AustLit

'I remember this girl from school posted a pic of herself crying on Facebook when Frank Ocean made the Tumblr post saying he was bi without saying it. I spent hours on Tumblr back then, the dangling wrists and collarbones part of Tumblr. That was when every teen in Sydney's inner west discovered channel ORANGE like we were one of a kind. This girl loved him like that too, I guess. We all went to the Pyramids together to blow our minds.' (Introduction)

'When I woke the next morning, I was sure she'd be gone. I opened my eyes and leaned into the confusion, slow to recognise the motel room I was in, the clean and unfamiliar sheets bunched around my knees. I didn't expect her, but I looked out the window and found her eyes, blinking slowly every few seconds. Her gaze was so deliberate that I could feel it running across my skin, like a tongue over teeth, searching for a sore spot. She had to bend to be able to see through the window because she was still on top of that immense horse, which stood calmly, occasionally tossing its head...' (Introduction)

'I've been spending most mornings standing over my stove, spoon in hand and stirring. A seasonal habit when the weather dips. One part oats, two parts water. As days seem to go as quickly as they've arrived, breakfast becomes a minor play; a small, reliable structure to pivot the day on. Mornings and night, interruptions. 'We fix the cyclic expectations of renewal, commencement, ending, beginning', as if by stirring anticlockwise once more I can turn back the hands of the day and start again.' (Introduction)

'My aunt Lyn flies in on the back of a heatwave and lands in the living room of the weatherboard cottage a week after the funeral. My housemates give her a cup of tea, but she likes to drink chai when it's lukewarm, not piping, so she leaves it sitting on top of a box of Scrabble while she waits for me to talk. I look at my thumbs and will them to transform into knives, the kind you use to spread butter onto a piece of warm toast, solid turning to liquid in your hands. I think to myself that it is strange how quickly something can change from state to state; butter to syrup, water to ice, living to dead, brain to fog...' (Introduction)

'It took three days for her body to return to the shore. It was as though the ocean considered her an offering, drawing her into its rippling expanse before deciding that she wasn't its to keep. Gently wrapping her up in frothy blue before sending her back to land...' (Introduction)

'When people see us, they must think you're the top,' I say to Claire as we're walking down Station Street on a Saturday morning. <br /><br /> Taking a beat, Claire laughs. 'You just realised that now?' (Introduction)

'The day my wife left me for good, I bought my first Competitive Eating Showdown ticket. Though I preferred watching people eat through the screen, most often on my laptop, I loved being there in person to watch the contestants messily fill their stomachs...' (Introduction)

'Tragically, the washing machine had become sentient and it was causing me a lot of concern. It was not my washing machine; it had come with the house I was renting. The house also came with a dryer and a dishwasher and a housemate who had since moved out...' (Introduction)

'I'm at a picnic eating croissants when it hits me. It's summer and I'm wearing a big floral sunhat; my friends are dressed in unbuttoned linen, and everything tastes like sweat and sunscreen. I'm jousting with no one in particular about my disdain for Troye Sivan when I feel my body silence. Somebody probably made a chiding comment, and I refused to back down. I'm mid-sentence saying something like overrated and twink when I lift out of my body to look down at the Mason below, with my great hat and my stupid opinion. My lap is covered in flakes of pastry, and I can now see that my friends have curved their bodies in a way that suggests that I need to take a deep breath. Ghost me thinks, please shut up!' (Introduction)