Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Erin Gough

Erin Gough is a Sydney-based writer whose first young adult novel, The Flywheel, won Hardie Grant Egmont’s Ampersand Prize. The Flywheel was published in the US as Get it Together, Delilah! and was shortlisted for the CBCA’s Book of the Year for Older Readers and the Centre for Youth Literature’s Gold Inky. It was also named a White Raven International Youth Library title.

Gough's new novel is Amelia Westlake Was Never Here.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
Highway Bodies by Alison Evans and The Lost Arab by Omar Sakr

Both of these books are a dose of what I love best: queer writing by Australian authors. Highway Bodies is about a zombie apocalypse in Melbourne. It features a range of queer and gender non-confirming teens banding together to stay alive. It is Australian soap opera meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I'm loving it.

The Lost Arab is Sakr's second collection of poetry, and having just finished my first read through, I'm reading it again. I want to live in these poems. They are haunted, and challenging, and beautiful, and sexy. They crack open the world.
Visit Erin Gough's website.

The Page 69 Test: Amelia Westlake Was Never Here.

--Marshal Zeringue