Novellas are the ideal fiction for our times: long enough to engage yet short enough to hold readers’ attention, the ideal length to enable authors to experiment. Griffith Review, with the active support of CAL’s Cultural Fund, has been at the forefront of reviving novellas in Australia. This movement is now gaining momentum, as publishers release novellas by their big name authors.

Earlier this year, we put the call out for our third volume of novellas and were overwhelmed by the interest. The web page was visited more than 13,650 times, and we received 271 entries. Our expert judges – Brian Johns, Jacqueline Blanchard and Cate Kennedy – read the novellas blind and were astounded by the diversity and quality. It was difficult, but five were finally chosen resulting in Tall Tales Short – The Novella Project III.

Tall Tales Short is a rich and varied collection that showcases the talents of five impressive authors and the diversity of the novella form. You will discover:

Nick Earls’ brilliant, and very touching, story of a middle-aged rock journo interviewing a young arrogant, self-absorbed rapper, over-compensating for his troubled upbringing;

Madeleine Watts’s haunting tale of an impressionable teenage girl who falls under the sway of an older artist, at a time when her own sense of self is fragile and her understanding of the power of desire embryonic;

Helen Gildfind’s heart-wrenching exploration of loneliness as her damaged and alienated protagonist tries to come to grips with the nature of love and friendship;

Catherine McKinnon’s lowly eighteenth-century ship’s boy who provides an insightful perspective on cross-cultural misunderstandings and ‘first contact’ as he accompanies Bass and Flinders on an expedition by sea;

Tony Davis’s jittery digital whistleblower who has only to survive a long-haul plane journey before the full extent of his explosive revelations can take effect;

‘Papercuts and Bloodlines’ by acclaimed artist Jacqui Stockdale.