Broken Rules is now scheduled for release on 1 September. We hope that by then conditions might have become more favourable for a new title to hit the shelves. I’ll be looking forward to it. Until then, stay safe and take good care. Happy reading and writing, as always. Continue reading Broken Rules and Other Stories
Winter 2019’s edition of Roomers magazine – Reading, WRiting and Roomers – is available now. My short stories ‘Ernie’ and ‘The Writer’ are included in this issue. If you’d like to read the magazine but can’t get hold of a print copy, it’s available to download, along with past issues, here. More information on the Roomers project is available here. Continue reading Roomers #66 | Winter 2019
“And then lunch, and your winter desserts. Hot custard over steamed puddings. Home-baked. You never used much sugar. Bad for the teeth. And then Mummy’s comments. She always had something to say. ‘It could use a little more sugar, this dessert,’ and you’d tell her that maybe she could make dessert the next time. And that look again, across the table. Not in front of the boy.” My short story Interrupter has been dramatised for broadcast on Cover To Cover on Vision Australia Radio on Friday 6 April, repeated Sunday 8 April. The program can be heard on the radio … Continue reading Interrupter on the wireless
He’s up with the birds, usually. Before them, even. Reeling at the shock of cold water splashes on pasty skin. This is always where the day starts: staring out into the sky, into the depths of dark yard silence. Waiting for light to peel over the edges. In this way, he considers the things done the day before, and how these activities might easily become those for the day ahead. He could visit once again the strangers who live by the bridge. He could stare along the river’s reach, towards the lumbering shipyards, and at the fishermen dotting the rocks. … Continue reading Playful Arrangements | from Roomers #59
1978, a birthday party. One of those once in a blue moon family dos where a local hall gets hired, there’s catering, a DJ. The adults end up drunk and misty. Someone overdoes it, creates a spectacle. There’s a fight. No blood’s spilled, but there’s harsh words, someone gets upset, there’s tears and the gin gets blamed. And so on. That kind of a night. I spent most of it watching Tommy and trying to pretend otherwise. I’d always thought of me and him as the same age, nearly, but since the last time he’d become old enough to drink … Continue reading TONGUE | from Roomers #62
Barry Lee Thompson 