Established in October 2009, Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecot is a blog about words, stories, books, music, and images.  What’s loved around these parts is beauty, bravery, soul, and risk.  Posts are weekly (Sundays usually).

Nigel Featherstone writes fiction and creative journalism.  His most recent publication is Fall On Me (Blemish Books, 2011).  The Sydney Morning Herald described Fall On Me as ‘a well-crafted tale, Featherstone manages to pack into this short novel a lot of food for thought about art, love, and survival’, and ‘substance, seriousness and a fair dose of poignancy’ said The Canberra Times.

Due to the success of Fall On Me, Blemish Books will be publishing a second novella of Nigel’s, titled I’m Ready Now, later in 2012.

Nigel’s novel, Remnants (Pandanus Books), appeared in 2005 and has been called ‘a solid exploration of age, written with sensitivity and skill’ (Eureka Street), ‘a fine piece of fiction deserving of a wide audience’ (Wet Ink), and ‘a beautifully written book’ (Mercury Magazine).

Nigel is also the author of over 40 published short stories with work appearing in 17 Australian literary journals, including Meanjin, Island and Overland; his story ‘The Last Breath of the Hour’ was published in Wet Ink 25 2011. He has had two collections of short fiction published – Homelife (1999) and Joy (2000).  The Australian Book Review described the latter as ‘beautifully poised… warm, lush, humane’.

Since 2007 Nigel has been a regular contributor to Panorama, the arts magazine of The Canberra Times; all these stories are re-published here with permission from The Canberra Times.  His non-fiction work has also been published at The Millions.

In 2009, Nigel was an artist-in-residence at Bundanon NSW, and in 2010 he participated in the Cataract Gorge Artist-in-Residence Program, Tasmania; in 2011 he was awarded a LitLink Varuna Fellowship residency at Varuna, the Australian Writers’ House.

Nigel is the founder and editor of Verity La, an on-line literary journal, and is a foundation member of The Childers Group: an independent arts forum.

He lives in Goulburn on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia.  More information is at Open To Public.

In October 2010 the National Library of Australia selected Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecot for perpetual archiving as part of its PANDORA project.

Unless otherwise stated, text © Nigel Featherstone 2012; all rights reserved. (Header image is a detail of Genuine Texture 1985 by Philippe Reichert.  Used with kind permission of the artist.)