What They're reading Now with Emily O'Grady

Emily O'Grady was born in 1991 in Brisbane. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in, or are forthcoming in Review of Australian Fiction, Westerly, Australian Poetry Journal, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue Fiction Edition and Award Winning Australian Writing. In 2012 she won the QUT Undergraduate Writing Prize, and in 2013 she won the QUT Postgraduate Writing Prize. In 2017 she placed second in the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction, was shortlisted for the Queensland Premiers Young Publishers and Writers Award, and was longlisted for the Elizabeth Jolley Prize for Fiction.

Emily will be appearing at this years Brisbane Writers Festival discussing her latest book The Yellow House. Ahead of the festival we asked Emily what books were on her bedside table and who she was looking forward to at BWF. 

1.       What’s currently in your ‘to read’ pile?

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday; The Book of Dirt by Bram Presser; The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna.

2.       What are you reading now?

From the Wreck by Jane Rawson. It’s so peculiar and hypnotic. I don’t usually read much in the realm of science fiction, but I think it might be turning me.

3.       Do you have a book that you always find yourself coming back to?

If I’m even feeling a bit stuck with whatever I’m writing, I’ll open a page of Carry Me Down or This is How by MJ Hyland. Her novels are disturbing and so tightly written. Hyland is a master of tension and a beautiful writer, and writes about horrible people with such empathy.

4.       Do you think your reading influences your writing?

I suppose I try and influence (or inspire) my writing through what I read. When I’m writing a story, atmosphere is always at the fore, and usually what comes to me first, so I find myself drawn to novels that perhaps have a similar tone to what I see manifesting in that particular project. When I was in the thick of writing The Yellow House I was reading a lot of claustrophobic and unsettling Australian novels—Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook, All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld, The Well by Elizabeth Jolley. All very different to The Yellow House, but definitely influential in terms of the mood of the book.

5.       Are there any events you’re looking forward to seeing at the festival?

I’m very much looking forward to seeing Sofie Laguna, a writer I love, in conversation about The Choke. I’m also excited for Whitely on Trial. I haven’t read Gabriella Coslovich’s book yet, but am fascinated by art forgery and the Brett Whitely fraud case in particular.