‘The one thing these stories have in common, apart from their determination to exist, is a desire to take something familiar and twist it to reveal a different face.’

So says author Sean Williams in his introduction to Uncanny Angles, a collection of short stories by the New York Times bestselling author. Each story in the collection is introduced with a behind-the-scenes sketch of how the story came to be, offering new insights into Sean’s work. At the end of each story, there are tips directing you to others in the collection, inviting readers to choose their own adventure.

We’re pleased to share an edited extract of one of the stories from this collection: ‘Impossible Music’. Read it below.

Banner image features artwork by Shane Bevin

We’re pleased to announce the joint winners of the July WWWC: Valerie Volk and Mike Ladd! This is the first time we’ve announced a joint winner for the WWWC. It’s also the first time that poetry entries have taken out the top prize.

Read Valerie’s winning poem, ‘Moonrise’, and Mike’s winning poem (and accompanying prose), ‘Glimmer of Light’, below.

Environmentally responsible? For Elizabeth Hutchins, it’s a matter of cats. In this guest post, Elizabeth discusses conservation, the ‘cat problem’, and her recently republished children’s novel, A Matter of Cats.

Elizabeth’s dilemma, being a cat lover while appreciating the damage cats do to wildlife, was the catalyst for this novel.

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the June WWWC: Maureen Alsop! Maureen’s response to the prompt ‘heroes and villains’ is an experimental and abstract tale of love, loss and grief.

Read Maureen’s winning entry, ‘Heroes and Villains’, below.

Author Stephen Orr is a prolific writer, spinning yarns with an unmistakably nostalgic Australian flavour, and this guest piece is no different. In ‘The Land of the Giants’ Stephen reflects on his childhood as a small, weedy boy in a world full of monsters and bullies.

We are thrilled to share this story, and even more thrilled to be publishing a collection of short stories by Stephen later this year. The titular story from the collection, ‘The Boy in Time’, shares its name with the recently announced winner of the 2021 Patricia Hackett Prize (Stephen loves to recycle!), awarded by Westerly magazine. Find that story here.

Stephen has also recently had another experimental short story published in the Saturday Paper. ‘A perfect day for bream’ is a mind-bending piece, blending together two very different stories. Find it here.

Read ‘The Land of the Giants’ below.

The History Council of South Australia Wakefield Press Essay Prize is awarded to the author of an essay that deals substantially with some aspect of South Australian history. This year’s prize was awarded to Stephen Valambras Graham of UniSA for ‘Open Doors: The Art of Charity in the Promised Land’.

The judges say that ‘this essay is an intriguing re-examination of well-known images that challenges our traditional understandings of them, and our State’s past’.

We are thrilled to be able to republish Stephen’s essay here on the Wakefield Press blog. This essay was originally published in the journal of the Historical Society of South Australia in 2021 (vol. 49).

Banner image: S.T. Gill, Going To Work, undated, watercolour, 25 x 33 cm, Canberra, National Library of Australia

Edited by Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science is a collection of essays written in the context of the French explorers’ belief that studying in situ was the only way for science to move forward.

In a special three-part guest series on the blog, John West-Sooby discusses how the book came to be, and the discoveries made along the way. In this third instalment, John examines the specimens collected on the Baudin expedtion.

Read on below.

Banner image: Terre De Diemen: Ile Maria. Tombeaux des Naturels, (detail) by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur