Tony Birch

I wanted to respond mentioning Peter Carey, actually, because I know that it may not be likely that short story collections will get much of a Guernsey or a hearing.

But thinking about Carey, again, when I started teaching, his short stories, one of my favourite stories of all time, American Dreams, another story, Crabs, they're remarkable works of short fiction in collections.

And again, very influential amongst...

You know, short story writers, we're sort of a subculture and a cult, and we pass around these books.

And those two stories by Kerry, any Australian writer who's been working in the short form for long enough, they'll go back to those stories, amongst others, some early Tim Winton short stories, which people often forget about him being a short story writer.

They are seminal works for people who want to enjoy and improve their craft as short fiction writers.

Yeah, so Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook is another remarkable book.

I am very disappointed that every book I mention, I haven't had one ooh or ah from the audience.

Can I just mention, yeah, that's better.

Thank you.

Don't overdo it.

Come on.

So Kenneth Cook's Waking Fright, I had to do for school tech.

So it was one of those books that's forced upon you as a kid.

And when you're in school and your books are forced upon you, you tend not to read them.

So I didn't pay it enough attention.

And then I think I saw the film version, which is quite scary.

I went back to the book.

was a remarkable book.

I think it's one of those things that often when people remember Waking Freight, they actually remember the kangaroo shoot from the film.