Start Here!
Fiction by Steve Fendt on Tall and Tiny Tales
Over the months, I’ve published a fair few stories on this site. Scrolling back isn’t an ideal way to find ones you might have missed, so here’s an alphabetical list with links.
✍️ = work in progress
Tuesday Tales
These are all free to read and listen to. For early tales, the text and podcast were uploaded separately. In later tales, they are integrated into one file.
Acheron
Winery manager Pan Nikolopoulos looks back fondly on his schooldays and his first love in Victoria’s tranquil Acheron Valley. Yet true love’s path was rarely predictable or safe with Áine Doyle …
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8
Astrid
A woman on holiday falls in love with a dilapidated wooden schooner. ‘Astrid’ takes the reader on a voyage spanning half the globe and half a lifetime.
Story: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8
Podcast: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8
Badger Hill
A young woman suffers an injury on the first day of a walk in the rugged Otways hills. She finds herself stranded at a lonely campsite. Events soon take a sinister turn.
Story: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3
Podcast: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3
Beach Walker
When her husband of 32 years dies, Grace decides that her life needs a ‘seachange’. She moves to the Victorian seaside town of Ocean Grove. On her daily beach walks she meets a reclusive man with a strange obsession. So begins an odd friendship which changes both their lives – for better or for worse.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14 • Chapter 15 • Chapter 16 • Chapter 17 • Chapter 18 • Chapter 19 • Chapter 20 • Chapter 21 • Chapter 22 • Chapter 23 • Chapter 24
Blind Spot
Set in the windswept Lakes and Craters Region of Victoria, Blind Spot is told from the perspective of Ben, who since the death of his wife in an aircrash lives alone on his isolated farm, plagued by migraines of increasing frequency and intensity. When he attracts the interest of an eccentric and determined woman, Mercy, his quiet life is disrupted by a series of bizarre experiences.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14 • Chapter 15
Chronicles of Smurf
When his elderly owner is taken into hospital, Smurf is plucked from a comfortable and uneventful life and forced to deal with a new set of characters and circumstances. Luckily he is smarter than your average cat. A tongue-in-cheek look at Permaculture and Australian family life from a feline perspective.
Principle 1 • Principle 2 • Principle 3 • Principle 4 • Principle 5 • Principle 6 • Principle 7 • Principle 8 • Principle 9 • Principle 10 • Principle 11 • Principle 12
Forked Creek
A ferocious invader threatens the viability of Marg’s farming enterprise – and the man she hires to save it awakens tensions within her tight-knit group of volunteers.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8
Lethe
A darkly humorous story of love, forgetting and cups of tea. And who is that in the woodshed?
Story: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3
Podcast: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3
Lizzy May ✍️
Sitting in her armchair in a cramped council flat, Lizzy May reminisces of her youth to her grandson Pauly. Born in the last year of Queen Victoria’s reign, she lived through two World Wars, the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, married a dashing RAF veteran (eventually) and was bombed out in the London Blitz. Her lifestyle was quietly unconventional, potentially scandalous and occasionally illegal. This is a lightly fictionalised biography of my grandmother.
For Pauly’s story, see Tales from the Wood (Friday Novella).
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14 • Chapter 15 • Chapter 16 • Chapter 17 • Chapter 18 • Chapter 19 • Chapter 20
Naming Calls
Tucked away in the rugged High Country, sculptor Tom embarks on a monumental woodcarving. But something is not quite right … A tale of guilt, atonement and love.
Story: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5
Podcast: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5
Telling the Bees
When Amélie and Tom retire from teaching, they follow their dream: a property in the Upper Yarra Valley where they can grow their own food and keep bees. An incurable illness, odd new neighbours and a terrifying vision disrupt their rural idyll.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14 • Chapter 15 • Chapter 16 • Chapter 17 • Chapter 18 • Chapter 19 • Chapter 20
The Plot
A Melbourne community garden is threatened with closure when developers apply to build on the land. The lives of the gardeners are intertwined in complex ways, and when the CEO of the development company meets a sticky end while snooping around, that makes everything more complicated. An urban mystery with an ensemble of quirky characters.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14 • Chapter 15 • Chapter 16 • Chapter 17 • Chapter 18 • Chapter 19 • Chapter 20 • Chapter 21
Writer’s Retreat
A novelist hopes for a productive winter in an isolated coastal cottage. She finds that she has more company than she bargained for.
Story: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5
Podcast: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5
Friday Novella
The Friday Novellas require a paid subscription (US$5 per month or US$55 per year). Follow the links for free sample chapters.
Black Spur
In 1864 a young Bavarian violin-maker, destitute after being fleeced by fraudsters on the Victorian goldfields, enters a life of crime for which he is remarkably ill-equipped.
Chapter 1 • and 46 further chapters.
Cast Ashore
Les Barker is a lonely divorcee living in the tiny seaside town of Skeleton Creek. While beachcombing he makes a discovery which will change his life – and challenge his integrity.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • and 13 further chapters
Jacky Winter
After the death of her father, 12-year-old Keira is hurt and confused. New friend Jacky Winter opens her eyes to the magic of the bush and helps her in many a tricky situation. A coming-of-age story set in the Victorian Goldfields in the 1980s.
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • and 18 further chapters
Seed
After many years away, artist Sal returns to Melbourne seeking fresh inspiration. He finds a friend, collaborator and flatmate in Jelka, a recent art school graduate hustling hard to make a living. How long can she tolerate his personality tics?
Chapter 1 and 14 further chapters
Stingaree Bay
A group of friends confronts the trials of ageing by forming a bluegrass band. Follow the loves, laughs and unlikely predicaments of the Pickin’ Chickens through the last pre-pandemic summer.
Chapters 1 & 2 • and 28 further chapters
Tales from the Wood ✍️
‘The Wood’ is Borehamwood, a nondescript town in London’s Green Belt, and the tales are those of Pauly, a boy growing up in the 1970s. He has a talent for saying the wrong thing to grown-ups, surpassed only by his prowess in attracting bullies and repelling girls. Pauly’s Nan is Lizzy May from the Tuesday Tale, and the two stories are chronologically and thematically linked.
Chapter 1 • and 19 further chapters
Please share!
I rely largely on personal recommendation to grow my audience for Tall and Tiny Tales, so if you like what you read here, please share my work with your friends.