I had my own studio. Well, I called it a studio. In the garage where we rented, at the cold end, next to the cans of lawn mower fuel, weed killer and broken rakes. My jars half filled with water and streaked with paint lined along a table. Brush handles poked out. Finished paintings stacked tilted against a wall. Landscapes illustrating the sheer distance of places, plains disappearing into an infinity of heat haze, the way the universe has no end. Dying towns at the end of avenues of honour. Cooma’s face, her arms at angles as she tied back hair. My paintings spoke to you. Maybe in whispers, but you still felt their language, the ripple of their broken dreams or lost hopes. On days off I painted until oils spotted my face and congealed like wounds on my apron.

‘The Distance Between Loves’ is Peter’s new short fiction collection, due for publishing shortly with a launch in June 2026. A happily married and career successful man has his life upended by the arrival of someone he once committed a crime with. War veterans struggle to recover from their experiences. A woman hoping to find love finds herself abandoned in a hostile place. Friends on a camping trip confront a sudden loss of life. A person living in aged care loses the ability to speak. While on holidays a beach walker is struck by lightning. A man rediscovers a woman he loved earlier in his life. A tightrope walker prepares for performance. Along the way suburban backyards, war zones, a lighthouse, cherry orchard and fishing boat are visited.

Some of these short stories have won awards. Others chosen for publications in Australia and overseas. Many are available for the first time in this collection.

We made our final stop. The anchor chain rattled as it plunged into water. Sunshine lit the blue surface. My line dragged taunt, cutting into the skin of my finger. I tugged the fish in, a bream, left hand, right hand, feeling it drag and swerve. Lifted it over the boat’s rail, fine water spraying me, tasting of brine, the silver body flashing and beating. It fell, slapping on the deck. I stared mesmerised at its fight and the moments of panic and dread I’d lived with for months welled up inside me again.

So why short stories? Why not a novel? (Well, hopefully a novel is on the way but still needs a lot of coffee and revising to finish). Each short story introduces experiences that help show what it is to be human. Along with the frailties, triumphs, pain and loves. And the distance one has to travel to reach there, wherever there may be.