Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

CAROL GORDONEKSTER: First of all, congratulations, Kristen! That’s quite an undertaking to buy a small press. Since my second book, Ruth the Sleuth and the Messy Room was published by Character Publishing on its debut list, I, for one, am thrilled that you took over. Many small presses go out of business. So to find out you bought the company and are ready to lead with passion and enthusiasm is great news. Can you tell us about how you ended up becoming the new owner of Character Publishing?KRISTEN NECAISE: This is a fun story and is very much about being in the right place at the right time. Jerusha Bosarge’s daughter and my son are in the same class together at school and we happened to be at a classmate’s birthday party at the end of the school year. We were talking, and I mentioned that I…

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected” -Chief Seattle

Here’s issue 3 of the special volume of Review of Australian Fiction, edited by Laurie Steed, that features writers from Western Australia. This issue presents a story by one of Western Australia’s most celebrated novelists, Brenda Walker, paired with emerging writer Maria Papas—and two fascinating, and unsettling, stories they are.

Brenda Walker’s story, ‘Mouse’, begins with a singular voice that leads us into a small hell:

Inside the building next to the car park there is a flight of stairs that leads to the floor where the mice live. If you want to work with mice you must put on special clothing, heavy white plastic boots, gloves and a mask. You must walk through a sequence of doors, you must not carry bacteria from the outside world with you. This is to protect the mice from contamination. The mice live in translucent boxes. Their eyes are pink bubbles…

It’s likely you have not seen giraffes like this because you won’t often catch giraffes sleeping. (Aside from me! 🙂 ) giraffes have the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, needing around 30 minutes a day. Until about the 1950’s researchers thought that they never slept at all.

Because of it’s slowness in lying down and getting up the giraffe as a prey animal has evolved to protect itself by reducing it’s need for catching zzzz’s. Beautiful, exotic and amazing huh?

Do we have any other ‘giraffes’ amongst us, or are you the full-bodied 8 hours type?