A luminous novel that both questions and celebrates the miraculous 'fresh and brilliant ... the sort of book that keeps on unfolding in the imagination, long after you've finished reading it.' Gabrielle Lord'It is strange and fascinating to me to think of people - Avila in particular - praying me into existence.' Nineteen-year-old Sydney Peony Kent was a longed-for IVF baby. Her mother, Avila, not only used science to conceive, but also prayed to the Bambinello, a small bejewelled c...

In prose that sparkles with wit, shocks with insight, and beguiles with the air of legend, these seven stories take the reader from post-apocalyptic Tasmania to the tragedy of surrogate pregnancy in the 1950s. Loss of species, the whims of publishers, the question of Islam in regional Australia - these are among the subjects Carmel Bird addresses in her characteristic probing style.Carmel Bird's stories are dark, intriguing and yet always delightful.–ANDY GRIFFITHSA...

On the far northwest coast of Tasmania at Cape Grimm lies the isolated and idiosyncratic community of Skye, which practises a religion that reveres the imagination. One clear evening in 1992 all the inhabitants enter the church hall, where they are locked in and burned alive. They have been persuaded to do this by a young man called Caleb Mean - also known as El Nino, the Christ Child. The only survivors of the fire are Caleb, his lover Virginia, and their baby daughter Golden. How could s...

This book about writing and the imagination is essential reading for any writer, emerging or experienced. Re-released with new material and updated advice for the 21st century writer. Contains advice for writers, inspirational quotes from numerous authors as well as writing exercises.'Dear Writer Revisited is warm and nudging, firm and affirming.' Angela Meyer, Literary Minded‘I first read Dear Writer as a nervy, secretive scribbler-in-journals 20 years ago. How comforted I...

Sassy freelance journalist Courtney Frome is on assignment counting bathrooms for the property pages. For Courtney the world of expansive bay views and renovator's delights is just another job... until Lizzy Candy is discovered dead in her spa while Courtney is inspecting the Candy mansion. Lizzie's faithless husband is a big player in real estate. But is he the obvious answer to the obvious question? Then a second body is discovered at another prestige address...

'I was confined, locked into my library, tracing my heartbeats from way, way back.’In Telltale, Carmel Bird seizes on an enforced isolation to re-read a rich dispensary of books from her past. A rule she sets herself is that she can consult only the books in her house, even if some, such as the much-loved Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, appear to be stubbornly elusive. Her library is comprehensive, and each book chosen — or that cannot be re...

*Longlisted for the 2020 Davitt Awards: Adult Crime*Keen to escape the pressures of city life, Marsali Swift and her husband William are drawn to Listowel, a glorious historic mansion in the seemingly tranquil small town of Muckleton. There is time to read, garden, decorate, play chess and befriend the locals.Yet one night Listowel is robbed, and soon after a neighbour is murdered. The violent history of the couple's adopted Goldfields town is revealed, and...

'You clamber up, heading for the exit, the circle of faint light, as the radiance of the pre-dawn leads you on toward freedom. I follow. You spread your darling wings. You enter the net that awaits you.'Bold, tender, and often fantastical, Love Letter to Lola enters the very pain of loss and grief while preserving a wise, sly, humorous, and ironic point of view. The thylacine, the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the blue macaw are all candidates to return from extinction, and here each...

In Writing the Story of Your Life, Carmel Bird, author of the classic writing guide Dear Writer, brings you down-to-earth advice, inspirational quotations and suggestions and practical exercises. Clear and easy-to-use, it is an essential reference tool for anyone thinking about writing, or anyone who loves writing.

Petra Penfold-Knight is the leader of a religious cult. Many join because of the persuasive charm of privileged Petra. But not all. Some ‘members’ are babies stolen from their unmarried mothers.Red Shoes—so-called because the wearing of them is a mark of membership —could have been a straightforward thriller or suspense novel. It’s not. Carmel Bird has Petra’s guardian angel tell the story. And angels, of course, always have their own opinions and a rather partic...

**Longlisted, Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award 2026**There was a kind of grotesquerie to the dazzle and magnificence, a vicious underlay of thorns beneath the bed of roses, and a vast shadow floating, looming overhead. The kingdom was forever at war, and there was an eerie strangeness in the shining trio of the king, his wife, and the little princess from Savoy.It is 1696. Louis XIV, absolute monarch in his sunset years, with his secret wife ...

‘It is an intensely emotional experience to read The White Garden; although an intensely aesthetic one as well. Dr. Ambrose Goddard is a psychologist who sadistically abuses his patients. (He is based on a real-life Australian case of about a generation ago). His air of superiority and professional know-how masks a desperate and seemingly imperturbable desire to control others, especially young women…’ So begins academic Nicholas Birns’s review of The White Garden in the ...