AustLit

'Grace is 22 when she meets Storm. She’s a water nymph, a woman whose natural element is water. Storm is older, a free-diver whose claim to fame is that he is “the deepest man in the world”. Grace has no claims of any kind.' (Introduction)

'Cairns and its region are still tourist drawcards, although it’s now ‘‘a mature destination’’, in the anxious phrase of operators seeking to rebrand the sights. Artists have called more often than novelists, among them Ian Fairweather, Donald Friend and Ray Crooke. Now far north Queensland has found an ambivalent literary laureate in Candice Fox, whose novel Crimson Lakeis set among ‘‘the croc-infested Cairns marshlands’’, ‘‘stretches of yellow sugar cane … running for kilometres, the walls of a hidden city’’.' (Introduction)

'With a cover that shows a cross-section of tree trunks, the geometric cover design of John Kinsella’s short-story collection Old Growth is simple but mesmerising, like a pop art illusion. The rings denote arboreal age but also suggest layers of meaning. With a body of work that includes poetry, novels, essays, plays and memoir, Western Australia-based Kinsella is comfortable with wearing multiple hats.' (Introduction)