You don’t have to be screwball mad – like our avocado-colored pond friend above – to enter the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK 2026 writing contest… but it probably wouldn’t hurt either.
What you do have to be is funny. Or at least mildly amusing. Because it is a HUMOROUS short story competition.
You can get all the knee-slapping, side-splitting details right HERE.
2025 has been one thwackingly spectacular year – easily the best since party spoiler Covid (boo) exited the buildingstage left.
SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK has been along for the ride, with you every step, breath, snicker and guffaw along the way. Cue the look-back…
Back in July, a female BBC newsreader was ‘disciplined’ by the station after she added a single additional word to a news story and accompanied that (spontaneous) modification with a nano-second- length eye expression judged to be a personal condemnation of the politically-correct-nonsense- speak she was forced to read.
‘The Donald’ had a lot of newsworthy moments in 2025. SWS judged this to be the highlight –
I do some of my best movie watching on planes. I watched THE SUBSTANCE (2024) at one o’clock in the morning on a flight back to Brisbane from Seoul, Korea. By the time we landed I was still recovering from the experience. Every person I’ve spoken to since who’s seen THE SUBSTANCE agrees – it truly is one of the most original, mind-freaking films to come along in a great many years.
Saw this one on DVD. Completely loved its quirkiness, something I wouldn’t normally associate Sean Connery with.
Why exactly did this one get the gong? Besides being generally funny, we reckon this bit of hilarity slash absurdity perfectly summarizes the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK, er… ‘way’.
Argentinian born Lalo Schifrin composed music scores for close to 100 movies, including two of my all-time favorites DIRT HARRY (1971) and MAGNUM FORCE (1973). He is also responsible for the instantly recognizable MISSION IMPOSSIBLE theme.
Those 1990’s tv ads, complete with his distinctive horse-race-commentator’s voice, were cheese-flavoured, ear & eye-worm classics from a bygone era that somehow managed to drill their way deep down into every tv viewer’s of-the-era screen hippocampus (science talk for memory folks – but I knew that you knew that.
I could watch this scene from SUPERMAN 2 (1980) featuring Terrence Stamp a hundred thousand times and never tire of it. It’s so perfect.
What’s more left to say but…
2026 kicks off with a bang and a clang not to mention a thundering thwack on SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK with the January launch of the annual SWS Short Story Writing Competition.
It’s back bigger and badder (ie. gooder) than before with boosted cash prizes. Stay tuned, won’t you!
Show me a person that DOESN’T – at least partially – judge a book by its cover and I’ll show you a person who doesn’t read books.
Yes shacksters – (if I may be so bold as to use this wacked-out and possibly stylish honourific in your… er, honour) it’s time again to celebrate the best the year had to offer in book cover eye candy. And there’s a lot to celebrate.
(A) Royally weird and wonderful, your Majesty.
(B) Waaah
(A) So many interesting trains of thought with this one.
(B) Pink Splendor! You can just about hear the squeak.
(A) Nice balance (sorry!) between image and text.
(B) Now that’s a button!
(A) Clever and more than a little bit frightening.
(B) Is that tomato aimed at the reader or the guy in the brown suit? The red splatters already there might help you decide.
(A) My nomination for Book Cover of the Year. Nicknamed ‘Death by Lolly’.
(B) Love, love the LOST IN SPACE (1960’s) vibe to this cover.
(A) So vampy! If ever a cover deserved the red-carpet treatment, this is it. The spelling of ritual is pretty special too.
(B) It’s the phallic-shaped blood drip from the nose that really seals it for me.
(A) Another BOOK COVER OF THE YEAR nomination. Those car headlights are indeed next-level illuminating!
(B) One supremely kissable cover.
(A) You want clever text placement? We give you clever text placement.
(B) I’m so mutts about this cover! (again, sorry). What a Fire-God brilliant interpretation of the book’s title.
Two hot-in-different ways beguiling book covers.
(A) “A two-year-old could do better than this cover” I hear you say. Actually, it looks like a two-year-old DID this cover.
(B) Oh my! Green is most certainly the new black.
(A) Inhale on this smokin’ hot bit of eye trickery, if you will.
(B) Love how the text gradually morphs from FEAR to LESS.
(A) The word ‘arcane’ means ‘understood by few – mysterious – secret’. Yep.
(B) If you get the symbolism of the duck, then good. I definitely don’t. What I do get and dig (haven’t heard that word in a while have you?) is the simple beauty and balance of the colours, fonts and text placement of this work of art.
This post has been brought to you by the new (old) movie KILL BILL : THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR
A few nights back, an Australian current affairs program ran a hard-luck story about a Brisbane-based amateur author by the name of Douglas Rowell.
‘Doug’, who is 88 years old and resides in an aged-care home, claimed to have been scammed out of $55 000 (AUD) by an American self-publishing (aka vanity press) book company.
The American publisher at the center of Doug’s misgivings is Indiana-based XLIBRIS.
A company bearing the XLIBRIS name also has an Australian HQ based in Chatswood, Sydney NSW.
This is a link to their website –Home | Xlibris Publishing and this is the story that ran on the Channel 9 Australia program A CURRENT AFFAIR a few nights back –
Like pretty much all pay-to-publish companies, XLIBRIS offer a collection of tiered packages, starting at no-frills and affordably priced bundles right up to all-inclusive, ‘gold class’ packages that manage and streamline every detail of the production and marketing of a self-published book.
The claim by Channel 9’s A CURRENT AFFAIR that Doug had been charged $55 000 AUD seemed odd, considering the most expensive, all-inclusive publishing package offered by XLIBRIS – their SIGNATURE package – is priced at less than half that amount.
I got in touch with a representative from XLIBRIS and made some interesting discoveries. The Channel 9 story claims that XLIBRIS cold-called Doug after they spotted his book on-line, already self-published by another company (IN HOUSE PUBLISHING).
The XLIBRIS representative I spoke to (Sandra Powell from Xlibris’s parent company AUTHOR SOLUTIONS) was clear that XLIBRIS never solicits authors or cold-calls prospective clients. Doug would have had to have filled out a form asking to be contacted by XLIBRIS.
The story also makes the claim that after forking over $55 000 (again, Channel 9 provides no clues or itemization as to how this random, so-perfectly-rounded mystery figure was determined) Doug’s book was never published and his requests for a refund were ignored.
XLIBRIS deny both accusations. They maintain there is no record of Doug ever having requested a refund for any portion of the fees he paid and that Doug himself effectively prevented the book from being published as he failed to sign-off on approvals for cover and interior design that were sent to him.
I know from my own experience self-publishing last year (with the company TELLWELL) the process cannot proceed to the next stage until that back-and-forth approval procedure conducted between the author and the publishing company has been completed.
Scenic Writer’s Shack suspects the ‘something else’ going on is quite simply A CURRENT AFFAIR doing what it has always done so well – that is, funneling information into overly simplistic good guy vs bad guy scenarios in an effort to spark outrage and play on viewer’s emotions.
In this story, nursing home resident and memoir-writing ‘Doug’ is depicted as the innocent good guy, while publishing company XLIBRIS is given horns and a pitchfork and painted as a money-hungry, deceptive and face-less corporation that cruelly sought to exploit the well-intentioned ambitions of a humble retiree.
The truth, as I have uncovered, is far less black and white.
More than a thousand customer on-line reviews of XLIBRIS reveal that 2 out of every 3 people who have self-published with the company awarded the experience a four or five-star rating.
SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK was beyond impressed at the way XLIBRIS responded on-line to customers who expressed dissatisfaction.
It is my belief that the self-publishing industry comes inbuilt with a certain percentage of dissatisfied customers.
Amateur hobbyist authors who begin to realize after they are already a fair way down the self-publishing track that their initial lofty ambitions of becoming the next James Patterson, Danielle Steele, James Grisham or Nora Roberts are in fact never likely to be realized, can and often do direct their frustration at the very people attempting to turn their writing dreams into some form of reality.
When I first watched the hard-luck story put to air by Channel 9 Australia on hobby-author Doug earlier this week, I was, like most other people, and certainly like the on-line commenters HERE and HERE, initially outraged as well.
With emotion-charged language supporting ‘Poor Team Doug’ sent flying like confetti at a wedding and screen-shots like those pictured below ramping up the anti-publishing company sentiment to fever pitch, this was exactly the type of response the producers of the story were hoping for.
However, after some digging, it’s clear there’s other sides to this story that don’t appear to be as black and white. Channel 9 have been approached for comment but are yet to respond.
In today’s final instalment, we learn some of the crafty methods Gregory used to keep himself hidden from sight whilst in the forest for ten+ years.
Whenever people walked down the creek towards my territory, I’d have already put my fire out as a precaution.
I’d have heard them coming a mile off – or smelled their ciggies. They’d usually look around a bit, marvel at the view from the top of the waterfall and inevitably spot one of my bogus tracks on the northern side of the creek.
I’d sit in a hidey-hole on my side and watch them disappear into the bush. After a while I’d see them stop, bewildered that the trail just ended. Sometimes they’d look straight up at the rainforest canopy. I don’t know if they were expecting to see a spaceship or a drop bear but I found it tremendously amusing.
Sometimes, if I was feeling particuarly fiendish, I’d whip up a set of baby tracks for the weekend warriors to puzzle over. These were easy to contruct and they really screwed with people’s minds.
I’d make a fist and gently press it into the sand of the creek bank, leaving what looked like the curl of a human foot, only tiny. Using a finger I’d smudge little toe prints near the top and, with alternate hands, I’d make a trail of minature footprints all the way down to the creek.
Voila! Human baby tracks in the middle of nowhere! Freaky stuff.
For the next few weeks, we’re going to read some brilliant excerpts from OUT OF THE FOREST. Today we learn of one of the superpowers Gregory developed during his time in the wilderness.
Although I’d lost my grip on the passing of days I had gained an incredibly heightened sense of smell out there in the time warp.
Once a month or so I’d trek out of the forest and make my way into the nearest town which was Mullimbimby (northern New South Wales)
I had a special park bench in the middle of Australia’s premier hippie town I called the ‘smelling chair’.
I’d sit there with my eyes closed and inhale the scent of the people passsing by. It was amazing to me that I could smell individuals within the crowds.
I could tell the difference between female and male; between blokes who washed and blokes who didn’t. I could smell people who ate garlic the night before; frankincense, musk, different soaps, different colognes and perfumes; even the items people were carrying.
After a number of trips into ‘the big smoke’, there were three or four people I could identify by their odor. My favorite was a particular fragrant female whose perfume I loved. Since I kept my eyes closed I have no idea who she was or what she looked like.
There was a flipside, though: some blokes stank so badly it just about made me gag. Ironically, I knew I reeked as well but I couldn’t really smell me; it was lived in scent.
In our final instalment next week, we check out some of the crafty ways Gregory used to conceal himself in the forest.
For the next few weeks, we’re going to check out some brilliant excerpts from the book. Today we learn some of the methods he employed to stay hidden and undetected in the forest for so long. We also are introduced to the pet names he thought up for different parts of his leafy domain.
“Although I was going to be nice and dry on the lava rock, I’d have to fashion some kind of mattress or bedding. I also figured that preserving the vegetation around me, so as not to create any kind of footprint, would be crucial to remaining undetected in the forest. I vowed to always collect firewood from further afield. Ferns and grasses, for use as bedding, would also have to be gathered at least half an hour’s walk from camp.“
“Even though I’d removed myself a little way from the waterfall, I still considered the entire gully to be my domain.
I came to think of the creek and the cliff top as my lounge room, because that’s where I spent time just hanging out and relaxing. My camp up on the nearby shoulder of the waterfall was my kitchen and bedroom, because that’s where the fire and the bed were. My bathroom was quite a hike away – across the other side of the creek and down another little gully. Far away from my water supply.
We learn of the moment that prompted Gregory to go fully vegetarian while living in the forest.
OUT OF THE FOREST is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read.
It tells the beyond incredible true story of a man who dropped out of society and lived rough in the rainforests of Northern New South Wales for close on a decade.
Gregory Smith – pictured above – was that man. Today he is Dr Gregory Smith, senior lecturer in the Social Sciences department and chair of the faculty of Business, Law and Arts at Southern Cross University in NSW (Australia).
For the next few weeks, we’re going to check out some brilliant excerpts from the book. Prior to entering the forest, Dr Gregory was homeless for a number of years. Here he tells all about less-than-ideal sleeping arrangements –
My homeless life played out right up and down the east coast of Australia; from the harsh sidewalks of Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Surry Hills in Sydney to Woolloongabba and Redhill in the back lanes of inner Brisbane.
I’ve slept on stinking, urine-splattered tiles in public toilets, inside grime-coated industrial rubbish bins, at railway platforms, in boiler rooms, on the verandahs of unsuspecting Australians, under country churches, in a big plastic bag on the side of a road, in a cardboard box, in cars, in police lockups.
Homeless life is a hard, hard slog. People stealing your things is always a possibility, I’ve had shoes ripped off my feet while sleeping. You’re always hungry, you’re always tired, and society always thinks the worst of you – especially cops and security guards.
We find out the unique, pet names Dr Gregory coined for various parts of his rainforest home.
In 1979, the body of High School English teacher Susan Reinert was found in the boot of her car, parked outside a hotel in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
The Principal at Susan’s school, a man by the name of Jay Smith, was convicted of her murder. Smith spent six years on death row awaiting execution. His conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1992.
Three books and a 1987 TV mini-series ensured the case cemented itself in the public consciousness of the era.
The real killer turned out to be NOT Principal Smith but a fellow teacher at the school. 36-year-old victim Susan Reinhert had been having an affair with another married teacher in the English department, William Bradfield.
One month prior to her murder, teacher Susan Reinhert had declared Bradfield, who was President of his local branch of the Teacher’s Union, to be the sole beneficiary of a life insurance policy worth, in today’s money, $2.2 million USD.
He was also the sole beneficiary of her estate, valued in today’s money at $1.1 million USD. Impressive amounts on a teacher’s salary.
Bradfield was convicted of Susan’s murder and sentenced to three consecutive life terms. He was also found guilty of the murder of Susan’s two children, 11-year-old Karen and 10-year-old Michael, whose bodies have never been located.
William Bradfield died in 1998 while in prison. Principal Jay Smith passed away in 2009 and being also a full colonel in the Army Reserves, was buried with full military honors.
