by Kim Scott
Everybody knows now that she died alone in her room with her cats. She always had the heater and the electric blanket turned up high. Nobody missed her and there was a really bad smell. Finally it was a small fire that alerted the authorities with the neighbours standing by in groups with their phones out filming the smoke and lights from the street.
The cats had died of dehydration, but first they had eaten parts of Great Aunty Alien’s face, her fingers. Some of the cats had eaten other cats. None of us had actually been able to be there to witness it in person but my Great Aunty Alien’s body with all those dead cats locked up in a hot room for six weeks and the smell, according to the real estate agent, the smell.
It was like an oven in there. It was like an ancient Egyptian tomb.
‘We should have just filled the whole house up with sand,’ says my Great Uncle Oren. ‘Like what they did to Joan Collins in Land of the Pharaohs,’ he says. ‘It must have been hotter than hell in there.’
The Sleepers Almanac
Publication Details
Kalinda Ashton’s ‘Kindling’ appeared in Kill Your Darlings, Issue 11, October 2012.
Tony Birch’s ‘China’ appeared in Island 133, Winter 2013.
Georgia Blain’s ‘The Other Side of the River’ appeared in The Secret Lives of Men, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2013.
James Bradley’s ‘Solstice’ appeared in The Big Issue, Number 414, August/September 2012.
Tara Cartland’s ‘Frank O’Hara’s Animals’ appeared in Overland 209, Summer 2012.
Eric Yoshiaki Dando’s ‘The Eulogy’ appeared in The Sleepers Almanac, Number 8, Sleepers Publishing, Melbourne, 2013.
Tegan Bennett Daylight’s ‘J’aime Rose’ appeared in Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 6, Issue 1.
Madeleine Griffeth’s ‘Lungfish’ appeared in The Sleepers Almanac, Number 8, Sleepers Publishing, Melbourne, 2013.
Marion Halligan’s ‘Eating Oysters’ appeared in Meanjin, Volume 71, Issue 3, Spring 2012.
Ashley Hay’s ‘The Cat’ appeared in Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 6, Issue 4.
Cate Kennedy’s ‘Static’ appeared in Like a House on Fire, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2012.
John Kinsella’s ‘The Eagle’ appeared in The Warwick Review, Volume 7, Number 2, June 2013.
Andy Kissane’s ‘Old Friends’ appeared in The Swarm, Puncher & Wattmann, Sydney, 2012.
Theresa Layton’s ‘The Cartography of Foxes’ appeared in Overland 210, Autumn 2013.
Wayne Macauley’s ‘Keilor Cranium’ appeared in Meanjin, Volume 71, Issue 4, Summer 2012.
Robyn Mundy’s ‘The Forgeries’ appeared in Westerly, Volume 57, Number 2, November 2012.
Ruby J. Murray’s ‘Hunting Animals’ won third prize in The Age short story competition and appeared in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 January 2013.
Ryan O’Neill’s ‘The Traveller’ appeared in Overland 211, Winter 2013.
Favel Parrett’s ‘Lebanon’ appeared in Island 133, Winter 2013.
Chris Somerville’s ‘Snow on the Mountain’ appeared in We Are Not the Same Anymore, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2013.
Laurie Steed’s ‘The Knife’ appeared in Westerly, Volume 57, Number 2, November 2012, and Award Winning Australian Writing, Melbourne Books, Melbourne, 2013.
Lucy Treloar’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ appeared in The Sleepers Almanac, Number 8, Sleepers Publishing, Melbourne, 2013.
Notes on Contributors
THE EDITOR
Kim Scott is a descendant of the Wirlomin Noongar people. The first Indigenous author to win the Miles Franklin Award, for Benang, his most recent novel, That Deadman Dance, won the 2011 Miles Franklin Award, the South-East Asia and Pacific Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the ALS Gold Medal, the Victorian Premier’s prizes for Literature and Fiction and the 2010 WA Premier’s Award for Fiction.
THE AUTHORS
Kalinda Ashton is a novelist and short story writer from Melbourne. Her fiction has been published in Meanjin, Overland, Sleepers Almanac, Kill Your Darlings and other anthologies and journals. She is the author of The Danger Game and has worked as an academic at RMIT and Flinders University.
Tony Birch’s books include Shadowboxing, Father’s Day and Blood, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. He teaches in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. His new book, The Promise, will be released in 2014.
Georgia Blain’s most recent books include the short story collection The Secret Lives of Men, and the novels Too Close to Home and Darkwater, her first young-adult book. Her work has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the NSW and SA premiers’ literary awards and the Nita B. Kibble Award.
James Bradley is a writer and critic. His books include three novels, Wrack, The Deep Field and The Resurrectionist, all of which have won or been shortlisted for major Australian and international literary awards and been widely translated; a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus; and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. His most recent book is the novella, Beauty’s Sister.
Tara Cartland is a fiction writer based in Melbourne. She was a 2013 SOYA Written Word finalist and she won the Overland and Victoria University Short Story Prize in 2012. Her other work has appeared in The Big Issue, Tincture and Seizure Online. You can find her on twitter @Tara_Skye and at taracartland.com.
Eric Yoshiaki Dando was born in Japan but now lives in Daylesford. He has had stories, cartoons and poems published here and there. He is best known for his cult classic novel Snail. He is currently writing his third novel called Beautiful Useful Things. See more of his writing at ericdando.com.
Liam Davison has published four novels, two collections of short fiction and a book of creative non-fiction. He received the National Book Council Award for Fiction for his novel Soundings and was the recipient of the James Joyce Foundation award for writing. His work has been widely anthologised. He is a regular contributor to the books pages of The Australian. See more at gilhaney.wordpress.com/fiction.
Tegan Bennett Daylight is a fiction writer and critic. Her books include the novels Bombora, What Falls Away and Safety, and she is at work on a collection of short stories. She lectures in creative writing in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Madeleine Griffeth is a writer from Melbourne. Her fiction has been published in Voiceworks and The Sleepers Almanac, and she was the 2011 winner of the John Marsden Prize for Young Australian Writers. She is completing a degree in secondary teaching.
Marion Halligan’s books include Spider Cup, Lovers’ Knots, Wishbone, The Golden Dress, The Fog Garden, The Point, The Apricot Colonel and Valley of Grace, collections of short stories including Shooting the Fox, a children’s book and books of autobiography, travel and food. In 2006 she was awarded an AM.
Ashley Hay has written six books, most recently The Railwayman’s Wife and The Body in the Clouds. She contributes to publications including The Australian, The Monthly and Australian Geographic and has had work selected for Best Australian Short Stories, Best Australian Essays and Best Australian Science Writing.
Cate Kennedy is the author of two collections of short stories, Dark Roots, and Like a House on Fire, which won the Steele Rudd Award in the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards and was published in the UK in October 2013.
John Kinsella’s new volume of stories is Tide. His last volume of stories, In the Shade of the Shady Tree, was shortlisted for the 2012 Steele Rudd Award. He is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, including Jam Tree Gully. He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia.
Andy Kissane’s book of short stories The Swarm was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He is the 2013 Coriole Nationa
l Wine Poet and six of his poems are featured on the back of Coriole’s Cabernet Shiraz. (andykissane.com)
Theresa Layton is an award-winning writer who lives in Canberra. Her stories have appeared in Award Winning Australian Writing 2010 and 2011, and Overland. She is currently completing a collection of short stories and working on her first novel.
Wayne Macauley is the author of three novels, Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, Caravan Story and The Cook, and the short fiction collection Other Stories (2010). He has been shortlisted for the Victorian and Queensland premiers’ literary awards, the WA Premier’s Book Award and the Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award.
Robyn Mundy’s short fiction appears in Australian and American literary journals. She is author of the novel The Nature of Ice and co-author of the young readers’ Epic Adventure: Epic Voyages. Robyn lives in Western Australia where she works as a postdoctoral fellow and creative writing lecturer at Edith Cowan University South West. Robyn has just completed writing a second novel.
Ruby J. Murray is a writer, researcher and peripatetic. Her 2012 debut novel, Running Dogs, follows the lives of an expatriate family in Jakarta during and after the fall of the Suharto regime. (rubyjmurray.com)
Ryan O’Neill’s short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His collection The Weight of a Human Heart was shortlisted for the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards and the 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. He lives in rural New South Wales with his wife and two daughters.
Favel Parrett’s first novel, Past the Shallows, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2012. She was awarded the Antarctic Arts Fellowship, allowing her to travel to Antarctica to complete research for her forthcoming novel, When the Night Comes. (favelparrett.com.au)
Bruce Pascoe is of Bunurong/Tasmanian heritage and a board member of the Aboriginal Corporation for Languages. His books include Night Animals, Bloke, Chainsaw File, Fog and Dark Emu, forthcoming in 2014. He edited Australian Short Stories magazine (1982–1999) and has won the Prime Minister’s Literature Award for Young Adult Fiction, the Australian Literature Award and the FAW Short Story Award. He lives in East Gippsland.
Sinead Roarty writes ads by day and bedtime stories at night. She holds a Master of Fine Arts and an MA in Creative Writing from UTS, where she’s currently working on a book about suicide and the uneasy ethics of the modern world for a higher research degree. Her writing appears in various anthologies and literary journals in Australia and overseas.
Chris Somerville currently teaches creative writing at Melbourne University. His first book, We Are Not the Same Anymore, was published in 2013 by UQP.
Laurie Steed is a writer and PhD Candidate at the University of Western Australia. His stories have appeared in The Age, Meanjin, Award Winning Australian Writing, The Sleepers Almanac, and elsewhere. He is the winner of the 2013 Patricia Hackett Prize and his fiction was shortlisted for the 2012 Bridport Prize. He lives in Perth, Western Australia.
Lucy Treloar is a Melbourne writer and editor, previously published in Sleepers Almanac, Overland and Seizure. Her first adult novel won the Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award as well as a Varuna Publisher Fellowship. ‘Wrecking Ball’ was written in Cambodia while on an Asialink Residency, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.