last updated June 2009

Nine Parts Water

Nine Parts Water is my first novel. It was a runner-up in the ABC Fiction Award in 2006. It is published by University of QLD Press and was third bestseller at the Byron Bay Writers Festival (PICS).

You can buy it at your local bookshop - if they don't have it - ask them to order it - the distributor is Penguin. Or you can buy it online at (among other places):

Gleebooks
or
Booktopia
or
Dymocks

CLICK HERE FOR MEDIA ABOUT THE BOOK

This is what it looks like:

No, you're not going blind, it's too small to read the back cover properly. Sorry. Here's a readable version:

Back Cover Blurb

In a world where children are taken from their parents, and people are separated from their homeland, to survive is a miracle; to belong is a luxury.

In the Eighties, Cal Brodie was the next-big-thing in women’s surfing. Now she just wants to be left alone.  

When she returns to her childhood home in Tungalla Bay to put her past to rest, Cal finds the events surrounding her mother’s death twenty years ago still reverberating through the town, and is confronted with some difficult truths. 

Meanwhile, Hassan, a young man from Afghanistan, is on the run from immigration. He also finds himself in Tungalla Bay, where his life intersects with Cal, and the beautiful but troubled Nina — Cal’s surfing protegee. Nina wants to surf. Hassan wants to play soccer. They are both searching for a place to call home. But life is rarely so simple, and Tungalla Bay is not the idyllic sanctuary everyone hopes it will be. 

This is a story about growing up in a small town that is getting bigger; and a large world that is getting smaller. 

Nine Parts Water is a timely and uncompromising examination of what it means to be Australian and who has the right to call it home.

Please email me if  you're interested in having me visit your school, bookclub, library or bookshop to talk about Nine Parts Water, or to give writing workshops and courses.

CLICK HERE FOR pics OF THE BYRON BAY WRITERS FESTIVAL