Contemporary YA Down Under: Australian Realistic Fiction Guest Post by Simmone Howell (Everything Beautiful)

Written by: Kelly on November 14, 2013.

One of our readers — more than one, actually — requested we blog about contemporary YA from Australia, since we’re becoming more aware of it as it makes its way to the US. We’re familiar, of course, with Melina Marchetta (The Piper’s Son and Jellicoe Road), but there are plenty of other Aussies making a splash on this side of the world. Simmone Howell, one such author, is here to talk about what is in the water down under. . . and introduce us to some killer Australian contemporary YA.

In the event you see an Australian book you’re interested in and can’t get it here or don’t want to wait to get it, you can always try searching Fishpond World for a title. Shipping is free (though some have said they’ve ordered and not received items in the past).

Simmone Howell is the author of Notes from the Teenage Underground, Everything Beautiful and Girl Defective. In her youth she did indeed sink tinnies and chuck punches but now she is more highly evolved and does it through her characters. She lives with her family in Melbourne and likes coffee and Wes Anderson movies. Find her at simmonehowell.com and @postteen on Twitter. Girl Defective will be out with Simon & Schuster Antheneum in fall 2014.

“What’s in the water?” a little think on Australian YA contemporary Fiction

It is a fine and flattering question I get asked sometimes by US writers and readers regarding Australian young adult fiction (ozya). (The Brits rarely ask it, I think because, we’re still part of the Commonwealth, and it would not be done to admire blossoms sprung from convict soil.) What’s in the water? I looked it up. Lots of stuff — Hydrogen and Oxygen and Flouride.

Australians are self-effacing creatures, inept humble-braggers. Most of the YA authors I know worry that they might be a little bit crap. Australia is not a country for claiming success. It is wrong to think highly of yourself and anyone who does so in public must arm themselves for the storm of abuse! Traditionally, Australian characters fall into these categories: Good Blokes, Lovable Larrikins and Bonza Sheilas.

Our leading men cannot be confident and hunky – there should be issues, a certain attractive inarticulateness. The blurb to Marcus Zuzak’s The Messenger said something like: ‘Ed is in hopeless love with Audrey.’ – and that seems to me to be an eminently Australian condition – in any endeavour there should be the likelihood of failure.

Our leading ladies are emphatically not manic-pixie dreamgirls. Ideally, they should be able to knock back a tinnie, chuck a punch, save their best friend from getting date-raped, get the boy in the end but decide he’s not worth it. They’re multi-taskers and they refuse to be concerned with thigh gap.

Here are some recent reads that definitely have something in the water …

Creepy and Maud by Diane Touchell

A sort-of romance between a girl who has trichotillomania and the boy who spies on her. It’s sharp writing, never sentimental, it’s real and sometimes tragic but also full of memorable and funny lines. Creepy, talking about his parents and their disintegrating affection says of his mother: Once upon a time she lovingly washed his skidmarks …

http://diannetouchell.blogspot.com.au/

I’ll Tell You Mine by Pip Harry

About a goth girl who – due to an incident that is only revealed later – becomes a boarder at the school where she used to be a day-student. Great character and clear prose and this unabashedness about failure that makes the triumphs all that sweeter.

http://www.pipharry.com/

Cry Blue Murder by Kim Kane & Marion Roberts

An email correspondence between two teenage girls who are both obsessing over the case of a local girl who’s gone missing. These voices are so true, so full of the minutiea and inertia of being fifteen, and then you know, the subject matter is creepy, depressing – it’s a weird blend of a book and I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.

http://www.readings.com.au/news/the-way-we-work-kim-kane-and-marion-roberts

The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner

“Again, I felt something. A change in the weather, a shift in the season, something dawning or something setting. Some tide on the move or moon made full. Stirrings of ancient dust.”

There’s usually some point in a Scot Gardner book where I’m lost for words and feeling the hugeness of the world and have to have faith that if there’s a scrap of beauty in there somewhere he will lead me to it!

http://www.scotgardner.com/

Wildlife by Fiona Wood

Love and sex at a school ‘wilderness’ camp. This is beautiful and complicated and hasn’t crossed the water yet but will do so next year – look out for it!

http://fionawood.com/

Obviously there are more. Ozya is chock-full of writers to admire and learn from, and most of them are lovely people. I love to see our books travel – I come over all jingoistic. I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago and saw Cath Crowley’s Graffiti Moon at Green Apple books and I felt quietly thrilled. I’m very excited that my own novel Girl Defective will be published next fall (so long to wait!) and I hope to come over again to lurk in bookstores. Lost and alienated, flawed and funny, my favourite Australian characters are all these things. They fuck up but it’s okay. Go find them!

Comments