Our latest blog posts

What we're reading: Fiona Wood, Ron Rash and Elena Ferrante

Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Emily Gale is reading Cloudwish by Fiona Wood

This week it was my pleasure to read Fiona Wood’s young adult novel, Cloudwish, the third in a series of connected stories that can be read completely independently of each other or as a set. Six Impossible Things introduces us to some characters in…

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The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2015 shortlist

We’re delighted to announce the 2015 shortlist for The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction! Established in 2014, this prize supports published Australian authors working in fiction, and recognises exciting and exceptional new contributions to local literature.

The six shortlisted books are:

The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop
Last Day in the Dynamite Factory by Annah Faulkner
In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones
Arms Race by Nic Low
Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman
Heat and Light

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Meet the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction shortlist 2015

We’ve announced the shortlist for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2015. Here, we introduce the six shortlisted authors.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

Stephanie Bishop, author of The Other Side of the World

Stephanie Bishop holds a PhD from Cambridge and is currently a lecturer in creative writing at the University of New South Wales. Her first novel was The Singing, for which she was named one of the…

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Read an extract from Last Day in the Dynamite Factory by Annah Faulkner

by Annah Faulkner

We’re delighted that Last Day in the Dynamite Factory by Annah Faulkner is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here is a short extract from the novel.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

1997

Jo’s end was brutal, too, but slow. Not felled by a single blow, but eaten away, from the inside.

Chris sat with her during those last few days, giving her…

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Read an extract from The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop

by Stephanie Bishop

We’re delighted that The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here is a short extract from the novel.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

Prologue
Cambridge, 1966

She would have walked, only Henry said no. The footpaths are treacherous, he told her, and I don’t want you slipping and injuring yourself when I’ve just found…

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Read an extract from Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven

by Ellen van Neerven

We’re delighted that Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here is a short extract from ‘Pearl’, one of the stories in the collection.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

It was a slight, old woman in a pie shop off the highway that told me who my grandmother was. I barely saw her over the counter…

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Read an extract from Arms Race by Nic Low

by Nic Low

We’re delighted that Arms Race by Nic Low is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here is a short extract from ‘Octopus’, one of the stories in the collection.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

At ten the sun finally sets and the pub fills up and the news comes on. It’s my round. A couple of aunties up the back give me a…

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Read an extract from In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones

by Eliza Henry-Jones

We’re delighted that In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here is a short extract from the novel.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

I don’t know how I died. That’s strange, isn’t it? To be dead and know that but to not know how it happened. To not know my last memory.

It’s not something that I…

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Read an extract from Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman

by Abigail Ulman

We’re delighted that Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here is a short extract from ‘Chagall’s Wife’, one of the stories in the collection.

Find more information about this year’s shortlist (including the judges’ report) here.

I had never before bumped into a teacher on the weekend. But there he was, sitting at the counter in the window, and I slowed down to…

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