Writers on Campus: Writing Short Fiction

Many readers and emerging writers assume that the short story is a form for learners – the training wheels of fiction. But it is much more than that. The short story is one of the most demanding forms of fiction to write: exacting, powerful, and rewarding. For readers, short fiction offers a huge range of styles, voices, perspectives, genres, people and plots in bite-sized portions – and you can finish an entire story on a tram ride.

Its champions include some of the most iconic writers of all time: Anton Chekov, Flannery O’Connor, Shirley Jackson, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Annie Proulx, George Saunders; and closer to home, writers from Henry Lawson to Katherine Mansfield to Margo Lanagan. And we have two of our country’s finest at La Trobe to discuss the joys and challenges of writing and reading short stories.

Paddy O'Reilly is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories. Her work has been published in ANZ, the UK and Ireland, USA and Canada, Europe and China. She has won a number of fiction awards and her books have been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Queensland and Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and the ALS Gold Medal, as well as being nominated many times in best books of the year lists. She has also written for stage, radio and film. Paddy taught creative writing – including short story – at La Trobe for many years.

Carrie Tiffany was born in West Yorkshire and grew up in Western Australia. A former park ranger, she has twenty years’ experience as a researcher, writer, editor and teacher of creative writing – now as a Senior Lecturer at La Trobe.

She has written three Miles Franklin Award shortlisted novels: Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living; Mateship with Birds; and Exploded View, and published numerous short stories, winning the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Award (twice) and being shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award.

Paddy and Carrie will be in conversation with Kelly Gardiner, who also taught short story at La Trobe for many years and is now an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in English and Creative Writing.