In The Best Australian Stories 2011, Cate Kennedy presents the most outstanding short fiction of the past year.
These stories take us deep into our past, into strange and surprising parallel universes, and into unexplored corners of the present. Wonderfully eclectic and brimming with new and familiar voices, this is an ideal companion for summer and a perfect introduction to Australia’s finest storytellers.
Contributors include Chris Womersley, Karen Hitchcock, Nicholas Jose, Debra Adelaide, Mark Dapin, Marele Day, Louis Nowra, Rodney Hall, Favel Parrett, Mark O’Flynn, Jennifer Mills, Tim Richards, Gretchen Shirm, Michael Sala, Joanne Riccioni, Julie Chevalier, Russell King, Deborah FitzGerald, Rebecca Giggs, Nick Smith, Sarah Holland-Batt, Penny O’Hara, Stephanie Buckle, Kate Rotherham, Miriam Sved, Karen Manton, Sharon Kent, Leah Swann, Cathrine Cole, Liam Davison and Marion Halligan.
Cate Kennedy is an Australian author based in Victoria. She graduated from University of Canberra and has also taught at several colleges, including The University of Melbourne. She is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. It was also shortlisted for The Age fiction prize 2010 and the ASA Barbara Jefferis Award 2010, among others. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has twice won The Age Short Story Competition and has appeared in a range of publications, including The New Yorker. Her collection, Dark Roots, was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Cate is also the author of the travel memoir Sing, and Don’t Cry, and the poetry collections Joyflight and Signs of Other Fires. Her latest book is The Taste of River Water: New and Selected Poems by Cate Kennedy, which was published in May 2011 and won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry.
A great collection of stories. I particularly loved: Ten-day Socks by Marele Day Blow In by Rebecca Giggs Home by Catherine Cole and Duty of Care by Joanne Riccioni