Dear Ibis

From the author of The Waterfowl Are Drunk! comes a pointed and poignant collection of short stories for the present moment. Dear Ibis is a tender yet unflinching meditation on what it means to feel at home, and what it means to have this taken away. Set in New South Wales' lush South Coast against the backdrop of the 2019-20 bushfires come stories of birth and death, disability and resilience, colonial greed and moral reckonings. Infused with lyrical prose, vast coastal backdrop and a vividly realised cast of characters, Dear Ibis is a letter for anyone feeling unmoored trying to find their way back to shore.

'This book is its own birdcall, magnificent and rich with 'moments of union' between the human and the non-human world. Liston-Mills is irrepressible in this celebration of being alive with each other. She is superb storyteller and defiant poet. Her words leap from image to insight, to look us in the eye. We cannot look away. We are transfixed by love and loneliness, greed and grit, cruelty and care, and all the clutter of being human - but always there is the joy of 'bird friends' or of simply being bird.' Merlinda Bobis

'Dear Ibis is a collection of stories that reminds us what it means to be human. It captures the grace and heartache of being alive for a brief moment on a beautiful planet. Kate Liston-Mills's characters are so tactile they could be our neighbours, our lovers, ourselves. She has captured the extraordinary lurking in the ordinary with her use of detail and nuance. This collection offers one stunner short story after another. You will leave this book a better person for having spent time with these characters and their lives.' Shady Cosgrove, What The Ground Can't Hold

'Dear Ibis is a collection that resolutely and sincerely dismantles life's endless tender brutality and marks Liston-Mills as a formidable contemporary regional voice. Each story beats with a huge pulsating heart, affecting and haunting, long after the book is set aside.' Gabbie Stroud, Dear Parents