Fogarty Literary Award alumni Katherine Allum, Karleah Olson and Josh Kemp will join Brooke Dunnell for Melville Storylines Festival
Melville Storylines will play host to a special event tailored around the Fogarty Literary Award. To Fogarty and Beyond will feature 2023 winner Katherine Allum and two fellow shortlisted authors, Karleah Olson and Josh Kemp with host, and 2021 winner, Brooke Dunnell. The panellists will share their experience on the biennial award for Western Australian writers aged between 18 and 35.
The Skeleton House is Katherine’s debut novel and won the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award. The book looks at what it’s like living on the margins of a devoutly Mormon town divided into true believers, lapsed believers and non-believers like Meg (or OTM – people who are Other Than Mormon). Katherine says ‘Living in a small town means that your life crisscrosses others in an entwined, intimate way that creates a sense of belonging and accountability that comes of people knowing who you and your parents are. Add the moody and sometimes spooky desert landscape – and all of the strange creatures that come with it – and it is a fascinating and entertaining setting to play with.’
Jasper Cliff is Josh Kemp’s second novel, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Award. Josh isn’t new to the literary award scene – he’s already garnered a Ned Kelly Award and the Dorothy Hewett Award for his debut novel, Banjarwan. This novel, Jasper Cliff, is set in the East Pilbara (a place that rarely features in Australian literature), and it leans into the realm of gothic horror to explore the effects of ongoing colonisation on the landscape and community. He said, ‘The idea for Jasper Cliff came from spending a lot of time researching frontier history in the Battye Library. I would often read about the horrors of colonisation for other creative projects, and during this process discovered how history can be twisted or altered by unscrupulous writers.’
A Wreck of Seabirds is a brooding piece set on the West Australian coast. Karleah Olson wrote it as part of a PhD thesis about entrapment and liminal space in Australian Coastal Gothic Literature. She said, ‘If you’re looking for it, you’ll see that each of the protagonists in this story are trapped in one way or another, whether physically trapped on an island, or emotionally trapped by an experience of loss or grief.’
Brooke Dunnell, winner of the 2021 Fogarty Literary Award, will guide the in-conversation event and chat with the authors about how they prepared for and submitted their manuscripts to the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award, the process of turning their manuscripts into published novels, and their respective backgrounds in education as students of literature or working in the education system.
Join Melville Storylines on Tuesday 15 September at 6.45 pm at Civic Square Library in Booragoon as they celebrate the Fogarty Literary Award. Book sales and signings will be available on the night, thanks to Typeface Books.
Tickets to this event are free, but there are a limited number of spaces, so book your ticket now by clicking on the link.
