August celebrates new fiction from a wealth of Australian talent
One of the things I’ve enjoyed about this month of reading is the diverse range of stories and voices currently being published in Australia. Read on to discover more and a chance to win a copy!
Well hello!
One of the things I’ve enjoyed about this month of reading is the diverse range of stories and voices currently being published in Australia. Stories such as Melanie’ Saward’s novel Burn which focuses on the impact of inter-generational trauma and what happens when we lose our connection to family. In a similar vein, Sara M Saleh’s novel Songs for the Dead and the Living is a powerful story about a Palestinian family, displaced from their home on the outskirts of Beirut and trying to forge a new life, knowing they will; never be able to return to their home or their homelands. And we also welcome a completely different fresh new voice, Steph Vizard, who won the 2022 HarperCollins Banjo Prize for her delightful romcom, The Love Contract.
I devoured Nadine J. Cohen’s novel Everyone and Everything. I’m delighted she joins us this month in our Meet the Author segment. And for the budding authors amongst us, don’t forget submissions for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript is now open. You could be the next Jane Harper, Graeme Simsion or Maxine Beneba Clarke!
Happy Publication Day!
The Modern Anna Kate Blair (30 August)
Things seem to be working out for Sophia in New York: having come from Australia to be at the centre of modernity, she’s working at the Museum of Modern Art, living in a great apartment with a boyfriend interviewing for Ivy League teaching positions. They’re smart, serious, dine in the right restaurants and have (a little unexpectedly) become engaged just before he leaves to hike the Appalachian Trail.
Alone in the city, Sophia begins to wonder what it means to be married – to be defined, publicly – in the 21st century. Can you be true to yourself and someone else? In a bridal shop she meets Cara, a young artist struggling to get over her ex-girlfriend, and the two begin a connection that leads Sophia to question the nature of her relationships, her career and the consequences of being modern.
The Modern is a brilliantly wry and insightful debut about art, sexuality, commitment and whether being on the right path can lead to the wrong place. Anna Kate Blair’s debut novel is a sparklingly insightful queer exploration of desire, art and her generation’s place in the world. It announces an exceptional new literary voice.
Preorder/ buy a copy here
Books to Love
Burn by Melanie Saward
Published 29 August 2023
When eight-year-old Andrew and his parents move to Port Sorrell, everyone is hoping for a fresh start. Unfortunately, over the years, his home life becomes more and more fraught. His mother barely manages to put a meal on the table and his father is always working trying to make ends meet. Andrew finds solace in fishing and lighting little fires. He’s pretty much a loner until her meets Sarah, also indigenous, whose ultra-religious white family comes to Port Sorell for the summer. The connection the pair feels runs deep, they are both lonely teenagers who struggle to have their voices heard and will forever be united by a single act that changes their lives in devastating ways.
At sixteen, Andrew moves to Bracken Ridge in Brisbane with his mother and her new boyfriend, hoping to leave the troubles behind in Port Sorrell. Andrew’s not planning to stay, he’s saving up to return to Tasmania and live with his father. In the meantime, he hangs out with his mates, anything to stay out of the house and avoid his stepfather. But when a deliberately lit fire gets out of control and a young boy dies, Andrew knows who is responsible. If he can just keep his head down and his mouth shut, maybe the cops won’t figure out it was him.
Told in the first person through the eyes of Andrew, Burn is a powerful novel that explores the impact of intergenerational trauma indigenous Australians’ expereince. His mother’s poor mental health, his father’s absence and living in grinding poverty have all contributed to his feelings of always being an outsider. Is he a firebug or is he a lonely boy desperately seeking his parents’ attention? Saward explores the possibilities when youth justice and punishment acknowledges the effect of colonisation and the far-reaching effect of ongoing disconnection from culture.
Yet, Burn also explores what happens when the system gets it right. That Andrew’s fascination with lighting fires comes from a place of deep despair. And when that call is heard, that lives can be forever changed. Saward’s writing is filled with humour and tenderness. In creating Andrew, she has invented a character who is nuanced and deeply empathetic. Burn is a powerful and insightful conversation about the society we currently live in and what it might be like if prejudice and marginalisation were overcome.
To WIN a copy of Burn, scroll down to Freebies
A little bit about the author …
Melanie Saward is a proud descendant of the Bigambul and Wakka Wakka peoples. She is a Tulmur (Ipswich) based writer, an associate lecturer in creative writing at QUT, and a PhD student. Melanie's writing has been published in Flock – First Nations Stories; Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Scum Mag, and Verity La. She has been shortlisted for the Kuracca Prize and the David Unaipon Award and received highly commended mentions in the Boundless Indigenous Mentorship, the Harlequin First Nations Fellowship, and the Calibre Essay Prize.
Find Melanie Saward
Instagram @littleredwrites
Website www.littleredwrites.com.au
Buy the book or read an extract here
The Love Contract by Steph Vizard
Published 30 August 2023
Zoe’s biological clock is ticking and after breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, the world of online dating has failed to deliver a replacement prospect. Deciding to go it alone, she thinks she has this whole single parenting caper worked out until a childcare drought derails her plans to return to work. The last person she would ever turn to for help is her uptight lawyer neighbour, Will, but then fate has a different idea.
Will’s boss has seen them together with the baby and assumed Will is the dad. He insists Will take paternity leave to set a good example to other’s aspiring to partnership, including himself. From Will’s poitn of view, he could do with a break from the corproate grind and really, how hard can looking after a baby really be?
Steph Vizard’s The Love Contract is a delightful romp filled with memorable characters. Beneath the fun, she tackles the serious issues around motherhood, juggling a career and a family life, and the gender disparity when it comes to society’s expectations about parenting. It’s a wonderful twist on the enemies to lovers romantic trope and is the kind of book that demands to be devoured over a weekend.
A little bit about the author …
Steph Vizard is an Australian writer and lawyer. After studying literature at Oxford University, she worked in publishing in London. Her debut romantic comedy, The Love Contract, won the 2022 HarperCollins Banjo Prize. She is a connoisseur of salt and vinegar chips and lives with her family in Melbourne.
Find Steph Vizard
Instagram: @stephevizard
Website: www.stephvizard.com
Buy a copy of the book here
Songs For the Dead and the Living by Sara M Saleh
Published 29 August 2023
Jamilah grows up a small mountain town on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon. She is the daughter of a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father. As Palestinian refugees, life is precarious, limiting their access to free education, medical care and the basic rights as a citizen of Lebanon. But theirs is a happy family until war comes to their town and they are forced to flee the country. Escaping first to Cairo, they have no idea if other family members and friends are alive or dead. Life is fraught but Jamilah does not stay in Cairo, fleeing to the other side of the world, far away from war.
In her author’s note, Sara M Saleh talks of Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe that refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians that began during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Jamilah is the granddaughter of Teta Aishah who fled her home during that conflict, alone and pregnant, and along with many other Palestinians, made a new life in Lebanon. Songs for the Dead and the Living is Jamilah’s coming-of-age story. Spanning almost ten years between 1977 and 1986, the past ripples through the present as her family struggles in this new conflict. Lives are lost or rent apart, the ties that bind straining to hold when war and distance conspire. It is a deeply lyrical novel that exposes the fragilities of friendship and family and the difficulty of holding onto what and who you love most. But it also is a reminder that this conflict has never ended and continues, as all wars do, to destroy and disrupt lives for generations.
A little bit about the author …
Sara M Saleh is an award-winning writer/poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other. Sara made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Songs for the Dead and the Living is her first novel.
Find Sara M Saleh
Instagram: @instasaranade
Website: www.saramsaleh.com
Buy a copy of the book here
Meet the Author
Nadine J. Cohen, also known as Nadine von Cohen, is a writer and refugee advocate from Sydney. Her musings can be found all over the internet, with bylines in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, SMH, ABC, SBS, Frankie, Harper’s Bazaar and more. She co-founded and directed Hope for Nauru, a volunteer-run not-for-profit serving refugees and asylum seekers affected by offshore detention, from 2018 to 2023. Everyone and Everything is her debut novel.
A little bit about the book …
When Yael Silver’s world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons – and some truly terrible erotic literature. Funny and tender, Everyone and Everything is about friendship, grief and the deep, frustrating bond between sisters. It asks what makes us who we are and what leads us onto ledges.
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind this story?
Following a really difficult time in my life, many years ago, I spent a lot of time at McIver’s Ladies Baths (aka the women’s baths). I was so enamoured with the beauty and energy of this hallowed, healing space, so rich in stories, that it inspired an urge to write about it. I also wanted to write a non-fiction book exploring inherited trauma, specifically how my grandmother’s trauma and mental health issues have informed my own.
At the time, I’d been a columnist and copywriter for years, but I hadn’t written fiction since high school. I enrolled in a Master of Creative Writing at UTS and I used each subject to experiment with these two ideas in various genres – fiction, creative non-fiction, screenwriting, etc. When it was time to commence work on my final project, I couldn’t decide which idea to work on. “Why don’t you mix them together?” said Delia Falconer, one of my teachers. And so, Everyone and Everything was born, working title The Baths.
I never actually intended for this work to reach beyond the confines of my degree – I planned to break the two stories into separate projects again - and it certainly looks a lot different now. But when Pantera Press approached me about working together, I showed them The Baths and we agreed I would finish it. So here we are.
What would you say were the biggest challenges in writing Everyone and Everything?
How long have you got?
This book challenged me in many ways. On a pragmatic or process level, the biggest challenge was the book’s structure. How were we going to weave this story, with its multiple, non-linear timelines that bounce around one page to the next, into a coherent, story? It was very difficult, and the final product did not come together until almost the last few weeks. Credit to my editors, Lex Hirst and Tom Langshaw, and my copy and proof editors, Camha Pham and Bronwyn Sweeney, for helping me get there.
Emotionally, it took a lot out of me. Writing about my past and my family – good times and bad – was a roller coaster and it was impossible to predict what would get to me. I’d be absolutely fine working on a harrowing memory that was 100% real, only to break down over a fictional story arc. I struggled a lot at times, but I was also intrigued by the process.
You’ve done a masters in creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney. What would you say was the best thing about that experience?
I think the best thing about the masters was simply the act of studying writing, which I had never done before. I fell into writing as a profession, and I’d always wanted to go back to uni to study it but had never had the chance.
I loved discovering new sub-genres and writers and having the space to try and fail and learn and grow. I’m certain it made me a much better writer and Everyone and Everything wouldn’t exist without it. I would encourage any writer - novice or professional - with the means and time, to enrol in a masters immediately.
There’s a lot of buzz around Everyone and Everything. It’s been described as a dazzling literary debut that will make readers laugh and cry. What are you most looking forward to when the books comes out in the world?
I’ve imagined seeing a book I wrote in bookstores my whole life. So once that’s done, everything else is icing.
To WIN a copy of Everyone and Everything, scroll down to Freebies
Find Nadine J. Cohen
Instagram: @nadinevoncohen
Preorder a copy of the book here
Freebies!
It is such a great pleasure to be able to offer you two amazing books to give away this month.
Many thanks to the folks at Affirm Press for providing copies of Burn for you to win. All you have to do is send a reply email with the answer to this question.
Where did Andrew live before he moved to Bracken Ridge?
Thanks to the terrific team at Pantera Press, we also have copies of Everyone and Everything to give away. All you have to do is send a reply email with the answer to this oh-so-tricky question.
What is the name of the protagonist in the novel?
The fine print: Giveaways are currently only open to subscribers and you must reside within Australia to be eligible to win (postage!) The winners will be picked at random and will be emailed on 21 August 2023. Good luck!
Newbie News
For the budding authors amongst us, the 2024 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards are now open for entries! The VPLAs honour literary achievement by Australian writers and the Award for an Unpublished Manuscript has launched many writing careers. Previous winners include Graeme Simsion for The Rosie Project, Jane Harper for The Dry and Maxine Beneba Clarke for Foreign Soil.
The winner of the Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. receives $15,000 in prize money and a two-week residency at the McCraith House in Dromana as part of a partnership between the Wheeler Centre and RMIT Culture. Entries close 5pm AEST Sunday 10 September 2023.
The End
I hope you enjoyed this jam-packed issue of New Voices Down Under. Please leave a comment, follow us on socials and come back again next month where there will be more bookish news, reviews, interviews and freebies. See you soon!
Don’t forget, you can always catch up with us on Instagram @newvoicesdownunder
And, if you’d like to subscribe to my author newsletter, you can subscribe to A Cuppa With Meredith here
These sound excellent - The Modern in particular sounds like my cup of tea but I think I'd happily read them all.