Author Talk with Gillian O'Shaughnessy
A cast of unforgettable characters who disrupt and delight
When
to
Where
Boundless Books, Leederville
Join us in store for the launch of Gillian O'Shaughnessy's debut collection of flash fiction: Salt City Runaway.
Gillian O’Shaughnessy is Australia’s most celebrated flash fiction writer and a highly respected journalist and broadcaster. Join us in conversation with the woman of the hour as she takes us through this highly accessible and fascinating form, and the power it has to touch our hearts.
Tickets are $5 for entry only or free when prepurchasing a copy of Salt City Runaway.
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. In fifty piercing stories, Salt City Runaway introduces a cast of unforgettable characters who disrupt and delight.
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. It is a masterclass in flash fiction.
About the author:
Gillian O’Shaughnessy's work has appeared in the Best Small Fictions anthologies (2023–2025) and has won international prizes. A former ABC journalist and broadcaster, she has spent three decades interviewing some of the world’s most prominent authors and thinkers. Gillian is a sub-editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, teaches masterclasses in flash fiction, and is serving as a 2026 Stella Prize judge. Drawing from a lifetime of storytelling—from radio to stage to page—Salt City Runaway is Gillian’s first book.