It rained the night before. Just long enough to turn the earth to muck. It wasn’t even properly light when the lamb started and I pulled on my gumboots and went across the paddock. I was hung over.

The back door squeals and a string of Irish male cyclists clatter into the courtyard, waddling in cleated feet to the garage, and disappearing within to collect their bikes. Assembled in the courtyard, helmets hardly shading their solemn faces, they wait.

On the bus from the suburbs to the city, the gold sequins on a cocktail dress caught the glare of the bus’s lights and refracted them onto the ceiling. Tim watched the lights above him dance, wondering what the nightclub would be like. Who he might find there.

Usually still lit, or, if not, charred and burnt, the smoke from it curling down her throat. Butting the backs of her teeth. When Sabrina and Holly had been small it had been the best sort of party trick. Now though Sabrina tosses out a hand to stop it. To catch the lick of flame before it can ignite against her mother’s bones.

Why did I relate to the stories I chose? The stories stand out because they have characters with complex lives. They are struggling with adversity, but are alive to life. The stories are written in scenes, not long descriptive passages or discursive dialogue. These are narratives that go to the heart of the matter and arrive there from the first sentence.