Young Writers Echapters
A Love of Ideas
Black Rock
Caitlin Gardner
“Each evening that autumn, she would drag out her rickety easel and sit cross-legged before it on the pier as she waited for the sun to disappear behind the bend of Black Rock, leaving in its wake the darkening silhouette of trees and rooftops pressed against the cliff face …”
Headless
Ryan Parker
“The first thing Alistair Eldridge noticed when he awoke was that he had somehow lost his head. To be precise, it was the second thing he noticed. The first was that his bedroom had somehow reached an intolerably frigid temperature during the night …”
How I learnt my SAT words
Julia Brieger
“1. Pernicious (adj.); extremely destructive or harmful.
His middle name. That should have been a warning, not an
invitation, but I always misread the signals, and when he took
my hand under the party lights I didn’t pull away …”
La frontera
Annabel Rodway
“In the Estados Unidos de América, Mamá says, the women wear red rouge on their cheeks. The streets gleam, spotless under the light of the luna. Buildings grow towards the sky, she proclaims, energetically raising her arms up toward the cerulean sheet which is dotted with tiny, iridescent diamonds …”
Luna lepidoptera
Melanie Pryor
“She is spending the day in an underground room, pinning musty insects onto grey foam pillows. The room is dim, she has a headache from the naphthalene and a heartache that’s making her feel like retching …”
Meniscus
Emma Rummery
“Yellow sand, white curving waves and a cliff face that looks like a serene, monolithic profile staring out to sea. My grandmother used to linger at Queenscliff beach until her children begged to go home …”
Mr Huxley and the case for sedition
Maiya Elali
“It is a peculiar thing that convictions one has held for years can be destroyed by an act committed in the span of ten minutes. I suppose it is a function of our inherent malleability – a very human thing indeed …”
Once at the mall
Maxwell Fletcher
“I was eight, maybe twelve.
My dad lived there when we lived there, and he stayed
there when we left …”
The park symphony
Nicola Brittain
“The old man sat on the bench and watched the people walk by. If one were to ask him how he got there he would not be able to answer, for it was a mystery to him also. His mind had been daydreaming as he stepped out of his front gate and began his journey into the town …”
Planetary support group
Theadosia Kurniawan
“The galaxy was indeed an amazing spectacle. Swirls of brilliant red, blue and gold, and clouds of dust and rocky debris that dreamily floated across the black realm. Somewhere, an electric motor whirred loudly, and a glass cylinder lift began to decelerate …”
Sea, sand, and salt
Isabella Neoh
“Black and white. Fair hands pressed against black mud, dirt biting into pearly white crescents of fingernails. A ghostly pale child squatted in the thick black sand, firmly planted like one of the crooked, scarred, palm trees overhead, shrouded by the thick blanket of humid heat that enveloped the hidden beach …”
She arrived with the rain
Yinnie Yip
“She arrived with the rain, dancing outside his window and landing clumsily on the concrete, losing her footing every so often on the gaps. She reminded him of lost days when splashes of rich Milo melted onto dusty pages of old library books, and his greatest enemies were the beasts that plagued them …”
Toy soldiers
Gabrielle Sing
“I was fifteen when Claude joined up. My favourite, laughingeyed brother: strong, gentle and mischievous, whose love was absolute …”
Trust me
Lisa Pike
“‘Come on, ya silly girl. Two. More. Steps.’ My outstretched arm strained over the rails to grasp the mare’s halter. My other hand attempted to entice her with carrots as the dusty grey mare gingerly took the smallest step I’ve ever seen a horse make …”
