My son sent me a link to an unusual bookshop in Japan known as the most minimal bookstore in the world.

It sparked an idea to take the bookshop’s one room-one book approach to set up a display of my own book in the window of an abandoned supermarket in Kyogle.

Morioka Shoten (shoten means bookstore) sells one book at a time in a single room that displays only that book. This isn’t retail, this is art and it’s the brainchild of Yoshuyuki Morioka, a man obsessed with books.

After decades of writing and stashing away short stories, I decided to put together and publish a short story collection titled SMOKE. My writing has been previously described as sparse possibly influenced by years of being a reporter. So a minimalist window display seemed fitting.

Bookshops tend to fill their windows with lots of different books, what would my one window–one book approach look like?

The process was made easier because I enlisted set designer Nina George to bring the vision to life. She had ideas from the moment I mentioned the idea. (Full disclosure: Nina is also my daughter, so that made it even more special as we got to spend time together)

We bounced around ideas – she came up with two minimalist style concepts.

One was to put a book about fire and smoke into a fish tank full of water. It was radical but I liked it – the smoke from a fire quenched with water seemed fitting. The other concept was to suspend a burned book and have a a pile of ash under it symbolising the fire.

We played around with these concepts for weeks – that was the easy part of the plan.

Should the book be bigger? What size should the fish tank be? How would we suspend a book?

The window display site had no power or running water so the fish tank idea became too difficult to pull off so we went with the suspended book and planned to dramatise it with a burn line backdrop (all Nina’s idea).

We trialled how the calico would burn. It burned fast and we quickly adapted and used a spray bottle of water to slow down the burning to get a line like you’d see on a heart monitor but of fire.

While Nina did that, I sat on the concrete out the back of my house and burned the edges of a book.  That felt subversive in itself – burning a book like in the story of one of my favourite reads Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

We collected ash and burned wood from the fireplace and with three giant rolls of calico and armed with a set designer’s basket of staplers, tape, clips and everything else we headed to Kyogle’s main street to make out window display.

The former IGA supermarket on Summerland Way has five empty windows. It is a big building that is falling apart inside. It will eventually be knocked down but in the meantime the community uses the windows to highlight community events such as Anzac Day, the Giant Pumpkin Festival, the Kyogle Writers Festival and others.

The windows were all empty.

We set about pinning the calico in the interior of the window display. Nina made the ceiling look like clouds with the material and her stapler. This created our stage for the creative part of this project.

We hoisted the burn line into place.

So many decisions had to be made on height of the book– considering what level were people going to be looking at it from the street.

As the author, it was a thrill to my little A5 book turned into a work of art.

The burning, the decisions we made, and time spent doing it were not minimalist in any way but I hope the display looks effortless and creates interest.

Before we did the display, I put up a small blackboard and wrote – SMOKE is coming – to garner interest in the window. There were many comments as locals thought another tobacco shop was opening.

SMOKE which will be launched at Kyogle Library at 5.30pm today, May 8. Everyone is welcome and there is no obligation to buy the book. Come and be read to and hear about the writer’s process. 

Here’s the blurb to tell you more about the book:

Sometimes hope is all we have.

Smoke & Other Stories is a collection of eight stories and a closing poem set across rural Australia, the desert, the coast and the places in between where ordinary lives crack open under pressure.

A boy steers a tinnie away from a burning town while his father fights the fire on land. A mother and son get too close to a flooded river. A pregnant woman faces down three teenage girls in a park. A family holds together the performance of happiness for one last visit. A father drives to the end of a jetty.

These are stories about what people carry — grief, guilt, love, the weight of small transgressions — and the hope that persists even when it has no good reason to.

The book will be on sale from Monday, May 11 at:

• Clay Corner, Summerland Way, Kyogle
• Hemlocks Books & Coffee, Woodburn 
• Casino Artisan Giftshop, Walker Street, Casino
• Sensational Crafts, Barker Street, Casino

Casino Farmers Market on Saturday morning, Crawford Square Park, South Casino (Terri’s stall)

Or order from susannafreymark.com.au The books costs $25 plus postage.

If you are interested in publishing your own book come to the free panel as part of Literary Allsorts on Friday, May 15 at the Roxy Gallery in Kyogle (above the KMI Hall).

At the Fresh Local Produce: Growing Homegrown Talent I will be talking with authors Annie Barrett, Dianna Jarman and Leanne Murner. Come and hear how they published their own books. This is a free event. To buy a festival pass for Saturday go here.

If you do read SMOKE, let me know what story you liked, or didn’t like. Writers always need feedback to improve. You can find me on Instagram or Facebook or email susannafreymark@gmail.com.

Read local. Buy books by local writers. Go to local festivals to support creative pursuits.

This article appeared on indyNR.com on 8 May 2026.