and legacy is only fully examined here for the first time.

'Drawn from personal notebooks, letters and original transcripts, A Paper Inheritance is the engrossing story of what drove this literary couple to prominence and is a celebration of their love and their passion for words.' (Publication summary)

'This wide-ranging and captivating anthology showcases both the power of First Nations writing and the satisfaction of a good short story. Curated by award-winning author Ellen van Neerven, Flock roams the landscape of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, bringing together voices from across the generations. Featuring established authors such as Tony Birch and Melissa Lucashenko, and rising stars such as Adam Thompson and Mykaela Saunders, Flock confirms the ongoing resonance and originality of First Nations stories.' (Publication summary)

'When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England’s most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and give her mother an inspiring break from the difficult life she has endured.

'Twenty-five years earlier the abduction and murder of Jasmine’s sister shocked and broke their tight-knit community in northern NSW. The legacy of losing their sister and daughter follows Jasmine and Della as they visit the homes of English literary greats such as Thomas Hardy, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, with Jasmine hoping to escape the challenges of the life she has carved for herself and Della, reflecting on the rich stories of her own life and people.' (Publication summary)