StorySaloon

23/12/2025

📖 Looking for something good to read this holiday season?

All the short stories featured at StorySALOON live shows and podcasts are listed on our website, to help you track them down to read.

🔎 Head to our FAQs to find where each story is published and settle in with some great writing: www.storysaloon.com.au

22/12/2025

🥰 Wishing our StorySALOON community a relaxed, joyful holiday season.

Enjoy the sunshine, good books, long conversations, and our short story playlists on YouTube: Relationships, First Nations and Author Spotlights.

We will see you later in 2026 with more Australian short stories.

📩 In the meantime, subscribe to our eNews via our website: www.storysaloon.com.au

19/12/2025

💫 Wrapping up an extraordinary year for StorySALOON

Our first year. Two incredible seasons. Exciting short stories by Australian writers, performed brilliantly by talented actors. Laughter and tears. Provocations and discovery. Applause and connection.

Yes it takes a village. None of it would have been possible without all the brilliant writers and actors, our amazing team of behind-the-scenes SALOONers, our wonderful partners Creative Australia, National Institute of Dramatic Art, Better Read Than Dead, and our friends at The Vanguard - our storytelling home.

Thank you for helping us make StorySALOON a space where Australian short stories shine and community thrives. We look forward to bringing you more unforgettable storytelling nights in 2026!

📩 Subscribe to our eNews via our website for the latest updates and podcasts: www.storysaloon.com.au

16/12/2025

✒️ Calling all short story writers - what are your summer writing plans?

Looking for a spark to get your own words flowing? Explore our collection of contemporary short stories by Australian writers.

Hear about short story craft and technique from some of Australia's finest writers with our 'In the SALOON with...' podcast episodes and our YouTube-exclusive 'Author Spotlight' videos.

🎧 Spotify → https://shorturl.at/BH3T9
🎙 Apple Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/M4x2l
🎤 YouTube Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/eFxtQ
🩶 iHeart → https://shorturl.at/OWMdo

12/12/2025

✈️ Where's everyone heading this summer?

Long-haul adventure? Maybe a quick Bali getaway? 👀🌴 Holidaying at home?

In Paddy O'Reilly's short story, 'Baggage Claim', a young couple return home from Bali, minus their luggage. What they're given instead produces ethical dilemmas, hilarity and some very sexy moments. Written by one of Australia's most outstanding short story writers.

The reader is the very talented performer Monica Sayers. First published in Overland Literary Magazine.

Listen on the StorySALOON Podcast:
🎧 Spotify → https://shorturl.at/oTnrn
🎙 Apple Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/oGs2Y
🎤 YouTube Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/LK6bz
🩶 iHeart → https://shorturl.at/zaYNi

09/12/2025

Here’s to the 18 remarkable authors whose short stories lit up the StorySALOON stage this year. ✨✨

A huge thank you to:
Season 1 authors: Margo Lanagan, Paddy O'Reilly, Cate Kennedy (top row), Monique Choy, Oliver Coulter, Nic Low (middle row), Katherine Gledhill-Tucker, Anne Casey-Hardy, Gillian O'Shaughnessy (bottom row).

Season 2 authors: Roanna Gonsalves, Christos Tsiolkas, Jake Dean (top row), Ren Wyld, Claire Aman, Abigail Ulman (middle row), Monikka Eliah, Luke Johnson, Michelle Hamadache (bottom row).

Listen on the StorySALOON Podcast:
🎧 Spotify → https://shorturl.at/BH3T9
🎙 Apple Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/M4x2l
🎤 YouTube Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/eFxtQ
🩶 iHeart → https://shorturl.at/OWMdo

05/12/2025

🎥 Author Spotlight: Michelle Hamadache

We talk to writer, literary editor and creative writing lecturer Michelle Hamadache, author of 'The Crane Flies'. In this episode, Michelle reflects on the creative process behind the short story, her literary influences, and how she builds short stories that shimmer between the real and the surreal.

'The Crane Flies' a tender, fantastical tale set in 1990s Italy, where two young lovers and travellers find themselves in a Dante-esque hotel kitchen deep in the woods. It was read live at StorySALOON's final show for 2025 by the talented actor Charlotte Salusinszky.

▶️ Watch now on StorySALOON YouTube: https://shorturl.at/5bHz2

Michelle Hamadache discusses her story ‘The Crane Flies’. The interview was recorded at StorySALOON's Nov 4, 2025 live show, at The Vanguard, Newtown. Miche...

02/12/2025

🔔 Now streaming: 'In the SALOON with Michelle Hamadache and Luke Johnson'

Our final episode for StorySALOON Podcast 2025 brings together two erudite and passionate writers and literary editors for a conversation on short story craft, the motivations and decisions that shaped the writing of their short stories, and the role of lit journals in Australia.

They share the inspirations, challenges, and unexpected turns that shaped their work, and what it meant to hear their short stories, 'The Crane Flies' and 'Ferocious Animals', performed live at the StorySALOON final show for 2025.

Listen on the StorySALOON Podcast:
🎧 Spotify → https://shorturl.at/jf6Q3
🎙 Apple Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/HF8mb
🎤 YouTube Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/SmQJz
🩶 iHeart → https://shorturl.at/RRLTl

29/11/2025

📺 Explore StorySALOON on YouTube

Tune in to our YouTube channel for exclusive content, including our 'Author Spotlight' series. If you're interested to learn more about short story writing, listen to authors discuss their inspiration, and experience the creative process in their own words.
📼 Subscribe to StorySALOON YouTube and don't miss a single episode: https://shorturl.at/JBVQL

27/11/2025

🎥 Author Spotlight: Luke Johnson is now on YouTube

We sat down with Luke Johnson, author of 'Ferocious Animals', whose story was read to a live very appreciative audience by Bayley Prendergast.

Johnson talks post-show about how an initial autobiographical incident was the impetus for the highly fictionalised 'Ferocious Animals', plus insights into writing craft, and why actors make great short story readers

▶️ Watch now on StorySALOON YouTube: https://shorturl.at/mK0v4

25/11/2025

🪽 Michelle Hamadache's short story 'The Crane Flies' ep available now StorySALOON Podcast.

Set in the wilds of Italy, 'The Crane Flies' follows two young lovers, one an Australian, the other Algerian, who're near enslaved in an almost mythical Dante-esque hotel kitchen. Eloquently and richly told, this is a story for lovers of myth, the grotesque and the age-old pull of romance.

Read by Charlotte Salusinszky, whose dramatic performance brings this short story vividly alive.

Listen on the StorySALOON Podcast:
🎧 Spotify → https://shorturl.at/TnjR2
🎙 Apple Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/fMGsw
🎤 YouTube Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/l4bcG
🩶 iHeart → https://shorturl.at/KP9Tc
Video:

18/11/2025

🏉 'Ferocious Animals' is now released on the StorySALOON Podcast. Listen now!

Luke Johnson's writing is real, deep, and quietly devastating. It’s 1989, and NRL Grand Final day. A short story about masculinity, footie, and how anger isn’t the only way.

Performed by Bayley Prendergast, whose grounded, gripping reading brings every part of this father-son tale to life vividly.

🎧 Listen on Apple, Spotify, iHeart & YouTube Podcasts → Link in bio

Listen on the StorySALOON Podcast:
🎧 Spotify → https://bit.ly/3JGdkK1
🎙 Apple Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/gXXNd
🎤 YouTube Podcasts → https://shorturl.at/ibIHD
🩶 iHeart → https://shorturl.at/SbaPC
Video:@