Stella by Starlight

By Danielle de Valera

Short story, 15 pages approx. When Charles Lawson, formerly a notorious heroin dealer known as God, is released from jail after ten years, he lives quietly in a small apartment near the sea, with his two cats. When Lawson's eye specialist diagnoses him with macular degeneration and says he will be totally blind in a few years, Lawson devises an elaborate plan to commit suicide while making it look like an accident. Trying to execute his plan, he meets Star in the dunes. Caught in a violent marriage with Wayne, she had been planning the same thing. Perhaps they will be able to save one another. [5,000 words].

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danielle de Valera
• Release date: Aug 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992331146

Danielle de Valera

Until now, Danielle de Valera's been best known for her short stories, which have appeared in such diverse magazines as Penthouse, Aurealis and the Australian Women’s Weekly.All in all, she's had a chequered career. She’s worked as a botanist, an editor, a cataloguer for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries Library and the John Oxley Library, and on the main floor of Arnott’s biscuit factory.The manuscript of her 1st ever novel (then titled Love the People!) was placed 2nd to published author Hugh Atkinson's in the Australia-wide Xavier Society Literary Award for an unpublished novel - in those days, there was no Vogel Award for Unpublished Writers under 35. After that, she abandoned writing for 25 years to raise her children, whom she raised alone.She resumed writing in 1990, somewhat behind the eight-ball. With Louise Forster she won the Australia-New Zealand-wide Emma Darcy Award for Romance Manuscript of the Year 2000 with Found: One Lover.That first novel, Love the People! was shortlisted for the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2011, and for the UK’s Impress Prize in 2012, under the title A Few Brief Seasons. It's due out here in October 2021 under its final title Those Brisbane Romantics.A freelance manuscript assessor and fiction editor since 1992, she has won numerous awards for her gritty, streetwise short stories. MagnifiCat, a departure from this style, is her first published novel. It was followed in 2017 by Dropping Out: a tree-change novel in stories - to put it another way, a collection of linked short stories.For more information on this author, see Smashwords iInterview. There's lots there.About that NameDanielle de Valera’s father claimed he was related to the controversial Irish politician Eamon de Valera on his mother’s side. But he told some tall tales in his time, and this is sure to be one of them. Born Danielle Ellis, she found that this name was replicated many times on the web. In searching for another under which to write, she first tried her mother's maiden name, Doyle, but there were a number of those, too. What to do? Then she remembered her father’s story and chose it as her writing name. But she feels any real connection is unlikely.

Book preview

Stella by Starlight

Danielle de Valera

Copyright Danielle de Valera 2014

Smashwords Edition

Stella by Starlight

Cover and story glyphs by C S McClellan

All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

If you would like to do any of the above, please seek permission first by contacting the author at [e-mail]

ISBN 978-0-9923311-4-6

Published in the United States by Old Tiger Books.

First published in the Australian Women’s Weekly, December 2008.

Table of Contents

Story start

Halfway

Last scene

About the author

More O’Neill and Lawson (aka God) stories

Other works by this author

Stella by Starlight

On the day Charles Lawson planned to kill himself, the day he’d decided had the best chance of success, he rose at six as usual.

Come on, Cynthia, time to get up.

The old cat had slept all night on the end of the bed. Now she stretched and rose reluctantly. Lawson leaned over to pat her.

Where’s Bruiser, Cynthia? Where’s that young hulk?

Charles Lawson pulled on cotton slacks and a shirt, put on his spectacles and ran a comb through his white hair without looking into the mirror; he had no use for mirrors any more. In the kitchen, he opened the back door and called for the young cat.

Bruiser! Yoohoo, Bruiser!

When the young cat came in, spruce and self-important on the third call, he rushed straight to his bowls and began to wolf down the food. Charles Lawson