Fiction list

Conte: A short story or novella, or a medieval narrative tale. from Old French conter, to relate, recount

Title	Publication History	Category	Reviews
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Professional Sales
Finding the Words	Shadowed Realms (Issue 11) Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 2007 Winner of the Australian Horror Writers Association's 2006 Flash Fiction competition Listed in the 2006 Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy Recommended Reading List	Flash Fiction	Easily the most powerful piece in issue 11 of Shadowed Realms. While technically horror, it’s a touching story of a man laying his daughter to rest. Cavanagh’s style is fluid and uses sense imagery to ground the reader in reality. It’s touching and it's tender and it's heartfelt, something I’m not used to seeing in horror. -TangentOnline.com a great story that really rounds out #11 well, and is a worthy winner of the 2006 AHWA Flash Fiction competition...a tale of parent-child tragedy, a topic that almost approaches taboo status to some authors and readers. Mr.Cavanagh handles the subject deftly and with the greatest of sensitivity. This isn't really a scary story, just a very emotional and heart breaking one where we hear and feel every gust of wind, every rattle of a branch, every flutter of the narrators heart and, in the end, I shed his tears too. -HorrorScope Steven Cavanagh paints a heart-breaking portrait of a father’s loss -Dark Scribe Magazine I don’t recall having read anything by author Steven Cavanagh before, but I shall certainly be searching out his work in future. This story is an absolute gem. -Chuck McKenzie Finding the Words is a very innovative tale which explores the emotional power of loss (specifically the death of a child) under the guide of a horror tale. It is a superb and creative use of a genre tale to explore personal emotional pain. -Robert Black
Moving Dad	Shadowed Realms (Issue 6) Book of Shadows Volume 1 Second Prize winner for the Australian Horror Writers Association's 2005 Flash Fiction competition Listed in the 2005 Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy Recommended Reading List	Flash Fiction	Moving Dad presents a clever parody of life after death. This story was highly original… Moving Dad has strong central characters that express real emotions, and we are able to feel for them because they are so lifelike. -Shadowed Realms. Steven Cavanagh’s “Moving Dad” was another favorite of mine... Using a magic-realism style, Cavanagh manages to capture a strange sense of grief and remorse, and it transfers through to the reader. -LitHaven.com Cavanagh writes in a deliberately matter-of-fact style regarding a situation that is anything but and this, for me, is one of the highlights of the story Beginning with whimsical familiarity, moving to poignancy. A lovely slow reveal, blurring the line between the infirmity of advanced age, and the shambling corruption of undeath. An exploration of a universal horror – the realisation of the mortality of the father – I won’t spoil the ending, but Cavanagh kicks off beautifully into an even deeper horror in the last line. Fantastic dialogue in this one too. -Australian Specfic In Focus
Semi-Professional (Paid) Sales
By the Numbers Read it for free!	Infinitas, August 2006	Flash Fiction
Cream of the Cop	Daikaiju! 3, Agog! Press	Short Fiction
Elf Esteem Buy it!	Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue #13 Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Best of Fantasy	Short Fiction	Steven Cavanagh is one of those new names I expect to see appearing a lot more in print. His "Elf Esteem" is a delightfully written quest tale with quite a twist. There are elves, orcs, and dragons in this story of someone trying to retrieve an important artifact, but not quite the way one expects to see them. Especially from the point-of-view of . . . no, I won't even give that much away. But the end has quite a kick! -TangentOnline.com A promising first sale -Asimov's
Girl Power Read it for free!	Sorcerous Signals	Short Fiction
One for the Robed Read it for free!	Infinitas, March 2005	Flash Fiction
Predisposed Read it for free!	Infinitas May 2005 Highly Commended in the NSW Writers Centre's 2005 flash fiction competition	Flash Fiction
Save Galaxy Fast! Buy it!	Outcast anthology, 2006 by CSFG Publishing Watch the Trailer!	Short Fiction	...a cute (re)invention of Leet speak. -Horrorscope
Street Smarts Buy it!	Undead 3, Permuted Press	Short Fiction	good thought for detail and a sensation of realism to it. -Flames Rising Starting [the anthology] off on a good foot. Keen-esque. -Skullring.org The book starts off strong with “Street Smarts”. -monsterlibrarian.com
Weeding Read it for free!	Infinitas April 2006 First Prize in the NSW Writers Centre's 2006 flash fiction competition	Flash Fiction	Gorgeous. Very clever. -Gillian Pollack
World of Hurt Read it for free!	ZineWest, June 2007 Third Prize winner in the annual ZineWest Awards	Flash Fiction	A rivetting piece of flash fiction. -Sue Crawford It's a well structured narrative with some original humour and is sharply written, especially towards the end. -Prof Jane Goodall
Charity/Unpaid
Domestic	Black Box, Brimstone Press	Micro Fiction
On the Ocean Wave Buy it!	Shadow Box horror anthology. Brimstone Press, 2005	Micro Fiction	Cavanagh masterfully paints the villain/protagonist and his motivations in this story. A freighter on a tight schedule intersects with a human tragedy. What do you do when your job is on the line? The scary thing is the truth of this tale, and the certainty that this travesty has probably happened before. -TangentOnline.com Solid Horror -Australian Specfic In Focus
Spin Doctor Read it for free!	AntipodeanSF, March 2006	Flash Fiction	...a charming little story with an interesting premise.See if you can read this and not smile next time you go to do your laundry. -HorrorScope Well written, it left me smiling with a heavy heart. -Australian Specfic In Focus