Steven Kay
Edward Winn-Dix
I spent some time working on a farm near Warialda, where half of the story is set, and as I looked at these wide open plains, they reminded me a little of the ocean that I had left behind. I began to wonder what a land-shark might look like and, out of this process, the story of Steven Kay was born. I think the restlessness that afflicts him is something all young people know. I don’t know what you should do with all this energy – I write – but I get the feeling it’s pretty important.
For Adults, Who Have Forgetten
James Shackell
This piece is really just a set of instructions for what to do if you find yourself inside a fairy tale. I guess I wrote it to remind people of all the stories they used to love but have since forgotten or dismissed as childish. When you’re halfway through a law degree, you begin to realize that you have the rest of your life to grow up, and there’s no rush to get there. And wasn’t the world a more magical place when the bottom of the garden could be anything you imagined it to be?
Three Steps
Rhiannon Wapling
My story is about the struggle of one lady to resume her normal life after being involved in a car accident. It focuses on the everyday task of getting onto a tram unassisted, which presents a huge challenge to this lady. This story highlights how even the smallest event can be enormously difficult for someone with a disability, and also how every little win on the road to recovery means everything to their mental and physical wellbeing.
The Infinity Cloak
Robert Stenberg
The Infinity Cloak is a piece of prose I composed, as a young person; to better understand life at the opposite end of the spectrum, in the time shortly before death. Fascinated with the concept of trying to grapple reality from the standpoint of a mind that is ‘wasting away’ I wanted to combine this horrific sense of impending doom with the loss of memory to place my central character alone in an unfamiliar wilderness. To ‘find his way back’, I wanted to look at the positive effects of vanity, generally considered a “sin”, in regaining one’s sense of self.
Methuselah's Last
Samuel Webster
Methuselah’s Last is a biblical allegory about the tragedy of forced immortality. Methuselah, a man who has far outlived his great grand children, lives on the fourth floor of a New York apartment building, counting wrinkles and experimenting with a bread making machine until, by the grace of God, he finds his release.
