Curtin Writers Club

The air was thick with spirits.

"Poison apples! Poison apples! Get your poison apples here!" belted out an old man, shoving shrivelled, black apples into people's faces. A herd of tittering witchlings crowded around his kiosk, oohing and aahing with fingers crossed behi...

The whip comes down on my back once more, but I can't feel it, having lost count of how many lashings have rained down upon me. In front of me, a crowd watches with blank yet solemn faces, not daring to say a word. Public punishments are nothing new and every time one...

[Content Warnings: Self harm, blood, and physical abuse.]

Rosanne has haunted eyes.

She stares at the mirror. The mirror stares back. When she pulls stringy, black hair away from her forehead, an old, angry scar glowers above her brow. Her hand twitches.

“You’ll be late f...

[Content warnings for homophobia, racism, and transphobia]

“Dad, do I have to take these?” I ask as I hold the bottle of pills in his face. “They always make me feel sick.” He doesn’t even look up from his phone to answer. Instead, he grabs at one of the newspapers sitt...

One day, Arthur was discovered dead. Arthur, the child who everybody despised. He had drowned in the little pond near the back of his house. He had somehow gotten out the window of his bedroom, gone down beyond the garden, and slipped past the screen of trees to the ed...

Soft, velvety goo pulsated around it, as it struggled to breathe though a pinhole of a mouth, turning upside down as light shone through a tunnel that grew ever larger. It was confused, scared even, muscles tense from the familiar wetness that felt so wrong now that it...

Robert locked the bathroom door. He leaned against it, digital tablet clutched tightly to his chest. Privacy. Away from the watchful eye of Her. He had to be quick; if he took too long, she’d come knocking on the door, checking up on him. Always so concerned.

He unlocke...

[Content Warning: suicide mention]

I don’t have favourite students anymore, but I had one once. I most remember Beatrice sat in the front row, beside the window, with her white hair pulled into a braid with a sharp end and her pressed poppies kept snug, pressed flat, be...