So every Sunday morning, he carried his plastic basket containing a week’s worth of dirty clothes out to the little communal laundry just opposite the Hills Hoist…

Mini Shots are a steal at $4 each ($6 for international) for single issues or you can subscribe to the series here.

Mini Shots #013		Mini Shots #013
Australia $4		International $6

David Cohen was born in Perth and has lived in Melbourne since 2002. His short fiction has appeared in Allnighter, HQ (winner of the HQ/Flamingo Short Story Prize), Meanjin, Metro, Space: New Writing, Westerly and elsewhere. His novel Fear of Tennis, published by Black Pepper in 2007, was selected by poet Les Murray as a Book of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement (UK), The Age and The West Australian. David has also written the occasional script for theatre and television, including and episode of SBS’s Marx and Venus. He is currently completing a second novel.

Hunkered down low in the bucket seats sourced from The Trading Post and picked up from some bloke in Dandenong, we are a patchwork of our Dangerfield best…

Mini Shots are a steal at $4 each ($6 for international) for single issues or you can subscribe to the series here.

Mini Shots #012		Mini Shots #012
Australia $4		International $6

Samone Bos is a writer and commissioning editor, specialising in non-fiction titles, but she loves to spin a yarn. Her first published story was The Magic Wishing Bench, featured in the Mildura West Primary School magazine (summer of ‘83 edition). Influenced by Enid Blyton’s Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, the tale of Trickles the pixie and an insipid jelly-scoffing brother and sister duo ended with ‘And they lived happily ever after … until Thursday.’ This was stolen from The Bald Twit Lion by Spike Milligan, the point of difference being that Spike’s story ended with ‘until the next day’. Samone considered this a subversive hoot, but it left most of her fellow grade two literati murmuring ‘huh?’

Originality a strong point, Samone has written half a novel based (very closely) on her life and times teaching English in Tokyo.

You can catch her bobbing around the internet on the following questionable websites:
www.momofreaksout.com.au
nomoreblanktapes.wordpress.com

The Fast Lane Soundtrack!
Pull up a comfy chair, settle in to read The Fast Lane and step back in time with our authentic mid-nineties mixtape… vignettepress.com.au/podcasts/thefastlane mixtape.mp3

It was their first summer and the bright light lingered forever. Animal noises changed from bird-calls into discreet scurryings and long loping thuds and when it was hot he was lulled into believing that his estate outside Prague no longer existed…

Mini Shots are a steal at $4 each, or $6 for international delivery.

Mini Shots #011		Mini Shots #011
Australia $4		International $6

Phillip Edmonds is the author of two collections of short stories - Big Boys and Don’t Let me Fall. After taking a break from fiction for a number of years he is publishing again. His story ‘The Soapbook’ is published in Griffith Review no. 19 and he has recently completed a novella entitled Leaving home with Henry which is loosely the story of Henry Lawson returning to contemporary Australia. He is the founding co-managing editor of Wetink (the magazine of new writing) and he teaches in the English Department at Adelaide University.

Free download! Mini Shots #011 Foxes, by Phillip Edmonds

Rhys McDonald is a freelance cartoonist and illustrator and is responsible for:

A more or less self taught artist working mainly in digital mediums he produces varied works both digitally and traditionally for a range of clients.

Do Valentine’s Day without the gooey sentimentality - after all, nothing says ‘I’m Into You’ more than a kooky book about sex, right?

Order The Sex Mook now and receive a gift pack with the mook, Juice and a cute packet of condoms, all wrapped in a big bow. We can even deliver it anonymously to your secret crush, simply drop us a line with the details. All for the usual low price of $16.95.

It’s on again! The Vignette Press Short Story Competition is seeking your creative outputs. We are super-lucky to have the incredibly talented short story writer Paddy O’Reilly on board as a judge this year.

Prizes!

First prize: $500 and your story will be published as a magazine in the Mini Shots series.
Second prize: $200 and a subscription to Mini Shots.

Details

Open theme to 3,000 words. Entries close 30 May 2008. Entry costs $5.50 email entries, $6.60 fax/snail mail entries (see below). Entries must be accompanied by an entry form:

SS08 Entry Form (/Acrobat)

SS08 Entry Form (Word)

Judge

We are excited to announce that Paddy O’Reilly will be judging this year’s competition.

Paddy O’Reilly is a lovely lady and renowned writer of short fiction, long fiction and screenplays. Her short story collection The End of the World (University of Queensland Press) is a joy to read, as is her debut novel The Factory and debut novella Deep Water. Her short stories have won awards from The Age, Glen Eira My Brother Jack and Zoetrope All-Story and are shining examples of original and insightful short story writing.

Pricing

In the interests of reducing paper waste, Vignette Press are offering a financial incentive to encourage email entries. Pricing breakdown:

$5.50 - Email entries
Send stories as a pdf or Word document only. Send story as seperate document to entry form. If you would like to send a cheque or money order in the mail and the story by email, cost is still $5.50, and please be sure to mark all correspondence with author name and story title. Exceptional shortlisted stories will be printed for final judging. Send stories to submissions@vignettepress.com.au

$6.60 - Mail/Fax entries
Entries submitted via fax and mail will still be accepted, at the usual entry cost of $6.60. As ever, be sure to include an entry form. Send stories to PO Box 296, Coburg 3058, Australia OR fax to 03 8610 2058.

More info

• Winners will be notified by phone after 30 July 2008.
• Competition results will be distributed online and via email only. Please do not send an SSAE for results.
• Receipts will be issued by email if requested.
• Entries postmarked 30 May 2008 will be accepted.
• Please do not include your name on the story.
• Poetry will not be considered.
• International entries are most definitely welcome (prize paid in Australian dollars).

She rations her motels. She does not have as much money as she thought. The feeling of adundance, of oyster worlds and wide open roads, evaporated very quickly…

Mini Shots are a steal at $4 each, or $6 for international delivery.

Mini Shots #010		Mini Shots #010
Australia $4		International $6

Jennifer Mills has published short stories, poems and essays in journals including Overland, fourW, Hecate and the Griffith Review, and anthologies including Best Australian Short Stories 2007 (Black Inc). In 2007 she finished her first novel and prematurely quit her day job and lives by her wits (and hence out of her car). She is an unrepentant traveller, but can usually be found in Alice Springs.

You can read more of her work at www.jenjen.com.au

Listen to Jennifer read The Lap! Download The Lap, from 2SER’s Final Draft, 27 Nov 07.

Just in time for Christmas, Vignette Press has a zine release for the loveable Scrabble-head in your life…

It’s about Scrabble, art, obsession and hardcore geeking out over wordplay.

Scrabble Freaks

Thursday night, he beats her. It happens often these days and she finds herself accepting it. A sound like the crack of a bull whip, the back of a hand receding, blurring…

Mini Shots are a steal at $4 each, or $6 for international delivery.

Mini Shots #009		Mini Shots #009
Australia $4		International $6

Christopher Clarke’s writing explores the ambiguities of human relationships, modes of reality and representation, dehumanisation through consumer culture, and urban decay. He is interested in literary experimentation, and for this reason prefers not to maintain stylistic consistency between pieces. It is through these themes that he finds inspiration in the words of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Michel Houellebecq and Ernest Hemingway.

Christopher’s work has appeared in the Monash student publication Lot’s Wife, and the Verge 2006 short fiction anthology. Presently, he is studying a Bachelor of Arts in English and Comparative Literature Studies, and hopes to one day make a living from words.

WHAT IS OUR SEX?

Bringing together the voices of over 60 people, this collection of articles, creative stuff and how-to guides presents an unusual take on the topic of sex.

It would be duplicitous to claim this book was any kind of authoritative guide. But what it does have are hugely diverse - and much more entertaining - views on sex than is usually found in mainstream media. There’s no airbrushing, no censorship and no one telling you what’s right or wrong.

IT’S REAL SEX: IN ALL ITS LEAKY, FUNNY, NOISY, CONFUSING GLORY.

This collection is rough and more than a little bit messy. But then, so is sex. Enjoy.

Download: a special sneak preview of The SEX Mook: What is Our Sex?

The SEX Mook: Paperback | ISBN 978-1-876110-00-0 | RRP: $16.95 | 152 pages (A5) | Julian Fleetwood (Ed.)

Read more!

Order from the store now!