It's a collection of short stories produced by an online workshopping group formed by the Australian Writer’s Centre.
- "Fatal Words" - Louise Guy - Teresa's clever but autistic son Dominic causes trouble at school. Other parents don't like him or her. Her husband left them 2 years before because he couldn't cope. He returns, rich, on the day that Dominic saves the life of a fellow pupil. Will Teresa let her husband stay? At the end she says "I've been holding onto something for two years wishing I still had it. Today I no longer want or need it", ... It was over. All rather contrived, with straightforward characters.
- "Just Another Statistic" - LM Joannides - Lorelai is the victim of domestic abuse from Nathanial. The cleaner tells her to go to the police, telling her about stories in the paper. When Lorelai finds she's pregnant she fakes her own murder. No surprises, except why Lorelai didn't act earlier.
- "Skel Corpus" - Robyn H Butler - in a medieval world Tuaka Afore has been chosen by Jhe Jah to walk the Hove, so her family get perks. She's starved. On the big day she's taken to the Walled City and manages the walk along with many others, but she defies the ceremony at the end. It may save her life (thus pleasing her father) but their perks will surely be taken away. Maybe worse. It's an "in media res" piece which works well.
- "The Old Man And The Boy" - Laila Miller - an old fisherman teaches a boy about sea life. The scene changes - a development agent and the village chief talk about providing the village with clean water, electricity, and a fish farm. Work begins, but it's vandalised by a drugs gang who the chief works for. The chief has disappeared. The agent abandons his plan. The old man talks him into a smaller project to clean the environment and re-introduce native fish.
- "Wrong Side Of The Tracks" - Sueanne Gregg - This story is prefaced by a warning about the material and numbers of some help lines. Belinda (fostered by several families) has lived with violent Rick for a month. While cleaning the toilets in the filling station she helps a girl in labour. The baby survives, but the mother dies. When Belinda make a statement at the police station her bruises are noticed and she's given protection. She turns her life around so she can adopt the child after a few years.
- "The Bell Of Warning" - Claire McLennan - Fantasy. June rungs the bell to summon people and the perytons (stags? the villager's protectors?) to the square. She says she saw a vaulk. She's not believed by her kin. The perytons are angry that she went into the wood. She's banished. She leaves her brother, Pin. They have no parents. After a week or so of being tracked by vaulks, they take her to their lair where she administers a potion to one of them, who transforms into her mother. The perytons are baddies, using the vaulks as their soldiers. When vaulks bite humans the humans are transformed into vaulks. I didn't like the piece.
- "Broken Song" - Mark J Keenan - Mel, overlooked for promotion in preference to her friend Lucy, has a drink problem, made worse by working at home for a week. She and her husband Mick go to a works party. She'd nearly messed up a big contract at work. At the party she announced her error, and blames it on drink. She blames her husband for not noticing. She rushes out, drives and crashes. In the ambulance, maybe about to die, she regrets not telling Mick about her troubles. No surprises.
- "Lightning Speed" - Amanda Lee Charman - Emily's pregnant after months of trying. She's married to Paul, whose wife Penny died soon after giving birth to Sarah, now 4. Penny's mother Clair doesn't like Emily. Emily's worried that she's not as good a wife as Penny, and that she'll love Sarah less when the baby's born. After an incident where she thinks she's run over Sarah then realises she hasn't, she begins having a miscarriage.
- "Building Bridges" - Suzanne S-Smith - Gerry, a provocative Wisconsin phone-in DJ, is grumpy when his audience believes his satire and votes for Trump. His regular chauffeur Bill asks why after years Gerry's never asked his opinion on matters (Bill ditched a good finance job for one with greater satisfaction). Gerry is murdered by Republican worker Dot Pringle (an unnecessary deus ex macchina). Gerry gets a good send off.
I liked parts of some of these. Though many of the stories depended on plot, the endings were a let down, and the characters weren't very complex.
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