Fireweather:
shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize
Fireweather:
shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize
Overview
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 STELLA PRIZE
It all began when they started running away …
Life for Winona Dalloway is not as it should be. Her husband is no longer her husband, her children are not at home with her, and the city in which she lives is besieged by fires. Black ash falls like snow, songbirds screech like dinosaurs, and the doctors are calling her mad …
In this looking-glass world, Winona is forced to prove she is a sane, rational human being. As the pronouncements of the professionals grow more insistent, so too do the voices crowding inside Winona’s head. She seeks solace in the company of plants and animals, and begins to imagine an entirely other way of being — one that might make whole her broken heart.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Other rights
- Hardback
- 210mm x 135mm
- 160 pages
- 9781761381379
- AUD$29.99
- 2 September 2025
- World
- Left Bank Literary
Categories
Awards
- Shortlisted for the 2026 The Stella Prize
Praise
‘Darling writes feminist fiction infused with wit, intertextuality and a poetic command of language, creating a compelling, intricate internal voice that stands, too, as a critique of institutional misogyny in psychiatry.’
‘Against a backdrop of raging bushfires and devastating winds, we reunite with Darling’s protagonist, Winona, from her previous book, Thunderhead … Darling’s sharp, stylised prose shimmers on the page and pulls the reader in deeply to this narrative of feminist rage. There is music in this book, there is deep time, there is philosophy, there is a river of tears.’
About the Author
Miranda Darling is a writer, poet, and co-founder of Vanishing Pictures. She read English and Modern Languages at Oxford then took a Masters in Strategic Studies and Defence from the ANU (GSSD). She became an adjunct scholar at a public policy think tank, specialising in non-traditional security threats. She has published both fiction and nonfiction.
