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#15: Fiesta, 1980 by Junot Diaz
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#15: Fiesta, 1980 by Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz is probably best known for his first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but Drown, released in 1996, is well worth a look. In tales that explore the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the rougher parts of New Jersey, Diaz creates a paradoxical world where ugliness and beauty lie awkwardly together, where characters are the walking semi conscious, half drunk from the kick of drugs, alcohol, and unreliable relationships...

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#13: True Short Story by Ali Smith
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#13: True Short Story by Ali Smith

Given that we here at the Gum Wall are all about celebrating the short story, it is only fitting that Ali Smith's True Short Story is the next inclusion on the site. While this book is uniformly strong throughout (The Child is a fine example of Alice Munro's adage that every short story is at least two stories, and No Exit is impressively creepy given it has fire-exits as its main topic),..

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#5: What Thou and I Did, Till We Loved by Cate Kennedy
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#5: What Thou and I Did, Till We Loved by Cate Kennedy

This is one hell of a story. For those who haven't read Cate Kennedy, she is an Australian poet, author, and short story writer. She has just written her first novel, The World Beneathwhich Jo Case described as "a thought-provoking journey into contemporary Australia". Cate Kennedy is also the only person I know of that has won The Age Short Story Competition twice (!),  and in reading What Thou and I Did, Till We Loved, it's not hard to see how she pulled it off...

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#1: Scar Tissue by Patrick Cullen
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#1: Scar Tissue by Patrick Cullen

I recently attended a salon celebrating some seriously talented writers, including Emily MaguireSteven Amsterdam and Kalinda Ashton. The final writer was Patrick Cullen , who I had first read in 2007; it was this same writer that I feverishly sought immediately after the Salon, to soak up his words in a new light...

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