The Failure of Language

Just cruising the internet and seeking out writing gigs. Thought I'd share. :)

The AWHA Flash and Short Story Competition: Horror stories, tales that frighten, yarns that unsettle us in our comfortable homes:

Boo!

A list of opportunities courtesy of the National Young Writer's Festival:

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Yesterday, the winners of the 2009 John Marsden Prize for Young Australian Writers was announced. Continuing Scriber-Space's winning streak, as established by the illustrious Tim Roberts, my poem 'The Wolves Go' was awarded as Highly Commended. :)

John Marsden had this to say:

'This is a disturbing, beautifully written poem. From the opening line we know we are in interesting hands. Ominous, sinister, but a work of art. The poet plunders old stories to take us into a world where nothing is saf… Continue

You feel the colour rising from your lips to your cheeks and the sweat from your nape sliding down your back, your back arched against your stomach which is big and ready to drop like a ripe fruit. In front of you sits a woman with lips pursed.

I'm sorry, she says. We don't have a maternity ward here. A chill climbs the wobbling ladder of your spine and the muscles in your lower back clench like a fist.

Your car car broke down on the highway and no one would stop and your phone didn't work. Yo… Continue

There's a grimace on his face and I know he's cracked like grandma's china. His face presses to the floor, there's wet dust and the smell of urine and sweat and blood in his nostrils. Sometimes his own, sometimes not, because these rooms aren't cleaned all that often. If you leave the floor drenched in the agony of previous POWs there's a ghost in the room, and you want them scared. You want their heart slapping hard bass against their sternum before you even throw your shadow in the door.

Most… Continue

The water pressure had been nonexistent and our yard bled brown water. There was a leak in the main water pipe. Dad had taken a shovel and dug a hole deep as he was tall in the centre of the smelly slosh and recruited me as help. Crouched in the hole, head to toe muddy and mutinous, I made a suggestion.

'Maybe we should call a plumber.'

'Kate,' grumbled Dad warningly. Dad was no plumber. He was a doctor. I supposed all his years in the business had ingrained in him an instinct for fixing thing… Continue