The Best Australian Stories 2011

‘Great short stories have a power like a depth charge, subtext roiling up to the surface at precisely the right moment.’ —Cate Kennedy

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.

‘These tales release such an emotional charge that it's hard to read more than one in a sitting.’ —Hobart Mercury

‘For a volume that opens in a palliative-care ward and closes in a cemetery, you might expect it to provide a grim reflection of our state, but the craft and care behind the bulk of these stories produces quite the opposite result.’ —Sunday Age

‘Judging by the work here, the present and future of Australian literary culture is in safe hands.’ —Law Society Journal

Cate Kennedy is the author of the critically acclaimed short-story collection Dark Roots and the novel The World Beneath, as well as poetry collections and a travel memoir. Her work has appeared in many publications and anthologies, including The Best Australian Stories, the Harvard Review and the New Yorker. She is highly regarded as a teacher of short fiction and works as a mentor, editor and judge when not at work on her own writing. She lives in north-east Victoria.