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The Best of New Writing in Australia

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Vanta Black

Stephanie Bishop

Vanta Black by Stephanie Bishop

M

Gay Lynch

Matilda had a thing about arrivals. On planes, even when not working on foreign policy, she wore tailored suits and carried a valise, as if on her way to an important meeting, or in the event of becoming ejected, disembodied over enemy territory, needing to command as much respect as a man, as Roosi, for instance, or any of her colleagues. Nothing could be done about shots fired by narcissistic young men. One had killed her brother. And now she found herself alighting from a taxi at the head of the circular driveway to the Grand-Hôtel, Cabourg, looking as bourgeois as […]

Of Burnt Photos and Old Friends

Raaza Jamshed Butt

Beyond the glass enclosure of the pool, past the herb garden, city lights bristle at the seams of the sky. Out at the edge of a nature reserve, this house stands at a gentle gradient; on nights when the moon is on the rise I get a tidal view of tree heads standing tall like sentinels at the borders of my house. At two in the morning, Hajj and my two youngest boys are asleep inside. The back yard is still, its silence punctuated by the occasional roar of tyres turning on the road in the distance. Underneath a cauldron, […]

No Toes

Michael Mohammed Ahmad

‘She keeps her eyes on me, but slowly her eyebrows come down and she mumbles, ‘I’m not a ganga.’ Then she unpacks her McChicken…’

Dialogue

New fiction by Rebecca Varcoe

November 2, 2017

  Cassie You’ve never met Cassie’s Dad. You couldn’t even tell what he looks like, but you know he’s shit—she’s told you enough. ‘She talks about her Dad a lot.’ ‘Yeah, I know—it’s weird, right?’ you say absentmindedly, inspecting the hair on your legs that has grown since you’ve been back in the cold. Picking at the ingrown hairs, pushing back against the grain to feel the spikes in the gap between your boots and cuffs. She’s talking to you about Sarah’s Dad. She calls him Daddy. ‘But I mean, is it weird, though? Like just ‘cos my Dad’s a […]

The Blue Car

Anthony Lynch

They laughed, uneasily. Every hour one or both looked out their kitchen window. The car remained parked, most likely with the man inside, but from the first floor of their space-age block they could not be sure.

Beacon

Rebecca Slater

By the time mum pulls into the station, Levi is about ready to piss himself …

Miracles

Jennifer Mills

Miracles by Jennifer Mills

Best of Meanjin 2017: Fiction

 

In its long history Meanjin has had the honour of bringing some of Australia’s finest voices to readers—and what form could be so involving, so transportive, so seductive, as the short story? We count ourselves as inestimably fortunate to have read, worked with, and published so many wonderful writers over the last year. Here you will find some of our favourites. From Punchbowl, Sydney to Cabourg, France, these pieces by established and emerging writers have enlivened our minds with the rich and disparate worlds of the characters within.

Site by Madeleine Egan

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