"Fascinated by how we live and how we perceive each other Parramatta-based writer, Pete Shmigel's short story collection, Contours, offers us an intimate insight into the inner lives of migrant and working class people - their choices, their actions in a world which is frequently damaged by conflict, particularly the immediacy of war and its residual domestic impacts. Within each of the nineteen stories, Shmigel as our omniscient narrator elevates the ordinary into the extraordinary. He slows down the reader with detailed poetic prose, encouraging us to dwell in moments of solitude and introspection, while examining the beauty and fragility of human life with his vast cast of characters." - Augusta Supple, writer, curator, and critic