Gary Lonesborough's Blog

It’s been a while since my last blog – one year and one day, actually!

I was thrilled to travel to Canberra in August to attend the CBCA Awards 2025, where I’M NOT REALLY HERE won the Book of the Year Award for Older Readers. A highlight for me from the event was when students and young people who represented the youth shadow-judging each provided reviews of the shortlisted books. It was a real thrill to try and not be emotional while a young reader spoke about my book at the podium. I want to e...

   

It blows my mind that my third novel, I’M NOT REALLY HERE, is published today. The...

‘We Didn’t Think It Through’ won the Marion Writers ACT literary award for fiction for older readers!

I’m truly humbled whenever someone gives me praise or any kind of posi...

   

I’M NOT REALLY HERE is my third young adult novel. I’m thrilled to reveal it’s cov...

I wrote this short story from a short screenplay I wrote while studying at film school - probably in my second year when I was 20. It’s a horror story! Enjoy. ...

WE DIDN’T THINK IT THROUGH has been shortlisted for 2 awards at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2024!!! The Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature & The Indigenous Writers’ Prize!

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Having a book published was a dream I’d had since I was a kid. For years, I tried to write a novel. I’d stopped and started countless first drafts for various stories - contemporary, fantasy, horror, dystopian fiction. I’d once written 50000 words of a dystopian fiction novel called ‘The Cage’. It was after I’d reached the 50k word mark I realised I was writing a story that was too big for me to tell right now, and worse, I was beginning to think I’d written the story from the wrong character’s ...

I was super lucky to be invited to Berlin for a week to attend the ilb (international literature festival of Berlin) in September 2023. I ...

   

I started writing this story in late 2019, a few weeks after receiving my publishing deal for The Boy from the Mish. For months, I had this character in my head who was a combinat...

2022 was a bit of a weird year for me. Promotion and events for THE BOY FROM THE MISH/READY WHEN YOU ARE didn’t really slow down. I found myself speaking about my book in places like Byron Bay, Albury, Melbourne and Moranbah. I’ve been thinking about my writing goals for the year and before I can set them, I’ve spent some time reflecting on my goals for 2022.

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