1 July: Rockingham Writers Centre National Short Story Award Open to all writers over 18 years of age in Australia. Must have a ‘Twist in the Tale’, max 2000 words. Entry fee: $20 (AUD) non-members. Prizes $500, $100. 1 July: Write Around the Murray Short Story Competition Unpublished stories max 3,000 words, max 2 entries per person. Entry fee: $15 (AUD). Prize: $1,000 (cash), $200 book voucher, $100 book voucher. 1 July ACU Prize for Poetry Open to Australian residents

When I Google “tear in the space-time continuum” AI tells me it’s a popular science fiction concept however theoretical physics does not support literal tears. The closest thing is the “singularity” found at the centre of a black hole. In its simplest terms “singularity” means being unique. So next time I feel like the world is closing in and I am my own black hole, I’m going to focus on my own singularity, rise out of the darkness and allow that black hole to close in on i

He looked out over the vibrant green fields and as far as he could see there was bright green wheat, not yet ready for harvest but swaying gently in the breeze. It was mesmerising. Small hills and valleys covered in wheat. It was relaxing. Calming. Quickly the sky started to darken. Low clouds of dark grey. So low they looked like they were touching the wheat tops. His wife Diana brought him a cup of hot steaming tea in a delicate Royal Albert cup and saucer. It was left

From the ridge, Bonn watches the battle between four prowling crankycats and a bunch of junior green moosespiders. Being so young, they cannot hope to defend themselves. The adult black moosespiders hear the screams and gallop to their rescue but not before two are killed and dragged off. A second cluster trap them in a ravine, killing the crankycats and recovering the baby’s carcasses. Bonn witnesses an amazing sight of the two-day mourning-ceremony of green and black

We have an almost total lack of descriptors for smell in English. The word ‘petrichor’ to describe the smell of rain hitting dry soil was deliberately coined in 1964, but surprisingly few targeted descriptors exist. Instead we rely on generic terms like ‘fusty’, ‘pungent’, ‘redolent’, or ‘sweet’, which barely say anything at all. It is never too late for reform. To start the ball rolling, here are four new submissions for the OED: · The smell of falling snow when ther

He stood in the rain, his too-big-for-him clothes weighed down with water and sadness. I stopped the car and bipped the horn. He took a few steps back, puzzled, as if he had never seen a car before. This was going to be harder than I thought. Stepping out of the car, I spoke in my calmest of voices. “I’ve come to take you home. You’re getting wet out here.” “Home,” he said. “It’s that way,” pointing in the opposite direction to home. “Come on, jump in. I’ll take you

This planet does not have rain like Bonn’s ancient homeworld. Mother shares historical documentaries of weather systems with clouds, rain, rainforests, savannahs; lightning and thunder. Here has aquifers, lakes and morning fogs to replenish the water needs of the flora and fauna. Mother has redesigned and enhanced the technology of air-plants, epiphytes and mosses expanding their collective abilities to greatly increase their plant-based hydrogelic capacities; developing th

The May Meeting The group now has members travelling to attend meetings from as far afield as Sydney and even Jindabyne. It’s an immense privilege to have such dedicated and talented writers joining us each month. This month the writing prompt was ‘Jump’ and you can read some of the stories we wrote here. The prompt inspired stories about skiing, sibling rivalry, amphibian ambitions, social conformity, pet adoption, office politics, and bovine alien abduction. As usual, n

May 2026 Do we all know the nursery rhyme about ‘the cow jumped over the moon’? Did the cow really jump over the moon? Absolutely not – cows can’t jump. And they certainly can’t jump over the moon. Haha, impossible ‘The little dog laughed to see such sport.’ Well, little dogs yap, but they don’t laugh. And jumping over the moon doesn’t sound like a sport!? ‘The dish ran away with the spoon’ Dishes can’t run. Spoons can’t run. So … all rubbish, stop misleading and

If you’re an online influencer there’s no respite from the tyranny of posting. Every situation dissolves into a potential source of content. You can never stop stoking that fitful flame of public interest. Stop posting and the followers die down, and so does your income. How many ways can you film your budgie? How many recipes with rage-bait mistakes can you make? How many clothes can you ‘style’ before you start losing your mind and wearing three skirts at once: one as a ski

Mungo does not approve of the new manager. He looks askance at her: her fashionable outfit curated to be the perfect combo of casual and professional, her solicitous insistence on endless woke ideologies, her damned salads for lunch. Damned jumped-up housewife. He’s not sure how anyone let her out of the kitchen. Mungo stands musing on the woes and injustices of a world that could allow such outrages. ‘Have you finished with this?’ A voice cones from behind him. He starts

Jump through those hoops young man / young woman. Once you start you never stop It begins when you are in school Where they teach you to cop… It sweet. Those hoops you jump through you know Simply become more convoluted... They actually get smaller and smaller Till they wrap around your neck… so it is reputed. Jump this way… Jump that way Think this way… Think that way Truth is what we say it is not? So it is claimed by ‘they who must be obeyed’ Till a quick Google se

Bonn is restless with isolation. They survive on a smallish planet on the outskirts of a galaxy known as Via Lactea, Silver River, Odin’s Way, White Mare’s Tail or (most commonly) Milky Way. On rare nights of darkness, he sees it streaming across the sky. His need to belong, to be part of his surroundings, grows. Mother helps him look through archives of names and places so he may ‘own’ his surroundings. Through thousands of words in ancient tongues, he finds one that means

The ski resort has a few spots it calls ‘terrain parks’. These are places where there is ‘furniture’ for doing stunts and jumps. More recently, they have introduced mini beginner terrain parks along the side of several runs. These are set so they people who want to learn to jump by starting small can turn off from the main run, do one or two small jumps and return to the main run. I’ve been trying to get Max to follow me in to these. One of these mini beginner jumps h

Crouching low he looks around pensively, not blinking, just staring through the reeds. He shivers slightly in anticipation, excitement and fear. Everyone else can do this; every one of his dozens of brothers and sisters have been merrily, actively springing around for weeks now. He shuffles, re-balances, squats again, raises his little bottom up, sits down, shuffles, squats, re-balances, raises his bottom again, shuffles, then sits down again. ‘I can do this. It’s easy,

‘Oooo there’s a pot belly stove!’ ‘Oooo how cool.’ They both jumped around in excitement. ‘Let’s get it on. It’s freezing here’, said Frannie. ‘Ok’ said Hanna opening the stove’s little door with the confidence of someone who’s an old hand at this. ‘Right so we put the wood in.’ ‘No, it’s called timber. Wood is on trees.’ ‘Oh ok.’ Their exuberance was a plenty. They selected twigs and logs and newspaper. Stuffed it in without too much care or experience and set it ablaze. The

1 June: The Novel Prize Literary fiction in English, open to published and unpublished. Minimum 30,000 words, and entry seems to be…free. Prize $10,000 (USD) and publication. 1 June: Geography Writing Competition Theme: Changing Environments in Queensland. Short story or memoir, 500 word max. Entry $10 (AUD). Prize $300, $150, and a 1-year RGSQ membership. 1 June: The Australian Fiction Prize Harper Collins’s annual fiction prize for adult fiction 75,000-10,000 words, ope

It is Bonn’s job to prepare his meals, with help from Puter, who has 10,000 recipes stored and the skills of old-world Michelin Chefs. Bonn always wears a mask when preparing BlueMelons and is heavily discouraged from eating more than a quarter daily. He has found Budda-finger Lemon look-alikes that, when dried, have a crisp umami flavour. They are carnivorous fruit-plants that drag small reptiles in with their tentacle fingers. The meat is often ScareyCat roasted in a pe

T’is the season to be jolly and for George and his other tree dwellers. He usually looked forward to this time, but quite frankly, they had started their cultish ways again and were raising their eyes skyward, in the hope of a blood moon. All he wanted to do was to get nice and fat…and yellow…and juicy. It’s lemon season! Hurrah! George saw this as an opportunity to cull some of the cult…no, no he meant the crop. Could lemons get more ridiculous in their beliefs. All he wante

The April meeting It was great to welcome new members Claire and Linda at the last meeting. The random prompt was ‘Dayve’ and we all had fun with it. Have a look at some of the stories we wrote here. We ended up at Ground Up Espresso in Carrington, which was not a bad venue. We found a particularly sunny spot at the back and enjoyed the afternoon. Next Meeting Monday 11th May, Café Inu, Carrington, 12:00 As usual we’ll no doubt be chatting and ordering food until at l