- Written 1998-2000 (many rewrites); Commended in Studio Contest 2001. First published in Studio Summer 2000/2001
Part of a longer and more complex stream of consciousness work, 'Death in the present tense'; Written for uni writing class May 2001. Rejected by Westerly after 'serious' (nine month) consideration; kind rejects from three other journals
Written soon after 11 Sept 2001. Virtually unseen by the world till now.
I wrote this in August 1999 while doing a first year creative writing unit. It was highly commended in a competition run by Katherine Susanna Pritchard Writing Centre, but after reading it at the award ceremony, I realised I wasn't overly fond of it. It's technically accomplished (I think) and pretty interesting but it probably reflects the emptiness I was feeling at that period of my life.
This was my second assignment for that same class.; It was one of my favourite stories for a long time, and my tutor Simone Lazaroo liked it a lot also, I think. I suddenly had a vision of a story interspersed with a mock documentary, with 'found' texts, which told of a crazy night and couple of days I had. And the thing is, I ended up achieving it; and in achieving it, I also exorcised some demons that were haunting me, or at least a tiny bit. However, no-one would publish the story and so I gave up on it eventually. There is a very interesting postscript to the story which you can read here, but not until you've read the story!
The title is from the Rage Against the Machine song. I wrote the story in about March 1999. Australian Short Stories never got back to me about it... But I always thought it was pretty darn good. All about sexual frustration and being eighteen in a new city.
Juvenilia - I was 17 - but at the peak of my science fiction story writing ability. It won the Brillig Award for best story or poem published in Brillig during the year.
I was really going crazy when I wrote this. About the time I first read Catcher in the Rye. I've always felt I was inspired when I wrote it, full of a mad Rimbaudian spirit. I haven't read it in years though, not even now.
9. The Holocaust Survival Manual (1998)
Experiment with Smashing Pumpkins lyrics, which closely resembles the early stages of The Fur. It won a Mandurah Literary Festival competition.
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