I Want Everything, by Dominic Amerena

Brenda Shales wrote two controversial and influential books in the 70s, before disappearing after a ruinous court case resulting from her second book. When she is recognised by a young ambitious writer and tracked to a run-down retirement village in Melbourne’s west, a misunderstanding leads to her spilling her story to him. He perpetuates the misunderstanding in an attempt to make his career, but can he maintain the deception and does it amount to literary fraud? This is a clever tale that twists in on itself and raises the question of who’s zooming who? The name of the young writer is never revealed – a slightly clunky device that has a point, made at the end of the story. This is a cruel take on the Australian literary scene and no-one comes out of it well.