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Dominic Amerena - I Want Everything

In-conversation with Mark Smith

This astonishing debut, full of delicious twists and wicked insights, is a dazzling novel of desire and deception, authorship and authenticity, and the costs of creative ambition.

It starts with a lie. One small lie to get everything he wants. But one lie leads to another, and another. Caught in his own web of deception, how can he recognise the truth? And what is it going to cost him?

The legendary career of reclusive cult author Brenda Shales remains one of Australia’s last unsolved literary mysteries. Her books took the world by storm before she disappeared from the public eye after a mysterious plagiarism case. But when an ambitious young writer stumbles across Brenda at a Melbourne pool, he realises the scoop of a lifetime is floating in front of him: the truth behind why she vanished without a trace. The
only problem? He must pretend to be someone he’s not to trick the story out of her.

One innocent lie leads to a slew that are definitively not, as Brenda reveals the strange and troubling truth of where her books came from. Yet the more the author unravels about Brenda’s past, the more he begins to question whether Brenda is a reliable narrator. Is she spilling secrets or spinning tales? Is she, like him, little more than a talented thief? To write the book that will make his name, he must balance his ethics and ambition and decide what he’s willing to sacrifice to become the next great Australian writer.

Dominic will be in conversation with local author, Mark Smith.

About the Author

Dominic Amerena is an Australian writer whose work has been widely published and anthologised. He has won numerous prizes, scholarships, fellowships, and grants, including the Vil La Joana Residency, the Hawthornden Fellowship, the inaugural Speculate Prize, an Australia Council New Work Grant and the Alan Marshall Short Story Award. He has a PhD from the University of RMIT and he lives between Melbourne and Athens, Greece. I Want Everything is his debut novel.

This is a free event but bookings are required.

Book sales and author signings will be offered at this event.

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