StorySALOON Podcast Episodes
About StorySALOON Live and Podcast
StorySALOON’s mission is to grow the audience for Australian short stories and their writers. At StorySALOON’s live shows talented actors read each short story with passion and flair. The short stories are recorded live, then edited into individual episodes. Audio and video interviews with the authors focus on the individual stories and the craft of writing.
The stories are selected from works published in Australian literary journals, competitions and anthologies. Readers, listeners and students can access both the audio and text of each short story.
StorySALOON’s Creative Director is Dr Jane Messer, author and former program director of Creative Writing at Macquarie University.
Ep 1
Monique Choy ‘Tinder Date’, in Soak: UTS Writers' Anthology, Brio Books, 2023.
Read by Zoe Carides.
Tags: Comedic writing, dating, romantic relationships, regional Australia, aging, Marrickville.
Ep 2
Nic Low ‘Octopus’, in Arms Race, Text Publishing, 2014. Shortlisted for the Readings and Steele Rudd prizes; named a New Zealand Listener and Australian Book Review book of the year.
Read by Taofia Pelesasa.
Tags: Māori culture, comedic writing, masculinity, myth, policing, Te Wheke, sovereignty, Rūātoki terrorism raids.
Ep 3
Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker ‘Protocols of Transference’, in This All Come Back Now: An Anthology of First Nations Speculative Fiction, ed. Mykaela Saunders, UQP, 2022.
Read by Dakotah Love.
Tags: First Nations, speculative fiction, AI, memory, cognition, Indigenous history, invasion, sovereignty, futurism.
Ep 4
In the SALOON with Nic Low and Taofia Pelesasa: in conversation with writer and actor, hosted by Jane Messer.
Tags: Pasifika cultures, Maori culture, short story craft, performance craft, cultural heritage, Pasifika writing in response to climate change.
Ep 5
Oliver Coulter ‘Aitu’, Going Down Swinging, Nov 2022.
Read by Christopher Alosio.
Tags: Samoan Australian culture, road story, grief, spirituality and ritual, male friendship, mothers, Northern Territory, intergenerational relationships.
Ep 6
Cate Kennedy, ‘GPS’, in South of the Sun: Australian Fairy Tales for the 21st Century, Australian Fairy Tale Society, 2021.
Read by Jules Billington.
Tags: fantasy, fairytale, suspense, Australian bush, sex predator, grandmothers, girlhood, empowerment, revenge, Little Red Riding Hood.
Ep 7
Paddy O’Reilly, ‘Baggage Claim’, in Overland, Issue 231, 2018.
Read by Monica Sayers.
Tags: Comedic writing, traveler's tale, romantic relationships, sex, desire, work, gender, Bali, Melbourne.
Ep 8
In the SALOON with Paddy O’Reilly and Monica Sayers: in conversation with writer and actor, hosted by Jane Messer.
Tags: Short story technique, writing sex, reading for performance, audience and reception.
Ep 9
Gillian O’Shaughnessy, ‘In This Tale of a Suburban Tiger, the Part of the Mother is Played by a Bird’, in Splonk, 2022; ‘Starfish’ in Jellyfish Review, 2022; ‘1989’ in Aniko Press, 2023.
Read by Monica Sayers.
Tags: flash fiction, mothering, daughters, young adult, speculative fiction, fantasy, coming of age, animals.
Ep 10
Margo Lanagan, ‘Singing My Sister Down’, in Singing My Sister Down and Other Short Stories, Allen & Unwin, 2017. Winner: 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction and Ditmar Award for Best Short Story; 2004 Aurealis Award for Young Adult Short Story.
Read by Paul Capsis.
Tags: Fantasy, speculative fiction, families, tar pits, dying, grief, Bildungsroman, coming of age, crime and punishment.
Ep 11
Anne Casey-Hardy, ‘In Disguise, Lying Low’, in Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls, Simon & Schuster, 2022. Longlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2023.
Read by Esha Jessy.
Tags: comedic writing, crime, drugs, cars, sisters, sex, Bildungsroman, coming of age.
Ep 12
In the SALOON with Margo Lanagan and Paul Capsis: in conversation with writer and actor, hosted by Jane Messer.
Tags: writing fantasy, short story form, feminism, performance and live reading.
Ep 13
Gonsalves Roanna, ‘The Skit’, in The Permanent Resident, UWA Publishing, 2016. Winner: NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural Prize 2018; longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award 2018.
Read by Vinaya Elijala.
Tags: comedic writing, immigration, residency, Indian Australia diaspora, white privilege, power, class, Sydney.
Ep 14
Christos Tsiolkas, ‘Dance Hall Days’, in Into Your Arms: Nick Cave Songs Reimagined, ed. Kirsten Krauth, Fremantle Press, 2023.
Read by Alex Dimitriades.
Tags: Greek Australia, queer relationships, aging, fame, 80s music, Melbourne.
Ep 15
Jake Dean, ‘Apocalypse, then?’, in Griffith Review, No. 83, 2024. Dean’s short story manuscript - shortlisted for the 2025 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.
Read by Adam Dunn.
Tags: comedic writing, satire, post-apocalypse narratives, ambition, The New Yorker, middle-age, queer, Adelaide.
Ep 16
In the SALOON with Jake Dean and Adam Dunn: in conversation with writer and actor, hosted by Jane Messer.
Tags: comedic writing, short story form, acting and live reading as performance, craft and technique.
Ep 17
K.A. Ren Wyld, ‘Clatter Tongue’, This All Come Back Now: An Anthology of First Nations Speculative Fiction, ed. Mykaela Saunders, UQP, 2022. Winner First Nations Writing Award 2020.
Read by Katie Beckett.
Tags: Indigenous, First Nations, young adult, fabulist/speculative, sovereignty, Black deaths in custody, intergenerational relationships.
Ep 18
Claire Aman, ‘Golden Hour’, Overland, Issue 249, Summer 2022. Winner Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize 2022.
Read by Suzi Dougherty.
Tags: country towns, neighbours, mothering, secrecy, childlessness, sexual assault, road trip, Grafton.
Ep 19
Abigail Ulman, ‘The Couples Therapist’, The Monthly, Issue Dec 2022 – Jan 2023.
Read by Amber McMahon.
Tags: comedic writing, marriage, incel, feminism, parenting, separation, teenagers, masculinities, therapy.
Ep 20
In the SALOON with Ren Wyld and Katie Beckett: in conversation with writer and actor, hosted by Jane Messer.
Tags: Contemporary Indigenous narrative; speculative fiction; short story form; Indigenous theatre and performance; grief, black deaths in custody, memory, trauma, comedy, family.
Ep 21
Monikka Eliah, ‘Zucchini’, Meanjin, Summer 2021.
Read by Monikka Eliah.
Tags: comedic writing, Assyrian Australia; migrant; young adult, Western Sydney, intergenerational relationships, girlhood, body awareness, masculinity, food.
Ep 22
Luke Johnson, ‘Ferocious Animals’, in Ferocious Animals, Recent Works Press, 2021 (originally published in Griffith Review).
Read by Bayley Prendergast.
Tags: masculinity, fathers, football, mothers, violence, coming-of-age, suburbia, country town.
Author Spotlight - YouTube Exclusive
Author Spotlight: Roanna Gonsalves
In this interview, Roanna Gonsalves discusses writing craft and the short story ‘The Skit‘. Gonsalves' short stories and essays have been published widely in Australian journals and anthologies. She is lecturer in creative writing at UNSW and the editor of the literary journal, Southerly.
Author Spotlight: Jake Dean
In this interview we talk to writer Jake Dean about his short story ‘Apocalypse, Then?’ and writing practices. Jake Dean’s short stories and articles have been widely published in Australian journals and magazine.
The story was first published in Griffith Review, No. 83, 2024.
Author Spotlight : Claire Aman
In this interview we talk to writer Claire Aman about her short story ‘Golden Hour’ and writing craft. Claire Aman’s short stories have been widely published in Australian journals.
Aman’s short story collection is Bird Country, Text Publishing, 2017.
Author Spotlight: Monikka Eliah
In this interview we talk to young writer Monikka Eliah about her short story ‘Zucchini’, and her writing practices. ‘Zucchini’ was first published in Meanjin online 2021. Eliah is an emerging writer and playwright from Fairfield, Western Sydney.
Author Spotlight : Michelle Hamadache
In this interview we talk to writer and Macquarie University lecturer in creative writing, Michelle Hamadache about her short story ‘The Crane Flies’ and writing practices.
Hamadache is a former fiction editor of Southerly and Mascara Literary Review, and teaches creative writing at Macquarie University.
SUPPORTED BY
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StorySALOON is supported by the
NSW Government through Create NSW
Acknowledgement of Country
StorySALOON acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first storytellers of this land. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, as we create, perform and listen on unceded Gadigal land.