Spineless Wonders – förlag

Temper trantrums, doomed relationships, failed businesses, Magellan''s crew and house-hunting... This is, at first glance, a quite disparate collection of stories. The settings range from New York, Texas and San Francisco to Sydney, Lismore and Malaysia. The characters vary in age from three years old in ''Rights of Man'' to nonagenarians in ''Shady Oaks.'' And yet this varied assemblage of work is unified by core themes that speak to us all: the search for one''s place in the world, failed attempts to connect with other people and lofty aspirations not acted upon. ''The Last Wilkie''s and Other Stories is a quirky collection of short stories that are by turns funny, dark and troubling. Effortless to read, these stories are laced with a quick, sardonic wit that pokes fun at the life narratives we so earnestly attempt to create.'' - BOOKS+PUBLISHING ''Jon Steiner''s writing manages to articulate last night''s forgotten dreams.'' - MIKE TOPP, Sasquatch Stories ''Jon Steiner''s brilliant and innovative short story collection veers from surreal to hilarious to disturbing to touching and back again. The Last Wilkie''s and Other Stories is the kind of adventurous, unpredictable, unclassifiable short story collection that Australian short fiction needs more of.'' - RYAN O''NEILL, The Weight of a Human Heart JON STEINER is a writer and screenwriter who lives in Sydney. An American by birth, he migrated to Australia in 2000. His work has appeared in the UTS Writers'' Anthology and two Spineless Wonders productions, Escape and Little Fictions.

In prose that sparkles with wit, shocks with insight, and beguiles with the air of legend, these eight stories take the reader from post-apocalyptic Tasmania to the tragedy of surrogate pregnancy in the 1950s. Loss of species, the whims of publishers, the question of Islam in regional Australia - these are among the subjects Carmel Bird addresses in her characteristic probing style.