"This book about writing and the imagination is essential reading for any writer, emerging or experienced. Re-released with new material and updated advice for the 21st century writer. I first read Dear Writer as a nervy, secretive scribbler-in-journals 20 years ago. Reading this revised version I m struck again by its practical generosity on technical matters - but am also inspired by the deeper, more complex conversations I think I missed in those early readings: about courage, about the urgency and mystery and self-discovery of the writing process. Dear Writer Revisited may masquerade...

Here are tales of service station hold-ups, random violence in elevators, shark attacks and road fatalities. Complete narratives, with well-drawn characters and plotlines all in 200 words or less. There are short pieces about supermarkets, computers and dogfights - all packed with emotional punch. Some describe quiet but no less significant moments: a child colouring in, a seagull stealing a chip. Some show us the magic of quotidian life - on trains, buses and in backyard gardens and nature strips. We gave them a single blank square of paper to fill. They flashed it with political satire,...

These are stories rendered in miniature and moments inscribed with precise focus. Australia's best microwordsmiths offer journeys in words that will take you somewhere surprising. A stolen glimpse of a father dancing alone to music; Gothic landscapes on the New South Wales coast; incredible spectrums in the colours of butterflies; Aussie cricket and climate change; remembrances of an exiled home land or the awkward sexual politics at a funeral. These stories capture delightful and unsettling moments of estrangement, when the new becomes familiar and the ordinary, sublime. 'With the unsettling...