New Fiction by a Diving Bell Teacher-Author

Diving Bell is excited to present three works of creative writing by one of our teacher-authors, Dr Anna McHugh. Anna has taught English in several Sydney high schools and has written many of Diving Bell's HSC English resources. Her academic and pedagogical writing have been published by Oxford University Press, Salem Press, and Macmillan. She now tutors English to HSC students in Sydney and is writing a historical novel about medieval Scotland. Her books are available for purchase as ebooks and hard copy books from all good bookshops and, of course, from the Diving Bell shop.

Dr Kate Llewellyn, another Diving Bell teacher-author (English) says, "As short or flash fiction, Saccades is fantastic material for exam reading passages. I've used the book in three assessment tasks and my students have borrowed it several times from the school library."

A prisoner waits for the rain in a London prison; Alexander the Great fakes his death and becomes a holy man in the Himalayas; the ocean invites humanity to return home to her; Communist China discovers the secret of immortality - to the misery of its citizens. These brief fictions by one of Australia's most exciting new writers present lucid portraits of people, luminous moments in the past and frightening future. Each elegant, compressed narrative uses its brevity as a weapon, telling us about magic both natural and human, and offering unflinching glimpses of our capacity for beauty, cruelty, and illumination.

Saccades is available in hard copy and as an ebook

Tales of Cupid and Psyche Front cover.jpg

Through variations that are by turns surprising, charming, horrifying and thought-provoking, The Tales of Cupid and Psyche explores each step of the classic fairy tale. Fifty-eight variations, vignettes, flashbacks, nested narratives, and philosophical riddles treat Apuleius' famous and beautiful fairytale with a profound playfulness and show how this ancient Greek fairytale still influences our ideas about love, sex, stories, family, and fate.

The Tales of Cupid and Psyche is available in hard copy and as an ebook

On a train, a woman smells a familiar perfume and suddenly leaves her marriage. One hot afternoon a man confesses a horrifying secret about a child in his past. A tutor attempts to explain entropy to a bored schoolgirl. A woman buys the services of a man who comes with a mysterious medallion and scars from a distant war. The short stories in this collection focus on that fiercely hot space of desire, obsession, and the passion which transforms men and women.