Kirsten Krauth

Shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize Like fireflies to the light, Mona, Benny and Jimmy are drawn into the elegantly wasted orbit of the Crystal Ballroom and the post-punk scene of 80s Melbourne, a world that includes Nick Cave and Dodge, a photographer pushing his art to the edge. With precision and richness Kirsten Krauth hauntingly evokes the power of music to infuse our lives, while diving deep into loss, beauty, innocence and agency. Filled with unforgettable characters, the novel is above all about the shapes that love can take and the many ways we express tenderness throughout a lifetime. As it moves between the Blue Mountains and Melbourne, Sydney and Castlemaine, Almost a Mirror reflects on the healing power of creativity and the everyday sacredness of family and friendship in the face of unexpected tragedy.

Almost a Mirror

Layla is only 14. As she sits in bed with a laptop, her mother Margot sleeps in the next room. But, what separates them is more than just a wall. It's every mother's nightmare. Layla cruises online. She catches trains to meet strangers. And Margot never suspects. Not even when Layla brings a man into their home. Margot's caught in her own web: an evangelical church and a charismatic pastor. Pastor Bevan preaches to the faithful, reeling them in to his tangled conceits with podcasts and twitter. Meanwhile, downtown, a man opens a suitcase and tenderly places his young lover inside. just_a_girl tears into the fabric of contemporary culture. It's a Puberty Blues for the digital age; a Lolita with a webcam. It's what happen when young girls are forced to grow up too fast. Or never get the chance to grow up at all....Ã²

Just_a_girl

Angela Savage

Australian icon Kylie Minogue is the musical muse for this sparkling new anthology. Twenty-four writers, a third of whom identify as LGBTQIA+, used a Kylie Minogue song as the springboard for a new, original piece of work, covering the genres of crime, memoir, speculative fiction, poetry and science fiction – from Kylie' s 1987 release ' I Should Be So Lucky' all the way through to her newest album ' Tension' .

The Kylie Playlist

Spinning Around

From an automaton of Nick Cave, to a man who can't keep his blood out of the food he is preparing; from a vengeful Uber driver to a spinner of souls; and from a boy caught up in a robbery to a girl desperate to save a failing greyhound, the characters who populate this short story anthology could have dropped straight from a Nick Cave song book. These 21 stories, from some of Australia's favourite creators, respond to Cave's visionary genius with their own original and unsettling tales of death, faith, violence and love.

Kirsten Krauth

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