To begin with, though you mightn’t guess it from this website, I’m pretty reticent to talk about myself. All things considered, I live a quiet and unassuming life, with a lot of time spent thinking about literature and aspects of literary art. But if you’ve found your way here, that’s probably because you’ve come across one of my literary activities and you’re curious about the person behind the page — so, okay, I’ll share.
I’m the author of four novels to date, with a fifth currently on submission. My début, Blood and Bone, won the Viva La Novella Prize in 2014, and my most recent, At the Edge of the Solid World, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2021. Two slimmer novels, Unspeakable and In Ruins, round out the quartet. All four will appear in new editions in 2026.
I’m also an essayist and literary critic, with a particular interest in contemporary fiction. My work has appeared in The Guardian, Meanjin, Areo, Necessary Fiction, the Glasgow Review of Books, and many other venues. It has also been shortlisted for the Observer Prize for Arts Journalism and a Sydney Review of Books Emerging Critics’ Fellowship.
All of my essays and other occasional pieces are available at Substack. Since I’ve been writing in these modes for almost twenty years, there’s a lot of material over there. Altogether, it allows for a tracking of my intellectual and creative development, which readers have variously described as “generous,” “forbidding,” “pretentious,” “difficult,” “emotionally intelligent,” “insightful,” “shamelessly elitist” and “evidence of amazing taste.” I’ll plead guilty as charged on all counts. Why not dig into my longform archives to see which judgments ring true to you?
In addition to working on my own writing, I edit and publish the work of others. I’m the founder and Commissioning Editor of Splice — a small press with a focus on adventurous, unconventional fiction and literary essays — and I’m currently the Fiction Editor at 3:AM Magazine.
I came to devote my time to literature via academia in the first instance. I received my PhD in Literary Studies from the University of Melbourne. My thesis, which was later published as a monograph, focused on the role of frontier justice in the novels of James Fenimore Cooper and Cormac McCarthy. While completing my studies, I also edited a collection of scholarly articles on the American novelist Edward P. Jones as well as the journal Antithesis. I taught literature and history for several years, too, though I’m no longer an academic with an institutional affiliation.
I live in the Tweed Valley, at the edge of the Moorfoot Hills, just outside Edinburgh. But I was born in Australia and grew up on the east coast of New South Wales before moving abroad in my early twenties. From time to time, I’ve also made my home in Sydney and London, as well as Boston, Massachusetts, and the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland.
I’m a hillwalker and long-distance hiker with a growing interest in bushcraft. I also love to draw (though I wish I had more time for it) and, in a strictly non-divinatory sense, I’m adept at reading the Tarot. Yes, I’ll happily arrange a reading for you if you’d like one; just put in a request using the form on the front page and I’ll reach out.