Select Short Stories, Playscripts, & Other Works

'Sixteen' – micro memoir story in Ourselves: 100 micro memoirs, an anthology for adults (Night Parrot Press, 2024)

'Back in Time to 2023' – playscript published in The School Magazine: Countdown (2023). Reprint, first published as 'Back in Time to 2019' 

'Poetry' and 'Sirens' – two short stories in Three Can Keep a Secret, a flash fiction anthology for adults (Night Parrot Press, 2022)

'Fish' and 'Tidings' — two short stories in Twice Not Shy, a flash fiction anthology for adults (Night Parrot Press, 2021)

‘Here is the Child’ lyrics for a Christmas Carol. Set to music by Western Australian composer Joshua Adams and performed at Perth’s St Mary’s Cathedral by The Giovanni Consort (2020)

‘Back in Time to 2019’ playscript published in The School Magazine: Countdown (2019)

Select Poetry

'Rat Lullaby' and 'Handover', two poems in a teacher's resource Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose, edited by Sally Murphy (Primary English Teaching Association Australia, 2021)

‘Midnight’ haiku in the anthology Rattled, edited by Corine Timmer (Bica Books, 2020)

‘Potion Problems’ featured in the anthology Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble: Magical Poems chosen by Paul Cookson, illustrated by Eilidh Muldoon (Bloomsbury UK, 2020)

‘Indian Ocean’ featured in the Poems on Postcards Series 3: In Swings the Tide (2020)

‘The Button Jar’ published in The School Magazine: Countdown (2020)

‘How to be an Emu Egg’ featured in the Eggsibition Exhibition at Paper Bird Books Gallery, Fremantle Western Australia (2017)

‘Body Beat’ published in The School Magazine: Countdown (2017)

‘Bookmarks’ published in The School Magazine: Countdown (2017) and reprinted in 2021

‘Biscuit Bother’ published in The School Magazine: Countdown (March 2015)

‘Odd Socks’ published in The School Magazine: Blast Off (June 2014)

Select Poems in Full

Odd Socks

People say

your socks don’t match!

as if I didn’t know.

But socks that clash

have much more dash,

odd socks—

the way to go.

The principal bought black socks,

seven pairs, all the same.

He says his black socks always match,

I think that’s such a shame.

I close my eyes when choosing socks

one stripes, one spots,

one bright, one grey.

It’s better when my socks don’t match—

sock lucky-dips every day.

© Rebecca Newman

‘Odd socks’ first appeared in The School Magazine: Blast Off, June 2014, issue no. 5.

Biscuit Bother

My sister ate the biscuit

the last one in the jar,

I thought that I could sneak it

but I didn’t sneak it far —

as I snuck it past my sister

she gave an angry shriek!

It’s a problem when your sneakers

have more squeak than they have sneak.

© Rebecca Newman

‘Biscuit Bother’ first appeared in The School Magazine: Countdown, March 2015, issue no. 2.