A spotlight on The Boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough
The Boy from the Mish is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Young Adult Book Prize. The Boy from the Mish follows seventeen-year-old Jackson as he falls in love for the first time and searches for self-acceptance. Our judges described it as ‘a masterclass in coming-of-age storytelling.’
We asked author Gary Lonesborough about getting published, his love of coming-of-age stories, and the novel’s genesis as a film script.
How did you go about getting published?
Firstly, I finished my manuscript, then I did a lot of research around publishers and agents. I decided I wanted to submit directly to a publisher and made a list of the publishers in Australia who accepted unsolicited manuscripts. I found Allen & Unwin had the Friday Pitch program and submitted to them, knowing my book would go into a slush pile. Luckily, it stood out!
What do you hope readers will take away from your book?
I hope readers will feel hopeful for Jackson and Tomas. I hope they will feel happy and if they are a reader who might be struggling with their sexual identity, I hope they will feel seen and hopeful for the future.
Is your book a summer read, or a snuggle-up-next-to-a-fire cosy read?
I think my book is a summer read as it takes place in summer, although I think it would also suit a colder, cosy environment as an escape to summer.
Why do you write for teenagers?
I didn’t realise I wanted to write for teens until I began writing my book. I love reading those coming-of-age stories about growth and change, and I also love writing them. It just so happens these kinds of stories are usually targeted at teens.
Gary, The Boy from the Mish is such a beautiful story, deceptively simple, but with such emotional depth. How long had this book been ticking around inside your head before you finally sat down to write it?
I had written a short film script in my second year of film school (2015), which was set in a small Aboriginal community and focused on a secret romance between two Aboriginal boys at the end of their relationship. I shelved that manuscript until I read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. That book sparked me to think about books for teens centred around queer Indigenous protagonists.
I reread that script I’d written and I had these great characters there, but I was starting to expand the story in my head. I drew from those characters when I began to write The Boy from the Mish in 2018, with the aim of writing a novel. There is a certain scene which existed in the short script and remnants of it are present in the novel, but that’s my little secret! So I guess I found the tip of the iceberg in 2015 and began to explore the rest of it three years later.
Once I decided I was going to write the novel, I honestly think I sat on the idea for no more than a few weeks before I began writing. I just sat down to write without really thinking about it too deeply because the story was just bursting to get out of me.
