THERE WAS NOWHERE ELSE TO go. Nowhere but home. The train deposits me in familiar suburbia, bags and all. It’s not quite right. Things have shifted, changed. Become a shade more dull than I remember, a photograph slightly out of focus. I don’t recognise anyone. Then again, three years is a long time.
There’s a boy out jogging who gives me a second look, eyes flashing wide. I watch him pass, his features slowly shaping in my mind, coalescing into the chubby face of my neighbour. The boy who’d sit on the fence and eat our plums, red juice dripping down his chin. He’d lick his fat, sticky fingers and ignore my shrieks to get off our side of the fence, Nigel. He doesn’t stop. Just stares, running with his head twisted over his shoulder, as if he’s seen a ghost.
Read the rest of the story for free in Elegant Literature's Loud Music and Darkness issue #41
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March 2025 — Winner of Elegant Literature's Sinister Sanctuaries Magazine issue #42 for 'Rot'
What happens when coming home doesn't quite feel right?
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February 2025 — Published 'Stolen Melodies' in Elegant Literature's Loud Music and Darkness Magazine issue #41
A hungry music box seeks a girl who sings like summer.
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December 2024 — Published 'The Weeping Girl' in Elegant Literature's Fearsome Folklore Magazine issue #39
The Weeping Girl haunts the lake, but what other secrets are hidden beneath the surface?
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November 2024 — Honourable Mention for 'Mutualism' in Elegant Literature's Death Death Magazine issue #38
Death hunts the narrator in an eternal chase, but what can the narrator not remember?
July 2024 — Published 'The Intimacy of Hating You' in Elegant Literature's Mundane Magic Magazine issue #34
The line between hate and love is thin.
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June 2022 — Winner of the Barfoot and Thompson Young Author's Challenge High School Category for 'Best Day Ever' (retitled to 'Stormrider')
A storm. A girl. Windsurfing.
Access the pdf here: https://www.writersfestival.co.nz/Images/Assets/1485132/1/SPO00077-Young%20Authors%20Challenge%202022-A4%20E-Book%20(002).pdf
September 2022 — Published 'The Ocean's Treasure' in ToiToi Journal, Autumn 2021 issue; also published in Jillion 2
The ocean provides plenty of gifts for us all, but sometimes it likes to take too...
October 2019 — Published 'Fear Bites Hard' in the Write On Magazine, issue 53
Coral reefs can hide more than just pretty fish.