Assaulted by her mother's boyfriend, a fourteen-year-old girl longs to be loved by her teenage crush. An immigrant woman who fled her homeland is forced to travel across the country by the man who promised her a better life. An acutely sensitive eleven-year-old girl is despised by her fifth-grade teacher. A war veteran's family falls apart as he combats the consequences of PTSD. An Anglican nun struggles to comfort a woman who's been sentenced to the gallows.

These people exist in different times and have vastly different lives, yet all of them suffer from the devastating effects of trauma.

"Open Wounds" is a collection of unflinching Australian short stories that shines light on those moments in life that are as profound as they are traumatic.