Kathryn Gossow

Early Sunday morning in the quiet country town of Stinky Gully, five-year-old Bree-Anna takes her doll Baby for a walk. Jake, passing through, hoping to spend the day with his daughter, sees a chubby girl in pink get into a green car. Eloise, bar maid and part time cleaner, distracted with protecting her ailing father from her junkie brother, sees pink clothes in loner Randall's washing basket and doesn't think twice.Bree-Anna's precious Baby is locked in a suitcase on top of a wardrobe. She has no one to help her and Bree-Anna must remember all of the times she has been brave if she is to survive in Mr Randall's house.

Some people are so broken they can only cut us.With poetic dexterity, Aurealis Award finalist Kathryn Gossow interweaves eight short stories of longing and alienation featuring outcasts and the misunderstood. From a homeless storyteller to a gardening soothsayer, to a copy editor who owns a pair of stubborn chickens, readers will come face to face with the humanity of people easily judged by a rigid society.At the heart of these stories is the Dark Poet, a charismatic and broken man leaving a trail of debris as he drifts in and out of people's lives.