Best Australian Yarn 2024: Acclaimed author Anson Cameron joins race for the world’s richest short story prize

After a twenty-year departure from the short story format, critically acclaimed author Anson Cameron has made an emphatic return, securing a coveted spot on the longlist for The Best Australian Yarn, the world’s most lucrative short story competition.

Melbourne-based Cameron, whose extensive portfolio includes novels, autobiographies, and biographies, has entered Vanilla...Then Cinnamon, a poignant exploration of love bridging the void between consciousness and coma. The story positions him as a contender for the competition’s $50,000 main prize, with winners to be announced at the State Library of Western Australia on November 22.

“I’ve been writing novels, an autobiography and a biography, so to come back and start writing short stories again and have some immediate success, it’s a thrill,” Cameron said. “I’m very happy.”

For Cameron, the short story form presents unique challenges.

“It’s a common misconception that short stories are somehow easier than novels,” he said. “In reality, they’re much more demanding. Every element must align perfectly, like facets in a jewel. It’s an incredibly refined art form.”

His short story draws from deeply personal observations of loved ones in their final moments. “I’ve watched people slip away in comas,” he shared. “You can’t help but wonder what part of the outside world is reaching them and what part of what I’m saying are they hearing.”

Cameron’s approach to the format bears the influence of Anton Chekhov’s famous editing technique of trimming both ends of a narrative. “I like an open ending,” he explained. “There’s a lot to be said about leaving the start and the finish of a short story out of the text and letting the reader write it themselves.”

This philosophical approach to storytelling runs in his blood – Cameron is the great-great-great grandson of Joseph Furphy, widely regarded as the father of the Australian novel. Though he never told anyone, Cameron harbored dreams of following this literary legacy from a young age, describing reading as his childhood “superpower.”

“My old man used to read me stories before I went to bed every night,” he recalled, “and just the worlds inside those stories were so much larger and more exciting. It was a world I always loved and a pastime and an art that I fell for very early.”

His longlisting carries significance beyond personal achievement. “There will be people on the longlist who will be getting such a fillip and a psychological boost out of being there, it’s wonderful,” he noted, acknowledging the challenges facing emerging Australian authors today.