University of Queensland Press
The Shrinking Nation: How we got here and what can be done about it by Graeme Turner
The Sitter by Angela O'Keeffe & Vincent & Sien by Silvia Kwon
By the Book: A literary history of Queensland by Patrick Buckridge & Belinda McKay
Changes, Issues and Prospects in Australian Education edited by S. D’Urso and R.A. Smith
There’s a theory that short fiction is the perfect panacea for modern life. As our attention spans grow weak on a diet of digital gruel and as our free time clogs up with late-night work emails, enter the short story as an efficient fiction-booster administered daily on the commute between suburb and CBD. I love this theory, and I will forever resent Jane Rawson for exposing its flaws in a 2018 Overland article on the subject. Rawson explains that most time-poor readers prefer to dip in and out of long novels, where they can greet familiar worlds without the awkward orientation period required by a new text. In contrast, says Rawson, collections of ‘stories plunge you back into that icy pool of not-knowing every 500, 800, 2000 or 5000 words. Who wants that? Pretty much no-one, if bestseller lists are anything to go by.’
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