Serena Moss used a ‘feral’ writing process to claw her way onto the Fogarty Literary Award shortlist

Serena Moss writes emotionally raw, structurally sharp fiction set in the kinds of places maps skip over. Her stories are built from wreckage, roadside grief, and the kind of characters who swear too much, care too hard, and keep showing up – even when it hurts. Wherever there’s room, she’ll write into it.

Based in Geraldton, Serena works full-time in real estate and is very grateful to be in a position where she can chase both her passion for property and the heart-work of storytelling.

When she’s not working, writing or volunteering, you’ll usually find her on her motorbike winding through country roads in search of wildflowers, servo toasties, and stories. She throws her energy behind causes close to her heart, and once made the mistake of saying yes to a dragon boat race fundraiser (yes, she capsized – no, she doesn’t want to talk about it).

In 2019, she co-developed a road safety prototype called Arrive Alive during a 54-hour startup sprint. It ran, it worked (even with sunglasses), and the team earned an honourable mention–even if she bombed the final pitch. She still calls it one of the best weekends of her life.

Serena spent her childhood between Perth and a handful of tiny WA towns – the kind with one pub, no streetlights, and a thousand stories if you hang around long enough. That regional grit and quiet generosity shape everything she writes.

Wreckage is her debut novel – a haunting, unflinching exploration of guilt, consequence, and the brutal beauty of what’s left behind.

Describe the manuscript in your own words.

At its core, Wreckage is about aftermath – what’s left when the worst thing has already happened and you’re the one still here.

It follows Carter Reynolds – small-town golden boy, footy hero, supposed-to-be-somebody – who drink-drives himself and his best mate Jason into a tree and wakes up with no legs, no best mate, no future, and a town that doesn’t know what to do with him.

Jason’s gone. Carter’s not. And that’s a problem. For everyone. Including him.

It’s not a redemption arc. It’s consequence. It’s silence. It’s busted headlights, servo pies, and the slow, bitter shape of survival. It’s about figuring out how to live in the body – and the town – you’ve been left with.

Wreckage is angry. It’s tired. It’s grief that won’t go pretty. But it’s also about the kind of love that stays, even when it hurts to be held. And how you carry the people you’ve lost, even when you can’t carry yourself.

It’s for the ones who stayed. The ones who got stuck. The ones trying to figure out who they are after everything split wide open.

Because what happens to you doesn’t get to define you. What you do next does.

What inspired you to write it, and what did your writing process look like?

I wrote the story I needed – and the one I wish more young people had.

Wreckage came from something I couldn’t shake – the space after. The silence. The guilt. The ache of still being here when someone else isn’t.

I didn’t want to write a road safety message. I wanted to write what happens next – when you’ve done something you can’t undo, and the world keeps moving anyway. I wanted to write the story I needed back then. The one that might actually reach someone before they make the kind of choice they can’t take back.

Because stats don’t land. Campaigns don’t always cut through. But stories? Stories get in.

I didn’t want to preach. I didn’t want to scare. I just wanted to tell the truth – about how fast everything can change. About what it means to survive something you maybe shouldn’t have. And how heavy that survival can be.

I wanted to write something that didn’t flinch from consequence – that sat in the grief, the guilt, the ‘what now’ – and still made space for hope.

My process? Feral. Fragmented. I don’t outline. I write in scenes. I chase tangents and banter. Scrap drafts. Rewrite the same moment five different ways until something lands. Somewhere in that chaos, Wreckage started to take shape. I just wrote what burned the loudest.

Carter didn’t even start like this – originally, he was a teenage boy with multiple sclerosis from a dusty town not unlike Kulin. I was fleshing out this scene where he comes back to town after five years and is having a conversation with Maggie and something shifted. The grief deepened. The story cracked open. And suddenly, I had this boy who’d lost his best friend, his future, his legs – and still had to live with it.

It came fast. It came hard. And I almost didn’t finish it. But it felt important. So I kept going.

If even one person finishes this book and thinks twice – just pauses – before getting behind the wheel tired, tipsy, reckless? Or someone too broken, too messy, or maybe even too loud sees themselves in Carter? Or even Maggie?

Then it’s all been worth it.

I wrote the story I needed.

And maybe someone else needs it too.

Tell us what it means to you to make the 2025 Fogarty Literary Award shortlist.

Everything. Honestly – it means everything.

I’ve been writing my whole life – but mostly in silence. For myself.

Writing was the one thing that stayed when everything else fell away. When I didn’t have the voice for grief, or shame, or domestic violence, or miscarriage – I had story. I had characters who could carry what I couldn’t say out loud.

And Wreckage isn’t a pretty story. It’s messy. Gritty. It doesn’t flinch. It came out of small towns and broken silences. Out of the places I ride through on my motorbike, out of the people I’ve met, and the grief I’ve carried.

So for this book – one that’s heavy with consequence, disability, small-town memory and survival – to be seen like this? To be recognised by Fremantle Press, the Fogarty Foundation, and the Centre for Stories?

It means I was right to keep going.

That this story matters.

That maybe I do too.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

This book cost me a lot to write – and gave me even more in return.

Wreckage came out of the kind of grief that doesn’t tidy itself up. The kind that lingers in the body. In silence. In the choices you can’t undo.

It’s not a clean story. But real life isn’t clean – especially when you’re young, or disabled, or grieving, or trying to survive something no one prepared you for.

If this book finds someone who thinks they’re too broken, too much, or not enough – I hope it tells them:

You’re not alone.

You still matter.

You’re still here. And that counts.

To the Fogarty Foundation, Fremantle Press, and the Centre for Stories – thank you for making space for the messy, regional, grief-heavy stories. For showing writers like me that our voices are enough – just as they are.

To my fellow shortlisted writers – I’m starstruck. I’m grateful. And I’m bloody thrilled to be standing beside you.

And to the readers – whether you find Wreckage in a library, a bookstore, or long after the dust has settled – I hope something in it lands. I hope it lingers with you long after you finish it. I hope it makes you feel a little less alone.

Because this?

This moment?

It’s more than I ever expected.

And I’ll carry it with me – wherever the road leads next.

Follow Serena’s journey @stories.by.serena where she shares behind-the-scenes writing, the Fogarty Literary Award journey and country town wanderings.

Want to meet her in person?
Join us at the Fogarty Literary Ceremony on Tuesday 3 June at the Government House Ballroom in Perth. Tickets are free and available from Humanitix.