Just in time for the next chapter of Queensland rugby league triumph, Marooned is officially hitting Australia’s shelves May 20, 2026.
But you can get ahead of the queue with a pre-order now via the publisher, Hawkeye Books.
For folks outside of Australia, price and shipping are quite reasonable through Hawkeye. However, if you prefer a cheaper option, stay tuned for details on overseas purchase and upcoming e-editions.
Thank you for supporting Marooned and I look forward to connecting with you in-person during this wonderful journey!
Like a Johnathan Thurston ‘show and go’, the cover for Maroonedis a thing of beauty.
I love its simplicity and clarity. As a friend of mine remarked, you don’t need to wonder what’s going on — it tells you pretty clearly what the story is about. Many thanks to Skye Martin and the Hawkeye team for their fine creative work.
Here’s one of my favourite essays from the upcoming Maroonedmemoir, set for release with Hawkeye Books, May 20, 2026.
Enjoy!
May 23, 1994
Origin Game #1, SFS, Sydney
Score: Qld 16 – NSW 12
Heaven Sent
Dear Reader, if you’ve managed to reach this point in the book without tossing it aside, and you’re Maroon to the core, and you’ve been keeping tabs on my timeline, and you perused the title of this instalment with a knowing grin, you’ll be keenly aware that it’s time to unpack a miracle:
How my beautiful wife came into my life.
(Okay, you were expecting THE miracle, THE try, immortalised by Ray Warren’s call and a must in every Origin highlight package that ever was and ever will be? Don’t worry – I’ll get to it in due course.)
Tao: In Confucianism, the way,or the path to be followed.
For anyone who knows me and has read the teaser for Boy in the Blue Hammock, it will be no surprise to you that my son was the inspiration for the character of Kasper. What might be a surprise is that failed service dog, Tao, is also grounded in real-life. For over a decade, a goofy, gold-coated Labrador was part of our family due to ‘incomplete training’ with the BC Guide Dogs.
Readers familiar with my background know that I have an intellectually disabled, neurodiverse son, and readers familiar with my work know that intellectual disability and neurodiversity feature in the novels Kindling, Are You Seeing Me? and Munro vs. the Coyote / Exchange of Heart.
Inevitably, the question has arisen:
“Is that your boy on the page?”
The long answer is I used aspects of his manner, language, attitude and interests as a jumping-off point to create characters that assumed their own living, breathing, authentic fictional lives. The short answer is no.
My new novel Boy in the Blue Hammock will be out next spring and, surprise surprise, it centres an intellectually disabled, neurodiverse protagonist. And already I can hear the question again, distant but persistent, making its way towards me like I’m a destination on Google Maps:
Any author who’s ever had work rejected is familiar with these statements. Over 20 years and eight novels, I’ve had my fair share of ‘fitness’ fails and I’ve come to understand it’s sometimes literal, more often publisher shorthand for ‘We don’t think it will sell’ or ‘We don’t love it’ or ‘We don’t love it enough’. Typically, I would shake it off and saddle up for the next response, hope springing eternal from decisions not yet made.
The eighteen months of contractual futility that haunted my upcoming 2022 novel, Boy in the Blue Hammock, though? It was different. The parade of passes based on fit seemed to be communicating a new shorthand, not so much a situation of square peg / round hole.
An imaginary jacket worn by failed guide dog protagonist, Tao, plays a key role in Boyin the Blue Hammock. It gives him courage and strength in moments when he might falter. It brings with it the voice of Trainer. It permits him to do things beyond the limits of his lesser self.
He is proud of the jacket.
As I am of this one:
Many thanks to the Nightwood Editions team and their designers for this beautiful cover. And to my CAN/US agents, Olga Filina and Ali McDonald for their expert input during the process.
Boy in the Blue Hammock will be published April 30, 2022.
In a time of isolation and scarcity, a regressive regime rules with absolute power, turning neighbour against neighbour, and crushing dissidence with deadly force. A microcosm of this monstrous time: the tiny Pacific Northwest town of Gilder.
In a house on the fringes of the decimated hamlet, Tao – a failed service dog turned pet – wakes to find his leash tied to the stair, his hind leg broken and his family killed. With the world he knows shattered, there is one course of action: lay with his slain masters and wait for the enemy – the “hounds” – to return and end his life.
But it is not the hounds that find him – it is Kasper, fifteen years old, disabled, limited ability to speak, sole survivor of the family. With the discovery of Boy, Tao understands he now has a duty: guide the last living member of his pack through the ravaged streets of Gilder to safety. The destination? The only refuge he can conceive of in a world gone mad?
The site of his training five years before.
Boy in the Blue Hammock is an epic tale of loss and loyalty, of dissent and destruction, of assumption and ableism. With a powerful narrative and evocative prose, the novel poses one of the important questions of our time: when evil silences the people, who will protect those without a voice?
It doesn’t seem right, but it’s the fifth anniversary of Are You Seeing Me? coming into the world.
The little novel about Justine and Perry’s last glorious vacation together was released August 2014 and things would never quite be the same for its grateful author.
Perhaps most impressively, it has managed to stick around, still getting read here, still being discussed there.
To celebrate AYSM’s continuing journey, I thought I’d share a little bit of the behind-the-scenes that shaped the novel we know today. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about AYSM.
Behold the cover for Infinite Blue, a contemporary fable penned by Simon Groth and his dodgy older brother. It’s hitting North American shelves September 11, 2018.
All credit for this beauty goes to the brilliant pair responsible: artist Iveta Karpathyova and Orca Books designer Teresa Bubela. If you’d like a peek inside the creative process, Iveta has posted a couple of cool videos here and here.
Myperbole 