Author Archives: gretchenshirm

‘The Crying Room’ in KYD New Australian Fiction

I’m a bit late with this, but my short story ‘The Crying Room’ was published in last year’s Kill Your Darling’s New Australian Fiction Anthology. The Anthology has since gone into reprint, yippee! You can purchase a copy at your favourite local bookshop, or here: https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/shop/new-australian-fiction-2019/ When the Anthology was reviewed in The Australian onContinue reading “‘The Crying Room’ in KYD New Australian Fiction”

Helen Garner’s Collected Stories

  Helen Garner’s Postcards from Surfers was a revelation to me when I started writing. The silences within her stories are so bold and radical, it really showed me that writing is as much about what is on the page as what’s left off it. The book also contains one of my favourite sentences ofContinue reading “Helen Garner’s Collected Stories”

My review of Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark appeared in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald over the weekend and can be read, here. Reading Forest Dark, was one of the most disorientating experiences I’ve ever had reading a book. For much of the time, I found the book difficult to read, the prose leaden and quiteContinue reading

Essay on Bernhard Schlink’s The Woman on the Stairs

I’ve always admired Bernhard Schlink’s fiction, particularly his short stories published in his 2000 collection Flights of Love. I think it’s the preoccupation with guilt and culpability that interests me so much. Although Schlink is more concerned with the peculiar German experience, they are emotions that plague us all to a certain extent. Here‘s me onContinue reading “Essay on Bernhard Schlink’s The Woman on the Stairs”

Where the Light Falls – Nominated for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Awards

I’m thrilled that my novel has been shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. You can also vote for it or any of the other excellent shortlisted books in the NSW People’s Choice Award, here. NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Judges’ comments: ‘Where the Light Falls is brimming with virtuosoContinue reading “Where the Light Falls – Nominated for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Awards”