After Darkness
A novel. Winner of the 2014 The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award
It is early 1942 and Australia is in the midst of war. While working at a Japanese hospital in the pearling port of Broome, Dr Ibaraki is arrested as an enemy alien and sent to Loveday internment camp in a remote corner of South Australia. There, he learns to live among a group of men divided by culture and allegiance. As tensions at the isolated camp escalate, the doctor's long-held beliefs are thrown into question and he is forced to confront his dark past: the promise he made in Japan and its devastating consequences.
Read an extract published in Seizure.
Undertow
An extract from my novel-in-progress. Published in SWAMP, issue 12, 2013
'History’s most devastating explosion simmers in Christine Piper’s Undertow...'
Once More, With Feeling
A short story. Published in the music issue of Seizure, Issue 4, December 2012
It's minus three and snowing outside, but inside Baron’s it’s Thursday Night Beach Party, complete with plastic palm trees and buckets of sand. I wear a yellow frilled bikini, a grass skirt and cork wedges so big they could double as floatation devices if we were anywhere near the beach...
Stranded
A short story. 2nd prize in the Margaret River Short Story Competition. Published in Things That Are Found In Trees and Other Stories (Margaret River Press, 2012)
'… a tightly written story set in Japan. The main character, Mr Takeda, is having an affair with a young woman not much older than his daughter. This is a very economical story with a strong sense of character and place. In spite of the ending, there is very little sense of moral judgement: in this world, surface is everything.'
— Richard Rossiter, editor