![\"Acquisition](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Blue-Water-Color-Ornament-Blog-Banner-1.png?resize=560%2C315&ssl=1\")
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Jo Case<\/a>, associate publisher at Wakefield Press, compares Roff\u2019s collection to Matthew Baker\u2019s Why Visit America<\/em>, in the way its stories play with ideas through fully realised characters and worlds, with an often-sardonic voice that is also intensely affecting. \u2018The experimentation in these stories never feels forced, but instead masterfully complements the mood or theme of the story. That\u2019s a deceptively tough balance to strike.\u2019<\/p>\n Roff\u2019s stories have been published in Meanjin<\/em>, Griffith Review<\/em>, Overland<\/em>, Island<\/em>, Going Down Swinging<\/em> and more. He was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival\u2019s Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2016.<\/p>\n Roff\u2019s daring, irreverent collection dissects and explores the conundrums of contemporary life and what it is to be human, through a world very like our own. A corporate satire follows a pair of dark operatives working for a chicken franchise as they take careful revenge on counterfeiters. One story told in code, as a coder calculates the odds of her husband\u2019s cold developing complications and killing him, is reminiscent of Jennifer Egan. A relationship at breaking point is told via a scrambled timeline of events that works like a puzzle. A man spends his inheritance on technology that will allow him to fly. And an archeologist working for mining companies against the interests of Indigenous communities develops a mysterious psychological condition that causes her to black out and commit extreme acts of generosity.<\/p>\n Case says she worked closely with Shaw at Melbourne bookshop Readings for many years, where she admired his gift for spotting major new Australian talent well ahead of the pack. \u2018It\u2019s great to be working with Martin again, benefiting from his eye for writing talent.\u2019<\/p>\n Roff is a fan of recently published offbeat, experimental short-story collections by Australian writers like Wayne Marshall, Elizabeth Tan, Ben Walter and Ryan O\u2019Neill. \u2018Now, as a writer, I am looking forward to contributing to that trend in my own small way, he says. \u2018Some of these stories have been telling themselves to me, shifting and re-forming, for close to a decade. I can\u2019t wait to set them loose in the world.\u2019<\/p>\n link<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wakefield Press is delighted to announce the acquisition of world rights to the debut collection by Adelaide author Andrew Roff, winner of last year\u2019s Peter Carey Short Story Award, via agent Martin Shaw of Shaw Literary. Publication of the collection, … Continue reading \n
\u2018I am thrilled to be working with Wakefield Press \u2013 an independent publisher from my home state of South Australia \u2013 on my first short-story collection,\u2019 says Roff. \u2018Right from the start, it\u2019s been clear that Jo and the team at Wakefield have really connected with these stories. With their help, I can\u2019t wait to start editing and organising a final version for publication.\u2019<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n