In 2018, over 720 secondary school students from across Australia entered The John Marsden & Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers. Fifteen talented young students made it on to the shortlist in categories of fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

In the lead-up to announcing the winners at the 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival, we’re introducing you to each and every young writer on our list. Meet our fiction writers!

 

Matilda Bolt | VIC | The Hawk

Why do you write fiction?

I started reading when I was 2, and writing not soon after, and ever since then, I have always felt the need to tell stories. I find inspiration all around me, and whenever I see a word, person or object that sparks the seed of a story, I must write it down and take it wherever it leads me. Sometimes it takes me to a dead end, but other times I write a story I love, and that keeps me coming back to the blank page.

Who are your favourite writers? Or your favourite books?

My favourite series are Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody and The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. Obernewtyn taught me so much about crafting realistic characters, and creating nuanced and
intricate plots that suck the reader in, while Maggie Stiefvater’s prose always manages to worm its way into my memory. I also am always drawn to stories that are, at their heart, about complicated people, and many novels like The Cardturner by Louis Sachar, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman and I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson stick in my mind as perfect examples of human stories much like the ones I want to tell.

Can you tell us a bit about your shortlisted John Marsden Prize submission?

The Hawk is one of my favourite stories out of everything I’ve ever written. I dove straight into the story with nothing but a prompt: an email sent to a comedic advice podcast that I listen to on the
way home from school. Out of that prompt grew a character, Sarah, and her labyrinthine past, and I simply tried to follow her where she took me. I chose to experiment a lot with form and style,
drawing inspiration from Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman for some of the written quirks of Sarah’s state of mind, and the email entry format, which I chose so that the reader had to fill in the gaps of what was not said, forcing them wholly into the story.

Why did you choose to write it?

Once I had the first email written, I knew I had to continue the story. Sarah had become very real in my mind, and even if I hadn’t yet worked out the kinks in her life or backstory, I very much wanted to know. I also felt that I had discovered a story with the potential to be challenging for me yet rewarding at the end, and I wanted to challenge my own writing skills so that I improved.

 

Jack Saunders | VIC | The Cattle Farmer

Why do you write fiction?

I write fiction because I enjoy creating and exploring imaginary worlds. I never plan my stories because I prefer to see what will unfold as I write and the world (setting) I create has a big influence on the characters and the plot that develops thereafter.

Who are your favourite writers? Or your favourite books?

Favourite writers:

• Ernest Hemingway
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Phillip Pullman
• Paul Stewart
• Joseph Delaney
• Chris Paolini
• Markus Zusak

Favourite books:

• My Old Man (short story) – Ernest Hemingway
• The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
• Spooks Series – Joseph Delaney
• His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
• My Sister Rosa – Justine Larbalestier
• Eragon Series – Chris Paolini
• The Edge Series – Paul Stewart

Can you tell us a bit about your shortlisted John Marsden Prize submission?

The Cattle Farmer is about a simple old man who lives a contented life in rural Croatia, who when confronted with an eviction notice makes the long and arduous journey to the city to confront the authorities.

Why did you choose to write it?

The Cattle Farmer is a story I wrote for an English assignment in 2017. The prompt sentence was ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ and we had to start with that. The first image that came to mind was a small paddock with a little hut under the attack of a thunderstorm.

I wanted to write a simple story with a humble setting and the first place I thought of was rural Croatia. I had eaten Croatian cabbage soup and sausages that weekend and I thought they had simple but interesting flavour. I wanted to write a story of the same kind.

 

Olivia Wood | VIC | Kitchen Island

 

Why do you write fiction?

I write both fiction and nonfiction, but I find fiction to be more gratifying. I also really enjoy coming up with ideas for characters and fleshing them out; I like to create fantasy–type content, but even stories based in our world can be just as exciting to write and read.

Who are your favourite writers? Or your favourite books?

The list is extensive, but my favourite writers are probably Benjamin Alire Saenz, Maggie Stiefvater and Nora Sakavic.

Can you tell us a bit about your shortlisted John Marsden Prize submission?

My John Marsden Prize submission is about a mother and daughter who struggle to regain balance in their relationship after their family goes through divorce.

Why did you choose to write it?

I was inspired to write it after reading Cate Kennedy’s collection of short stories Like a House on Fire, and when given the opportunity to do so, I attempted to emulate her writing style in my piece.

 

Ilona Mutuku | VIC | Alone on a Shore

Why do you write fiction?

I write fiction because it is one of the best ways I know how to express my ideas and thoughts. I believe there is no better way for someone to understand a certain belief, emotion or situation than to be taken through the storytelling. I love the process of sanding away at an idea or experience until it becomes this living breathing story, I love the process of learning to understand and interpret the characters I create. And in broad strokes that is why I write fiction.

Who are your favourite writers? Or your favourite books?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of my favourite writers, in particular Americanah and Half a Yellow Sun were my favourites. In terms of novels, I really enjoyed  Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and Things fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I’m am really interested in post-colonial literature and that interest is where a lot of the aforementioned novels come from. But I also really enjoyed more classic novels like Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Can you tell us a bit about your shortlisted John Marsden Prize submission?

‘Alone on Shore’ is a short story that follows a young immigrant girl and her family through their small town life in the Northern Territory. The piece primarily comments on the isolation of that situation. The story is written in third person but focuses on the experiences of the young girl. In writing the story I was largely inspired by the novel The Outsider by Albert Camus and the way that novel converges the sensations of the setting and the emotions of the main character. This is something that played a big role in how I set the tone of my piece.

Why did you choose to write it?

‘Alone on Shore’ was a story that had been bouncing in my head for a long time and I remember writing and stopping this story a lot of times before I finished it . The experience of being an immigrant family in the Northern Territory stems from my own experience of living there when I was a kid. From there the story evolved into something of its own. And upon writing the story I became more and more fascinated by the characters and the language and the subtext I was creating. The setting of the story and most of the representations were very familiar, making it easier and more fun to write, like unlocking a box of sensations and experiences and rediscovering them. All these reasons made me choose to write this piece.

 

Genevieve Peters | VIC | The Police, a Yacht, Uncle Speedy and Me

 

Why do you write fiction?

I’m sure most writers would say that they create fiction as a means to escape from reality. Being the young middle child in a large family meant that I had a lot of time to myself, and writing was a way of creating a world in which I was the centre. As I’ve grown, though, I’d like to hope that I left the majority of that egotistical motivation behind. Today I write what I see instead of what I imagine. Maybe I’ve accepted and embraced being a wallflower to the point where I enjoy watching human nature and channelling it into some sort of art with a message (or trying to!). The truth is, writing brings me joy, and while the reasons I write may change, they certainly won’t stop me from doing it.

Who are your favourite writers? Or your favourite books?

Margaret Atwood and Tim Winton are among my favourite authors. I think Atwood is a master of creating a narrative and a character, like in Cat’s Eye. I love Tim Winton’s ability to write simply and concisely and yet so full of meaning. My favourite works of his would be Breath and Scission, a collection of short stories. My favourite of those stories is without a doubt Neighbours.

Can you tell us a bit about your shortlisted John Marsden Prize submission?

I think that things can be taken very seriously in this day and age, and coming from a goat’s perspective makes them seem just that little bit less important. Yes, I did deal with some serious themes in The Police, a Yacht, Uncle Speedy and Me, but I tried to infuse it with a sense of absurdity that makes it all seem a little bit less serious. The goat’s point of view provides an objective outlook on human nature that I think exposes its futility as well as its beauty. It allowed for an objective analysis of both typically “bad” people as well as the “good”. Struggling with her morals, Debbie is forced to struggle against the typically Australian push for mediocrity that Uncle Ralph represents. This story deals with the struggle of wanting to be something more. And in the midst of it all are the younger people, who are dealing with their respective role models and deciding who in their life they want to emulate, are really bearing the brunt of the entire conflict.

Why did you choose to write it?

My Uncle Michael inspired my story. He moved in with my family last year and since then has been a constant source of laughter. The cultural references and sayings are all from him. My mother and her brother’s upbringing in Canberra laid the foundations for a lot of my themes and ideas and hearing them talk about it was something that I wanted to write down and turn into something meaningful. I wanted to convey the message that yes, things can be hard, but ultimately your morals are completely up to you. There is a serious choice that I think everyone must consider at some point in their life: whether to accept and embrace mediocrity, be the underdog, the under-performer, or whether to open your eyes to all the beauty and possibilities in the world, and actually flourish like the tall poppy you can be.