The Australian Writers’ Centre runs a Furious Fiction writing competition on the first weekend of every month. Writers have 55 hours to write a 500-word short story based on a brief. The first prize is AUD$500, with the winner and shortlisted entries showcased on the Writers’ Centre website.I entered my first Furious Fiction in April 2020. And to help me focus on my writing, the competition fell on the first weekend of COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney.April’s story had to begin ...

I entered my first Furious Fiction writing competition in April 2020. Run by the Australian Writers’ Centre, I had 55 hours to write a 500-word short story based on their brief. And the timing was perfect because it fell on the first weekend of COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney.From April 2020 to March 2021, I wrote and submitted twelve Furious Fictions, sharing the short stories on the Tall And True writers’ website and narrating them for my Tall And True Short Reads podcast.I d...

I discovered the microfiction genre when I reviewed Loopholes by Susan McCreery for Writing NSW in 2017. The microfiction in Loopholes ranges from several paragraphs on one or two pages to only three short sentences.By definition, brevity is the key to good microfiction. There is no time for plot and character development, so every word must count. In Loopholes, McCreery plunges the reader into perfectly formed glimpses of everyday lives, with no time to ...

"For Alex and the Adaptive Generation, AI was a logical step in human evolution. It enhanced life, leaving them feeling less stressed and anxious. AI also offered hope for mitigating and adapting to the existential effects of climate change."One Day in the Life of Alex's AI and Other Speculative Fiction is a collection of twenty speculative fiction short stories written by writer and podcaster Robert Fairhead between 1992 and 2024.The title story takes place over a single d...

Inspired by Phil Collins’ 1993 eponymous hit, I wrote this collection of four vignettes and a fifth piece to pull them together for a major UK short story writing competition in 1994.The news at the time was full of stories about people for whom the public (including me) had little sympathy. I watched Collins’ Both Sides music video on MTV and wondered: Could I show both sides of the news in a short story?After two solid weeks of late nights writing, I felt I had achieved t...

An easy-to-use guide for writers, editors and studentsThe Mini Style Guide covers the fundamentals of good writing and explains how to present a manuscript for publication. It is written in a direct and accessible manner suitable for all ages and backgrounds, and assumes no prior knowledge of the writing trade or the publishing industry. Explanations are accompanied by plentiful ‘real life’ examples, and each chapter opens with a humorous quotatio...