THE WHITER THE SOCKS

Short Story featured in Westerly Magazine, issue 64.1

The Whiter the Socks is a short story based on my grandmother’s experience at Hohenfels Stalag 383 displaced persons camp after WWII.

THE LONG AND GRINDING ROAD

Short story featured in The Big Issue Australia, Summer, Issue 578

The Long and Grinding Road was inspired by one of the most difficult years of my life in which I spent many hours aboard the Firefly Express night-bus from Adelaide to Melbourne and back again.

MOTHER

Short story featured in Island Magazine, Spring, Issue 155

Mother is a psychological horror inspired by a notorious Adelaide Hills firebug who was sentenced to 13 years prison in 2007 for the deliberate lighting of 21 fires around the town of Harrogate using customised mosquito coils.

LEADEN HEART

Short story featured in Meanjin Quarterly, Spring, Vol 76, Issue 3 

Based on the true story of George ‘Billy’ Hunt’ and his escape attempt from the convict Penitentiary of Port Arthur in the the carcass of a kangaroo.

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THE MOON AND THE SUNDARBAN

Short story featured in issue 1 of Asian-Australian Literary Magazine ‘Pencilled In’ – Fear and Hope.

This short story was inspired by a documentary I saw on the BBC UK channel in 2013 entitled, ‘The Man-Eating Tigers of the Sundarbans’. The documentary was about the Bengal Tiger living in the tidal mangroves of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh—the only place in the world where tigers actively seek out human prey (up to 300 people are attacked and killed each year). While it is a phenomenon that continues to stump ecologists, it has been loosely attributed to global warming (rising tide levels leading to a decrease in tiger’s rainforest territory). This is a concern for both the villagers and the tiger conservationists, who have seen a rise in poaching and ‘revenge killings’ of the endangered creature as a response.

The most fascinating part of the documentary was the conservationists’ innovative plan to train local stray dogs as a pack to warn villagers when a tiger is near. The bravery, intelligence and instinct for survival of these previously mistreated strays was what inspired me to write this story about Dukhe, a stray dog from the streets of Khula, Bangladesh, who finds his leadership of the Chadpai pack threatened by a mysterious creature lurking on the outskirts of the forest. He goes to investigate, and in the course of a single turning tide, changes the hierarchy of the forest forever.
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PETRIFIED

Microfiction featured in the first issue of Dubnium Young Editors Project, sponsored by Carclew Arts and SA Writers Centre.

I wrote this piece of micro fiction in 2015 while on a tour in Barcelona with my family. While we waited on the bus for our tour group to return, I saw a beggar standing on the footpath across the road with his dog at his feet. I wrote as I observed.

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A GYPSY IN A WAR TORN COUNTRY

This poem was recognised in the Imprint Booksellers competition run through the Flinders University school of Humanities in 2012.

In 2009, I lived and worked as an assistant English teacher in a remote community in Northern Vietnam. I was inspired to write this poem on a late night bus trip to Hanoi just after some particularly bad flooding in the area. Seeing locals paddling about on canoes just to get in and out of their houses was something I’ll never forget.

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METAMORPHOSIS

This poem was published Poem featured in Mint Magazine, Issue 7, 2013.

This poem was inspired by a creative writing unit I devised with a grade 8 class at one of my practical schools during my education degree. We were studying the ‘dialogue poem’. I wrote this as an example.

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