Emma Ashmere's Blog

…and I’m thrilled to be one of them! My thanks to all at Spineless Wonders. From the media release: Twelve finalists have been selected for the 2021 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award by judge Roanna Gonsalves. The finalists were chosen from a field of 100 submissions which included short story collections as well as novellas […]

Local ABC breakfast radio has been asking authors to choose their three favourite summer reads. With so many fantastic books published during COVID – thankfully – it was very tricky to narrow it down. So, as we dive into autumn here, I’ve stretched three books to four – plus a few others. WEATHER by Jenny […]

  Today I’m celebrating the international day of people with disability in all its pride and diversity by recommending a few wonderful books written by people with lived experience of disability and chronic illness. The term in this post’s heading ‘chronic uncertainty’ is borrowed from Jacinta Parson’s excellent new memoir Unseen, mentioned below. It’s been […]

In the second of my ‘Three Questions With’ interviews with writers published during COVID, Jennifer Castles talks about working with Australian football star Tayla Harris on her new book Tayla Harris: More Than a Kick. Jennifer also describes juggling her roles as a submissions editor at Allen & Unwin publishing, and as a freelance writer/co-writer […]

DREAMS THEY FORGOT is out today! Thanks to my publishers Wakefield Press, twenty-three of my stories have been put together in one beautifully designed book. DREAMS THEY FORGOT  is available in paperback and e-book, and is listed on the Sydney Morning Herald’s Books to Read in 2020 and Readings Books to Get Excited About. Read […]

When the lockdown first hit, many writers said they couldn’t write. And many usually voracious readers said they couldn’t read. It’s as if there was a mass readers-and-writers block. Whether that’s the case or not, I’ve been reading much more than writing. This isn’t a surprise. Whenever I get stuck with writing I turn to […]

Award-winning writer Carol Lefevre answers Three Questions about her ‘lucid,  exceptional, devastatingly good’ new work of fiction Murmurations. Based in Adelaide, South Australia, Carol is a short story writer, novelist, journalist and essayist. She talks here about the structure of this deftly constructed multi-layered book, her haunting use of silences and gaps, the inspiration of Edward Hopper’s paintings, influences […]

My new short story collection Dreams They Forgot will be out in June. Here’s an article about navigating the advice – and counter-advice – on building a house of short fiction. Much has been said about short stories – as a form. They’re the literary equivalent of practising your scales, limbering up for the novel […]

My short story ‘Nightfall’ has just been published on adda, the online literary magazine for the Commonwealth Foundation. The story was shortlisted for the Pacific region of the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize. ‘Nightfall’ is set in 1800s Adelaide and features the Prado Music Hall at the old Queens Theatre. Apparently it’s the oldest theatre […]

My short story ‘Nightfall’ has just been published on adda, the online literary magazine for the Commonwealth Foundation. The story was shortlisted for the Pacific region of the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize. ‘Nightfall’ is set in 1800s Adelaide and features the Prado Music Hall at the old Queens Theatre. Apparently it’s the oldest theatre […]