2024 Australian Short Story Festival

The Australian Short Story Festival is an annual festival celebrating short stories in written and spoken forms.

Founded by Anna Solding of MidnightSun Publishing and Caroline Wood of Margaret River Press, the Festival connects audiences with short story writers, storytellers, publishers, and editors of literary magazines. It brings together readers and local, Australian and international short story writers.

As the first national event to focus exclusively on the short story form, the Australian Short Story Festival offers a unique contribution to the nation’s literary culture, as well as a timely response to the current resurgence of this aesthetically exacting narrative form.

The Festival is a non-profit organisation set up to bring writers, oral storytellers, and audiences together in a different Australian city each year. In 2024 the Festival will be held in Fremantle, Western Australia

Check out these UQP Author Sessions below.

Tickets can be purchased here.

Saturday 23 November, 2:40-3:30

Where to Now?

Three contributors to the First Nations anthology of speculative fiction, This All Come Back Now, reflect on their vision for Australia's future. Is there cause for despair or a reason to hope? Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker, Kalem Murray and Adam Thompson talk with Casey Mulder

Sunday November 24, 11:50-12:40pm

Families: For Better or Worse

Whether nurturing or dysfunctional, aloof or cloying, families play a vital role in our personal lives and in the wider community. Laura Jean McKay and Adam Thompson. discuss their notions of the family in their dazzling short story collections. Moderator: Lekkie Hopkins

Sunday November 24, 1:40-2:30pm

In the Lab What is the role of experimentation in short story writing?

Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker, Amber Moffat and Hannah van Didden ignite the bunsen burner to create strikingly. imaginative works of art. Moderator: Rochelie Siemienowicz

Sunday November 24, 2:40-3:30pm

The Power of Place

Henry Miller wrote that 'one's destination is never just a place but a new way of looking at things". Rebecca Higgie, Rashida Murphy and Kalem Murray discuss the crucial role in their fiction of setting. Moderator: Brooke Dunnell Moderator: Tess Woods