A Flash in the Dust by Meg Caddy
A Flash in the Dust by Meg Caddy
About Meg Caddy
Meg Caddy is a West Australian YA novelist with three published novels. Their first three novels, Waer, Devil's Ballast and Slipping the Noose, have been short- and longlisted for awards including the CBCA Book of the Year Award, the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Meg is nonbinary and asexual. They have completed an Honours degree in English/History, writing on the Golden Age of Piracy, and a PhD in Creative Writing. When they're not writing, elbows-deep in archives or chasing around their toddler, Meg plays an unhealthy amount of Dungeons & Dragons.
Contact details and socials:
Meg Caddy
About A Flash in the Dust
1899, Fremantle Asylum, Western Australia. For three years now, Gilberta Brady has kept quiet and stayed out of trouble, hoping to soon be released. But when Norah Devaney screams into the ward with revenge in her heart and a story no-one believes, Brady’s carefully guarded peace is shattered.
On the run and out of options, they collide with Malkar and Kedalak, Nyungar brothers on their own journey home. They form an unlikely gang of bushrangers and embark on a dangerous mission: track down the man who killed Norah’s mum.
But the Whistling Man is hunting them too.
Judges’ Comments:
This bold, compelling adventure is historical YA fiction at its best. It’s 1899 – a time when bushrangers patrol the roads, and girls who don’t behave find themselves institutionalised. After escaping from Fremantle asylum, Gilberta Brady – Gil – and Norah, find themselves on the run and in search of the man who killed Norah’s mum. Gil and Norah are unlikely companions, bound together first by their circumstances and then by something deeper – kinship. Rather than repeating familiar tropes of heroes and villains, Caddy looks to the outcasts of history, the teens whose lives haven’t featured in traditional narratives. Grounded confidently in its research, A Flash in the Dust brings queer adolescents back in from the fringes of history, and is a powerful reminder to contemporary readers that everyone’s lives deserve a place on the page.
Author Quote:
‘I am overwhelmed and overjoyed that Flash has been shortlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Historical fiction allows us to reckon with the past and imagine brighter, kinder futures; I am very grateful to the ARA and the HNSA for their generous support of these stories.’