Melissa Manning is the author of Smokehouse – published by University of Queensland Press in 2021, and shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards Steele Rudd Award.

Her award-winning stories have been published widely, including in The Best Small Fictions (US), To Carry Her Home (UK), Award Winning Australian Writing and Overland.

Melissa is represented by Grace Heiftez of Left Bank Literary.

Praise for Smokehouse

Carrie Tiffany, author of Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living, Mateship with Birds, and Exploded View

‘Bookended by a captivating love story, this collection is as raw and true as the rugged Tasmanian coast it traverses.’

Robbie Arnott, author of Flames, and The Rain Heron

‘These quietly powerful stories are rich with emotional intensity, taut scenes and an earthy, tangible sense of place. Manning writes about relationships with great insight and feeling, and her descriptions of southern Tasmania are some of the best I’ve ever read. Her talent hums on the page.’

Mark Brandi, author of Wimmera and The Rip

‘Manning finds beauty in our frailties – Smokehouse is a jewel.’

Jennifer Down, author of Our Magic Hour and Pulse Points

‘Smokehouse is a stunning collection, meticulously observed; each story a deftly wrought character study. At once sparse and poetic, the writing is observant of the sensory voluptuousness of the world and its silences, like a kind of witnessing. The language is controlled, but hums with life. Manning charts the cataclysms and joys of the day-to-day with the precision of an astronomer mapping new constellations.’

Simon McDonald, bookseller, Potts Point Bookshop

‘Manning’s superb debut collection of intertwined short stories, takes a novel’s worth of emotional density, strips away all the fat and crushes what’s left into ten masterfully poignant tales.’

Overland judges’ comments for ‘Woodsmoke’

‘a stunning story – intriguing and quietly transgressive’

Tim Byrne, bookseller, The Avenue Bookstore

‘Amazingly gifted … makes me cry more than any other writer.’