Alice writes: ‘I keep coming back to John Marsden. What makes him so fascinating to me is that as a young adult writer, he comes at it with a whole philosophy of what it means to be a teenager - it is embedded in his two schools, but also his early experiences with mental illness and hospitalisation. It brings interesting questions for an author of YA fiction - how much darkness is allowed, before you are considered a “bad influence”?‘

Offering a personal take, Alice Pung entertains and enlightens. This is a book to cherish about writers and writing.

In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative, crisp and written from a practitioner’s perspective, the series starts a fresh conversation between past and present, and writer and reader. It sheds light on the craft of writing, and introduces some intriguing and talented authors and their work.

Published by Black Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria.