Her eyes drift as she wonders who they are and where they’re going. More importantly, where is she going? Where are they going? And what’s going to happen when they get there? A new life? A new beginning? She bites her lip. She doesn’t think so.

 

Assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend, a fourteen-year-old girl longs to be loved by her teen-aged crush. An immigrant woman who fled her homeland is forced to travel across county by the man who promised her a better life. An acutely-sensitive eleven-year-old girl is despised by her fifth-grade teacher. A war veteran’s family falls apart as he combats the consequences of PTSD. An Anglican nun struggles to comfort a woman who’s been sentenced to the gallows. These people exist in different times and have vastly different lives, yet all of them suffer from the devastating effects of trauma.

Everything about a person, from the way they think, remember, learn, how they feel about themselves and others, and the way they view and understand the world, is affected and shaped by the trauma they experience.

Australia is known as the lucky country, but as we know luck is relative.

Open Wounds is a collection of unflinching Australian short stories that shines light on those moments in life that are as profound as they are traumatic.

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* Published by Dixi Books