By Kerryn Goldsworthy
Joiner Bay and Other Stories
Ed., Ellen van Neerven
Margaret River Press, $24
The annual Margaret River Short Story Competition and its resulting anthology have become regular features on the Australian literary calendar. This year's collection of the best 17 stories has been edited by Ellen van Neerven, herself a poet and fiction writer of great originality, and her generous and detailed introduction is one of its highlights. Standout stories include the competition winner, Joiner Bay by Laura Elvery, in which a boy struggling with loss contemplates the extremes of life and is supported by a couple of briefly but beautifully drawn adult men. The runner-up, Sheen by Else Fitzgerald, is a brilliant and desolate piece of speculative fiction in which the world has broken and nothing remains but the last of the humanoid robots. Other excellent stories include Yvonne Edgren's Small Disturbances, Emily Paull's Ms Lovegrove, and Leslie Thiele's Harbour Lights.