In Melbourne's western suburbs, in a dilapidated block of flats, a young black mother is working on a collection of stories. The book is called Foreign Soil. Inside its covers, a desperate asylum seeker is pacing the hallways of Sydney's Villawood detention centre, a seven-year-old Sudanese boy has found solace in a bike, a young woman leaves rural Jamaica in search of her destiny, and a Sydney schoolgirl loses her way. The young mother keeps writing, the rejection letters keep arriving.