Book Launch: Salt City Runaway by Gillian O'Shaughnessy
About
You are invited to celebrate the launch of Gillian O'Shaughnessy's debut collection, Salt City Runaway!Gillian O'Shaughnessy is Australia's most celebrated flash fiction writer as well as a highly respected journalist and broadcaster. Her work has appeared in the Best Small Fictions anthologies (2023-2025) and has won international awards. A former ABC journalist and broadcaster, she has spent three decades interviewing some of the world's most prominent authors and thinkers.
In Salt City Runaway, across fifty piercing stories, we're introduced to a cast of unforgettable characters who disrupt and delight. From Western Australia's port city Fremantle to its red-dusted goldfields and wave-washed southwest, women and girls fight for recognition and solace. This is a luminous debut that reveals beauty and wonder in the smallest of stories - a masterclass is flash fiction.
Join us to celebrate the launch of this beautiful book. Gill will be in conversation with Glynn Greensmith discussing the creation of the stories and her journey with flash fiction, with readings from the fabulous Sarah McNeill.
Books will be available to purchase on the night and Gill will be signing after the formal proceedings.
About the book:
Helen Garner moves into a letterbox. Dead bats rain from the sky. A woman offers Lou Reed her last cigarette at a suburban bus stop. From Western Australia’s port city of Fremantle, to its red-dusted Goldfields and wave-washed South West, women and girls fight for recognition and solace. Slippery, complicated, tender and broken, they carry their humanity in vivid, strange worlds. Salt City Runaway is a luminous debut that reveals beauty and wonder in the smallest of stories.
Praise for Salt City Runaway:
"A chorus of tiny stabs whose sly work is done before the wounds even register. The cumulative impact is startling." —Tim Winton
"An exhilarating read. A collection of very short stories that are deep and true, Salt City Runaway has a rhythm that will keep you reading long after you intend to stop and imagery that will take your breath away. This is a collection with breadth and balance. I have felt punched in the gut, lifted aloft and dazzled by the uncanny. While each story stands alone, the voice is consistently strong and there is a sense of time and place that left me in no doubt these stories belong together. In this collection, Gillian O’Shaughnessy beautifully illustrates the adage that less is indeed more." —Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho
Date
Saturday 9 May 2026 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM (UTC+08)Location
Ode to Sirens
25 High Street, Fremantle WA 6160
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Book Launch: Salt City Runaway by Gillian O'Shaughnessy
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