How to make a bird

WINNER: 2002 QLD Premier’s Literary Awards.

I’m not a bad person. I’ve simply come out of left field. I’m a stray and, anyway, whatever I am, I’m not it yet. I’m still becoming. In fact, I’d always believed that I was once a horse, because I loved to run down a hill. And Eddie was a fish. He was a swaggerer, if you know what I mean. Flimsy but loveable.

Mannie is searching for the thing she doesn’t yet know, but it’s like a runaway kite pulling her heart forward. So she’s leaving home. She’s heading for the city with nothing but a long red dress, a strong hunch, and an unknown address in her pocket. As the day turns to night, Mannie makes a lot of discoveries and not exactly the ones she planned to make.

With rare sensitivity, wisdom and humour, and a voice that’s entirely her own, Martine Murray tells a bittersweet story about longing and losing and finding again.