Overland is looking for fiction for a special anti-/dis-/un-Australian issue to be edited by Ben Walter and published in April 2016.

About the edition, Ben writes:

For this special online fiction issue of Overland, I am calling for anti-/dis-/un-Australian stories.

 I think, perhaps contentiously, that many Australian short stories suffer from a lack of ambition. They tend to be characterised by a flat, minimalistic realism. The events take place over four, maybe six hours. The relationships between people are not so good – and then they are very meaningful. And people dance on the beach in the middle of the night.

 I will be looking to publish stories that embrace a distinctive style or voice, that are not terrified of adornment or a little pizzazz. Wordplay. Humour. Experimental forms, non-linear structures, fragmented sentences, abstractions. Anything, just as long as it doesn’t sound like the winner of a moderately prestigious competition.

I’d be so grateful if you could send stories like this to me.

About the guest editor

Ben Walter is a Tasmanian writer of lyrical fiction and poetry. His stories have recently appeared in Westerly, Island, The Canary Press and The Lifted Brow. He was the runner-up in the 2014 Jim Hamilton Award for an unpublished novel manuscript, and has just been shortlisted in the Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prizes for the second time. He’s on Twitter as Ben Walter.

Submission details

Online contributors for this edition will be paid $120 per story.

Entries for the special issue close 11.59pm, Sunday 31 January 2016. The special anti-/dis-/un-Australian issue will be available online in April.

Submit your story

Under the ‘For online’ category on the fiction submissions page, or read one of the previous special issues edited by Oliver Driscoll, SJ Finn, Emily Laidlaw, Miranda Camboni, Kate Goldsworthy, Khalid Warsame or Rachel Hennessy.