Author and academic at Edith Cowan University

Donna wrote Fauna (Allen & Unwin, 2020), finalist for Aurealis Best Science Fiction novel, and The Albanian (Fremantle Press, 2007), winner of TAG Hungerford Award. Her short stories are eco-gothic and create strange realities that bleed into our own, published in Westerly, Overland and other journals. Her research and reviews are in The Conversation, English in Australia and Antipodes. Donna's latest project is as editor of Follow the Salt (2025, Night Parrot Press), a collection of Australian gothic stories responding to a Wheatbelt town and its vast, hyper-saline lake.

 

The tour van pulls off the highway onto a gravel track just past the shadow of Nippering and shudders on the corrugated road. Josie sits in the back, the only tourist, and the guide drives without speaking. His thin fingers calm and firm on the wheel. As the track rises, the van revs a little more and loses traction, waving around at the back. Her stomach clenches, hands either side of her on the bench seat. Mary would have been scared too – out here alone. She couldn't speak the language at all. Warm spikes of the ghostly presence make Josie shudder and the tour guide looks at her in the rear-view mirror.

 

 (Excerpt from ‘The Succent' By Donna Mazza,  Follow the Salt (edited by Donna Mazza, published by Night Parrot Press 2025))