Cracking The Spine: ten short Australian stories and how they were written

This is a collection of ten short Australian stories each accompanied by an essay by the author and an introduction by Amanda Lohrey. The essays range from theoretical discussions about the interplay of literature, art and the imagination from academics, Patrick West and Maria Takolander, through to more straightforward, but no less significant, observations about the writing process by seasoned author, Marion Halligan, and from emerging author, Claire Aman. Experimental author, Ryan O’Neill cleverly patches together a narrative using 100 lines from short Australian stories ranging from nineteen century writer, Henry Lawson to new voices of the twenty first century. His essay opens the collection, taking the reader through a short history of the short story in Australia. Overland’s Rjurik Davidson writes in a literary form of speculative genre-writing he dubs, ‘slow fantasy.’ In ‘Architecture’, Jen Mills’ Gen Y Australian architect finds herself marooned in a Chinese economic boomtown. In ‘Good Rubbish’, Andy Kissane walks in the sandals of kids working as scavengers at a Phnom Penh dump. In ‘Cartography’, Tony Birch looks at his hometown, Melbourne, through the eyes of a Somalian refugee and Alice Springs’ writer, Michael Giacometti writes from the point of view of a six-year-old ‘rivers of grog’ victim. These writers are all well aware of the imaginative and empathetic potential, as well as pitfalls and limitations, of ‘writing what they do not know’.

‘Filled with cutting-edge, innovative writers and armed with an expansive definition of what it is to be an Australian, Cracking the Spine will be at once accessible to undergraduate students and informative and challenging for their teachers. What a thrill to see a work like this come about!’

—NICHOLAS BIRNS, ANTIPODES

Literature, life, landscape, history: the whole gamut of Antipodean experience may be gleaned from its pages. An ideal resource for those interested in Ozlit, Cracking the Spine is also a pure pleasure to read.’

—GEORDIE WILLIAMSON