Perth all set to celebrate the Short Story form this October

The short story, is perhaps one of the most underappreciated of the literary forms. Certainly it’s a format with its readers and, naturally, writers, but it’s never quite had the audience or the celebrity it’s longer form cousins – the novel – have.

But all that could be able to change, with the launch of the inaugural Australian Short Story Festival, which will take place in Perth at the end of October, bringing together a vibrant and venerated line up of local, national and international authors and storytellers.

The festival boasts over 25 free and paid events over the festivals three days; with the focus not just on the written form, but also storytelling in all it’s spoken and recorded glory.

The festival’s opening adress will come from celebrated short story writer Cate Kennedy, whilst closing out the festival will be two time Miles Franklin winner Professor Kim Scott. Along with those two there will be a cast of thirty writers gracing the festival including Ellen van Neerven, Isabelle Li, Fiona McFarlane and Parashar Kulkarni, the first Indian writer to win the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Amongst the festivals key events will be “In Conversation” sessions with a number of the prominent writers in attendance, publishing advice from three independent publishing houses, the launch of the Westerly: New Creative, a celebration of the five years of the Margaret River Short Story Competition, and a street reading walk of Northbridge.

If that wasn’t enough the festival will also showcase an Indigenous Yarning Session, featuring prominent members of the Warakurna community; a remote West Australian community situated approximately 330km from Uluru.

The recently opened Centre for Stories in Northbridge will be the main venue for the festival, whilst other events have been scheduled to take place at the State Library and Northbridge Plaza.

Festival patron and celebrated author Gail Jones described the event as “an audacious, intelligent and very welcome initative at a time when the short story as a form is enormously popular with both emerging and established writers”.

The Australian Short Story Festival runs from Friday 21st until Sunday 23rd October.

Tickets are now available to all events.

For more information and ticketing visit the Australian Short Story Festival website.

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Simon Clark

Books Editor. An admirer of songs and reader of books. Simon has a PhD in English and Comparative Literature. All errant apostrophes are his own.