FAVEL
PARRETT

I didn't really start writing seriously until I was in my early thirties and decided to go to TAFE and study Professional Writing and Editing. Before that I'd done lots of things and had lots of different jobs, but nothing felt like a good fit – or a career.

I loved going to TAFE and learnt so much. I had some fantastic teachers and fellow students, but I never finished my diploma in Professional Writing. Instead, I spent most of the time writing and somehow managed to finish a novel - Past the Shallows. So far it has been published in Australia, the UK, the United States, Germany and Italy. It was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary award 2012 and also won the Dobbie Literary Prize and Newcomer of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.

When the Night Comes is my second novel and is based around the Antarctic Supply ship, Nella Dan. I was awarded the Antarctic Arts Fellowship in 2012, allowing me to travel to Antarctica to complete research for the book. It was a life changing journey for me – an old dream come true. I always wanted to be a sailor on the Southern Ocean.

When the Night Comes came out in September 2014, and has been shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal and Literary Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. It has been published in Australia, the UK, the United States, Germany, Denmark and the Czech Republic.

I sometimes write short stories and I've had a few published in journals and anthologies, including – Meanjin, Island, Best Australian Stories and Griffith Review.

I am often asked to speak at events and really welcome these opportunities to connect with readers. But for now, I'm back in my studio, head down – working on what I hope will turn out to be another novel.

Fingers crossed!
Favel

Available Now

"Blue white ice that floats on a moving sea

It is the opposite of grey

It is the opposite of everything I had known"

Favel Parrett delivers an evocative and exquisitely told story about the moments that change us and the moments that save us.

Running away from the mainland was supposed to make their lives better. But, for Isla and her brother, their mother's sadness and the cold, damp grey of Hobart's stone streets seeps into everything.

Then, one morning, Isla sees a red ship. That colour lights her day. And when a sailor from the ship befriends her mother, he shares his stories with them all – of Antarctica, his home in Denmark and life onboard. Like the snow white petrels that survive in the harshest, coldest place, this lonely girl at the bottom of the world will learn that it is possible to go anywhere, be anything.

But she will also find out that it is just as easy to lose it all.

For Isla, those two long summers will change everything.

Past the Shallows is a hauntingly beautiful story of the bond of brotherhood and the fragility of youth. Told with an elegant simplicity, this is the story of two brothers growing up in a fractured family on the wild Tasmanian coast. The consequences of their parents' choices shape their lives and ultimately bring tragedy to them all.

Harry and Miles live with their father, an abalone fisherman, on the south-east coast of Tasmania. With their mum dead, they are left to look after themselves. When Miles isn't helping out on the boat they explore the coast and Miles and his older brother, Joe, love to surf. Harry is afraid of the water.

Everyday their dad battles the unpredictable ocean to make a living. He is a hard man, a bitter drinker who harbours a devastating secret that is destroying him. Unlike Joe, Harry and Miles are too young to leave home and so are forced to live under the dark cloud of their father's mood, trying to stay as invisible as possible whenever he is home. Harry, the youngest, is the most vulnerable and it seems he bears the brunt of his father's anger.

"If you read only one book this year, make sure it's this".
The Sunday Times

"This book is that rare thing, a finely crafted literary novel that is genuinely moving and full of heart".
The Age