A striking love story set against the backdrop of a dangerous fire season has been voted the readers’ favourite in The Best Australian Yarn short story competition.
Alison Wakeham
PhD candidate Josh Lowe crafts a prize-winning tale about a young man who returns to his narrow-minded hometown.
A woman finally faces up to the truth about her deadbeat boyfriend and finds a way to walk towards a new life.
Susan Francis
A chef obsessed with making the perfect meal for her diners gives everything of herself to realise her dream. Read The Culinarian now.
Cameron Rutherford
Police are hot on the heels of a group of young tearaways whose high spirits and high jinx turn a community against them.
Lily Thomson
A man returns home to the Philippines to visit his family’s old farm, sparking memories of his childhood and of his father.
Cal Guino
Bullies in a small country town make life a misery for an overweight boy called Digby who struggles to make friends. Read the poignant Dog Days by Keith Johnson now.
Keith Johnson
A fastidious, older employee, patronised and passed over in her workplace, quietly makes her own arrangements for a comfortable retirement.
Peter Byrne
A couple spark a relationship on the steps of Jacob’s Ladder against the backdrop of a landscape blackened by bushfires.
Rebecca Higgie
A young man returns to his narrowed-minded hometown and the father who refused to accept that his teenage son was different.
Josh Lowe
A young man about to turn 18 confronts the probability that he is likely to die at 3pm that day.
Till O’Callaghan
The curse of dementia clouds the mind of a man who is cared for by his devoted granddaughter.
Ruby Burke
Science and sentiment clash as a specialist veterinarian struggles to contain her contempt for snivelling, needy pet owners.
Rachel Van Nierop
A group of Indigenous kids are thrown together at a camp in the bush and learn about their past and each other.
Sharleigh Crittenden
Violence rips apart their country and a young couple must escape the militia and flee to safety with their baby son.
Harold Legaspi
A message from a daughter he has barely seen forces a long-distance truck driver to reflect on his life and rethink his future.
Sam Cecins
In the future, wealthy people can clone themselves to make their lives easier, but an employee begins to be filled with doubt.
Jacqueline MacDonald
The Best Australian Yarn judges have voted for their favourite short stories and now it’s your chance to read and vote for the one you like the best.
Tasmanian author Jacqueline MacDonald has taken the Best Australian Yarn’s top prize with her tale about a worker wrestling with doubt as the rich and powerful increasingly clone themselves.
Watch the unveiling of the winners of the Best Australian Yarn, the world’s richest and most popular short story competition, in a spectacular prize-giving ceremony.
The stunning second season of the Best Australian Yarn short story competition will culminate tonight with the announcement of the winners of the rich $75,000 prize pool.
A woman finally faces up to the truth about her deadbeat boyfriend and finds a way to walk towards a new life
An overwhelming response to the Best Australian Yarn long list means subscribers can now read all the top 50 stories online.
The highly anticipated top 50 short stories in the Best Australian Yarn competition have been revealed — and you can read every single one of them right here.