6pm for 6.30pm Tuesday 2 June
Mary Colussi in conversation with James McKenzie Watson
Charlie deletes other people’s worst moments for a living; ironic, considering she’s been trying to forget her own for years.
When her consciousness starts spontaneously ejecting from her body, Charlie becomes the first known case of a bizarre new phenomenon – and the unwilling centre of a global crisis.
And an immortal sheep might be the key to everything.
As disembodiment spreads, corporations celebrate it, governments fear it, and Charlie can’t decide whether she’s losing herself or finally escaping. But the memories she worked so hard to delete won’t stay gone, and the only way to survive a world splitting at the seams may be to reclaim the self she tried to erase.
Astute and inventive, Touch Grass explores identity, consent and the hilariously messy business of being a friend, sister and person – especially when someone keeps editing the footnotes.
Mary Colussi is an Australian American writer currently based in Sydney. She’s a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
Winner of the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize, James McKenzie Watson writes short and novel-length fiction with a focus on health and rural Australia. Denizen was informed by his upbringing in regional NSW. James co-hosts the health and writing podcast James and Ashley Stay at Home and works as a nurse.
‘Charmingly wry and original.’ Georgia Harper
‘Sharp and inventive.’ Books + Publishing
Charlie deletes other people’s worst moments for a living; ironic, considering she’s been trying to forget her own for years.