9 Books From Our Fresh Voices: A Debut Author Spotlight

Better Reading’s Fresh Voices: A Debut Author Spotlight is a podcast series celebrating bold new talent in the literary world. Each episode features a debut author, offering listeners a behind-the-scenes look at their book and creative writing journey. From agriculture to poetry, heritage to the afterlife, Cheryl and the team have explored an unforgettable range of themes.

We’ve rounded up all nine featured books. If you’re looking for something fresh and original, these are well worth a read.

Episode #1: A Savage Turn by Luke Patterson

A Savage Turn is a searing debut from a Gamilaroi author. Using his biting wit and refreshing insight into modern and traditional life, Luke Patterson takes readers to forest billabongs, to prisons, and into nightmares of the not so distant past. Along the way, he sends up the Australian dream and subverts expectations to create a seductive poetry collection sampling from a kaleidoscope of critical theory, modernist poetry, postcolonial irony, eco-romanticism and western folklore.

Buy a copy of A Savage Turn here.

Listen to Luke’s podcast here.

Episode #2: First Name Second Name by Steve MinOn

Stephen Bolin leaves a bizarre note by his deathbed, asking his sisters to take his body back to his birthplace in Far North Queensland. When they ignore his request, Stephen’s corpse makes the nocturnal pilgrimage alone. But what is compelling him and what will he find there? His journey, as a kind of jiangshi, takes him back through his turbulent family history: from his Chinese great-grandfather’s life on the goldfields in 1860s Queensland, to his Scottish grandparents’ migration to Australia as ten-pound Poms, and to his own coming of age and coming out in Brisbane and London. Original and satirical, First Name Second Name follows four generations of one family through a reckoning with racial, familial and sexual identity.

Buy a copy of First Name Second Name here.

Listen to Steve’s podcast here.

Episode #3: Hailstones Fell without Rain by Natalia Figueroa Barroso

Graciela is a Uruguayan migrant struggling to raise her three daughters in Western Sydney: her life feels like just one bill after another, and she’s reaching breaking point. Chula, her elderly aunt, is still waiting for justice after living through the civic-military coup of 1973 in Uruguay. And Rita, Graciela’s eldest daughter, wants to escape the constraints of her family but finds herself indelibly tied to the ghosts of her mother’s past. Dazzling, multilayered and often sharply funny, Hailstones Fell without Rain tells the story of these three indomitable women from one working-class family. As the novel moves across time and place, from Western Sydney to Uruguay and back again, we realise that buried secrets and family trauma will always resurface, but it’s also possible for broken connections to mend.

Buy a copy of Hailstones Fell without Rain here.

Listen to Natalia’s podcast here.

Episode #4: The Pearl of Tagai Town by Lenora Thaker

Growing up in the 1930s, Pearl strives for a place in the wider world, battling deep-seated prejudices. When she rescues a white shopkeeper trapped under a fallen beam, a bond forms between the two women, and Pearl becomes the first Ailan woman, Islander woman, to work front-of-shop in the nearby white town. Not everyone is happy, of course, least of all the affronted white customers. But Pearl is quietly determined. Her budding romance with the bank manager’s son, though, must always be kept secret for her to retain her position and for the security of Tagai Town. Like Ama Rose says, ‘We leave them koles, white people, alone and they leave us alone!’ When war arrives and Teddy suddenly enlists in the army, Pearl faces a cruel punishment. But her quest to recover the child she had with Teddy reveals much more than she’d bargained for.

Buy a copy of The Pearl of Tagai Town here.

Listen to Lenora’s podcast here.

Episode #5: Three Dresses by Wanda Gibson

When Wanda Gibson was a little girl, her mum would tell her this as they packed to go on holidays. Wanda grew up on Hope Vale Mission in Far North Queensland, and her family were allowed only one short break away from work each year. At their special spot at the beach, they camped in the sandhills, cooked fresh fish on the fire and swam in the ocean. Beautifully illustrated with Wanda’s paintings, this heart-warming true story celebrates family time, connection to place and finding joy in the simple things, like your favourite three dresses.

Buy a copy of Three Dresses here.

Listen to Wanda’s podcast here.

Episode #6: Australia’s Agricultural Identity – An Aboriginal Yarn by Joshua Gilbert

Yarning across history and into the future, Joshua Gilbert explores a new approach to Indigenous culture and farming, combining ancient knowledge and practices with new technology and insights. Starting from his own Worimi Country, where his family history is captured in the journals of the Australian Agricultural Company – among the earliest written records of agricultural practice on this continent – Josh listens to yarns about the farming that has always been and continues to take place on that Country, which demonstrate that Indigenous culture is not static; it can account for and inform our approaches to land and climate even as they are changing. As he contemplates these stories and histories, Josh seeks to provide a new understanding that Australians, as a nation of farmers and land managers, need to develop our agricultural system into one where Indigenous and Western knowledges converge. One where we acknowledge the realities of Australia’s farming heritage, both positive and negative, and find ways to feed our population while caring for Country and ensuring the livelihood of Australia’s farming towns. He explores what it means to be an Aboriginal person today, what it means to be a farmer and even what it means to say you are Australian. Where these notions overlap, and how we might start to weave a common story that brings together all these ideas. So that we can create a truly Australian agricultural yarn – one that we all build together.

Buy a copy of Australia’s Agricultural Identity – An Aboriginal Yarn here.

Listen to Joshua’s podcast here.

Episode #7: Desert Tracks by Marly Wells & Linda Wells

Have you ever gotten lost in a book? Entranced into the world of a mysterious old story, Millie, a Warlpiri teenager, is sucked up by a willy willy and transported to Alice Springs in 1924. Here she meets a crew of oddly familiar young people, Sonny, Beryl and Spike. As the group continue to find each other in time, they realise the Alice Springs of the past and the future are not as different as they seem. Desert Tracks is a time travelling novel about young people in central Australia, the historical legacy of racist policies and the relationship between history and the present.

Buy a copy of Desert Tracks here.

Listen to Marly’s podcast here.

Episode #8: Yanga Mother by Cheryl Leavy, illustrated by Christopher Bassi

Wandaguli Yanga. There is always Mother. From award-winning writer Cheryl Leavy comes this beautiful picture book in Kooma and English about a grey kangaroo and her joey, and the unbreakable bonds of family. With artwork from renowned Meriam and Yupungathi artist Christopher Bassi, this gentle yet powerful story honours the Stolen Generations, First Nations matriarchs, and never-ending motherly love.

Buy a copy of Yanga Mother here.

Listen to Cheryl’s podcast here.

Episode #9: Snake Talk by Megan Kelleher and Tyson Yunkaporta

The Serpent in Aboriginal stories is both creator and destroyer, dwelling between physical and spiritual worlds, between story and history, weaving across earth and sky. The Great Dividing Range is the body of the Serpent, but he does not separate us – he brings us together. What if this ancient Lore can be found everywhere? What if the stories of the Basilisk, Wyvern, Naga, Quetzalcoatl and many other mythic Serpents also contain the knowledge we need in this moment of crisis? In Snake Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher follow these stories around the world from Kathmandu to Aotearoa, from Mesoamerica to China to northern Europe. They ask how we can align our human gifts with the patterns of creation, seeking answers from makers who pay homage to the Serpent in images and objects. This exhilarating new book – like Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story – shines an Indigenous light on contemporary society. Snake Talk invites us to see the world through the eye of the Serpent.