A semi-autobiographical play set in a mental institution in 1970.

WINNER OF THE 2013 STEELE RUDD AWARD, QUEENSLAND LITERARY AWARDS SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 STELLA PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 KIBBLE AWARD From prize-winning short-story writer Cate Kennedy comes a new collection to rival her highly acclaimed Dark Roots. In Like a House on Fire, Kennedy once again takes ordinary lives and dissects their ironies, injustices and pleasures with her humane eye and wry sense of humour. In ‘Laminex and Mirrors’, a young woman working as a cleaner in a hospital helps an elderly patient defy doctor’s orders. In ‘Cross-Country’, a jilted lover manages to misinterpret her ex’s new life. And in ‘Ashes’, a son accompanies his mother on a journey to scatter his father’s remains, while lifelong resentments simmer in the background. Cate Kennedy’s poignant short stories find the beauty and tragedy in illness and mortality, life and love. PRAISE FOR CATE KENNEDY ‘This is a heartfelt and moving collection of short stories that cuts right to the emotional centre of everyday life.’ Bookseller and Publisher ‘Cate Kennedy is a singular artist who looks to the ordinary in a small rural community and is particularly astute on exploring the fallout left by the aftermath of the personal disasters that change everything.’ The Irish Times

Lewis, a young, first-time director, is hired to direct a variety show as part of a therapeutic program at a state-run psychiatric institution. Whilst he's not exactly equipped for the job he's willing to give it a go - Lewis is drifting and needs some direction in his own life. What Lewis isn't prepared for is the enthusiasm one of the institution's less stable inmates, Roy, has for opera - especially Mozart. Lewis finds himself rehearsing an unlikely assortment of actors in a surely doomed production of Cosi Fan Tutti. The cast includes a pyromaniacal sociopath, a junkie, a knife-wielding romantic, a lithium-addicted pianist who hates Mozart, and a stuttering ex-lawyer who is extremely reluctant to take part. As the production lurches forward to it's uncertain conclusion, Lewis and the cast find companionship and the power of ideals as the world around and outside them proves both inconstant and rife with confusion.

From one of Australia's foremost literary talents, this is an unforgettable and heartbreaking story about two young girls living in the wild with Tasmanian Tigers.

In the first play a matriarchal imitation of English society is destroyed by an outbreak of 'holy fire' madness from a wheat fungus in Western NSW (9 men, 4 women). In the second, the child-like Su-ling in China in the 1920s, learns there is no place for compassion in the execution of social change (10 men, 4 women). Music by Sarah de Jong.

In this NOW Australia, eminent Australian playwright and author Louis Nowra goes behind the media headlines and reveals the endemic male Aboriginal sexual and domestic violence against women and children. He tries to answer the question of whether this violence is traditional or a product of two hundred years of white settlement. He examines traditional Aboriginal life and cites observations by early settlers, explorers and anthropologists. He also analyses a wide range of reports from various governments, health professionals, the media and from Aboriginal women and men.The issue is such a culturally sensitive one and to write about it is highly controversial, but Louis Nowra strongly believes that the issue is so important that it must be openly addressed and dealt with immediately.

Every great city in the world has its famous red light district - they are practically household names, synonymous with vice, sex and sin; Reeperbahn, Forty Second Street, Soho, Pigalle - and Sydney's very own Kings Cross is no exception. But, like those other famous red light districts, if brothels and cheap restaurants could afford the rent, so could artists, writers and poets. Since the 1890s, the Cross has nurtured Sydney's literati at its ample, bared bosom, either housing them or providing a racy - or even dignified - setting for their work. From Patrick White, Sumner Locke Elliott, and Kenneth Slessor in the early days, through Kate Grenville, David Marr, Frank Moorhouse and John Tranter, to Luke Davies, Justine Ettler, and of course Mandy Sayer and Louis Nowra themselves, writers have lived in, loved and looked at the Cross. Sure, she's untidy and a little rough around the edges, and maybe a little frumpy these days, but she's still the Cross, and she looms large in our collective imagination, provocative and pouting on the doorstep of the city. This collection will surprise readers with its breadth and range - Kings Cross wasn't always the bad part of town, as Patrick White and M. Barbard Eldershaw reveal. But there are also plenty of stories of vice and sleaze in there as well. LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS White, Patrick, Voss, Deamer, Dulcie, The Queen of Bohemia, Lindsay, Jack, The Roaring Twenties Gill, Lydia, My Town: Sydney in the 1930s, Slessor, Kenneth, My Kings Cross and poetry Cusack, Dymphna and F. James, Come in Spinner M. Barnard Eldershaw, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" Herbert. Bob No Names...No Pack Drill Johnston, George Clean Straw for Nothing Mackenzie, Kenneth Seaforth "The Refuge" Roland, Betty, Kings Cross Rose, Jon, At the Cross Baranay, Inez., Pagan John Clare, Bodgie Dada and The Cult of Cool Grenville, Kate, Lilian's Story Lennox, Gina and Rush, Frances, People of the Cross-True Stories from People Who Live and Work in Kings Cross Locke Elliott, Sumner, Fairyland Beaver, Bruce, poetry Doyle, Peter, Get Rich Quick Humphries, Barry More Please Smith, Vivian, poetry Sykes, Roberta, Snake Dancing Komunyakaa, Yusef, poetry Moorhouse, Frank, The Americans, Baby Tranter, John, poetry Aitken, Graeme, Vanity Fierce Bobis, Merlinda, White Turtle Davies, Luke, Candy Ettler, Justine, The River Ophelia Lord, Gabrielle, Whipping Boy Nowra, Louis, Red Nights Sayer, Mandy, The Cross McCuaig, Ronald, poetry

Francis Joseph Cassavant is eighteen. He has just returned home from the Second World War, and he has no face. He does have a gun and a mission: to murder his childhood hero. Francis lost most of his face when he fell on a grenade in France. He received the Silver Star for bravery, but was it really an act of heroism? Now, having survived, he is looking for a man he once admired and respected, a man adored by many people, a man who also received a Silver Star for bravery. A man who destroyed Francis's life. Francis lost most of his face when he fell on a grenade in France. He received the Silver Star for bravery, but was it really an act of heroism? Now, having survived, he is looking for a man he once admired and respected, a man adored by many people, a man who also received a Silver Star for bravery. A man who destroyed Francis's life. -->