About the book
A ghost moves into a woman’s apartment and begins to cough up teeth. A town keeps building as the sea prepares to take it back. A daughter inherits hunger like an heirloom.
In this collection of short stories set along a shifting coastline, the boundaries between body and memory, human and nonhuman, landscape and ocean begin to slip and strain. Houses tilt, animals and ghosts press in, and what is carried – grief, desire, damage – refuses to stay contained.
Winner of the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize 2025, Patron Saints of Roadkill is a darkly tender collection that reveals a world where the familiar is made strange and the strange is given its rightful place in the landscape of things.
Susanna Elliffe is a fiction writer based in Ōamaru. She was the 2025 winner of the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize with her debut short story collection, and her short stories have been recognised in national and international competitions including the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition, the Bridport Prize, the Hope Prize and the Sargeson Prize. When not writing, Susanna can be found on stage or adding to her collection of degrees.
