Mighty Tales

The short story
is a genre
for our times.

THE HITMAN WHO ATE TOO MUCH

"Dining from a buffet required a special strategy. Just like killing a man. That is, to optimise the outcome one had to show restraint and discipline—caution even. A buffet was a visual trap, apt to overload the senses with its colour, presentation and aromas, all of which could foul one’s good sense. One had to start small, start light, and not succumb to that trait of many a man’s undoing—greed."

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BABY GRAND

"On the tiny Fijian island of Ovalau, a snobbish European widow is forced to enlist the help of local cannery workers when an oversize family heirloom arrives by ship from New Zealand. "
Shortlisted, Overland Victoria University Prize; Finalist, South Asia's Open Road Review

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Good Night Papa:
Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere
(paperback, 2017)

Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere is fifteen tales for the time-poor and travel-hungry. Triumphing over adversity is a central theme: a fugitive disguised as a pilgrim discovers his fate rests in the hands of a novice Buddhist monk in Japan (The Pilgrim); a recovering alcoholic mail pilot crashes his plane in the Australian desert with a bottle of gin on board (The Finke River Mail); a snobbish widow must ask the help of local cannery workers to carry a grand piano uphill to her home in Fiji (Baby Grand). These are some of the tales told.

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The Storyteller

Simon Rowe grew up in small town New Zealand and big city Australia. He writes short fiction and screenplays from a small room in an old house overlooking a samurai castle in Himeji city, western Honshu. His stories have appeared in TIME Asia, the New York Times, the Weekend Australian, the South China Morning Post and The Paris Review.