Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the Fremantle Press podcast.
Today we are recording in Wal. You'll up on Whadjuk, Noongar Puja. And I'd like to acknowledge our first storytellers along with Noongar elders past and present. My name is Holden shepherd, former winner of the Hungerford Award for my novel Invisible Boys. I'm here with publisher Kate Sutherland to introduce you to one of the four writers shortlisted for 2026 Hungerford Award. Being on the shortlist and then winning the Hungerford Award was one of the most exciting moments of my career. So it's really awesome to be here to introduce you to some of the new shortlisted authors. Today's guest is Michal Stone, whose manuscript is a verse novel called Torch.
First up, Kate, could you describe why you and the judges chose this manuscript for the shortlist?
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Holden. This verse novel has a beguiling simplicity. Its lines are short and its individual chapters focusing on different scenes and experiences in its characters in a really intense, close up, but domestic kind of way.
As you read, you start to see how sophisticated the structure is in this story, especially as it expands across three decades. So it's actually very big in its scope. It's a story about unrequited and fierce love and about growing up in a world that's far from perfect. We come to see this world really clearly through the eyes of the author's protagonist, Sidney. And through Sydney's eyes, we also get to experience the world of his cousin, Frankie. Such a compelling and ambitious work in what can be a really challenging form.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Kate, for those comments.
Now to introduce today's guest on the podcast. Michal Stone grew up in Perth and spent the summers of her childhood and teenage years in Dunsborough. She is a doctor working in mental health and has been telling stories for as long as she can remember. Her writing explores mental illness, loss, sexuality and the complexities of human connection.
Torch is her first novel and it is a novel in verse. She is currently working on a second novel about girlhood, desire and digital identity, set in Perth and Dunsborough. Michal, welcome to the podcast and congratulations on getting this far.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: How does it feel to be here?
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so exciting and it's really wonderful to meet you. I'm a big fan.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Oh, that's so nice to hear. It's really nice to meet you too and I'm really pumped for you for this book.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: An award like this is a really important milestone. So can you talk to our listeners about what Was it like to discover that you were on the Hungerford Award shortlist?
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So it was surreal. I was in a meeting at work when I missed the call and I checked the transcript of the voicemail and I saw the words Fremantle Press and Hungerford swimming on the screen. And the rest of that meeting was torture.
When I was finally able to return the call and to speak to Claire and Georgia, I was a scrambled mess.
I'm pretty sure I tried to leave them a voicemail before I actually got through to them. And I got my own phone number wrong.
Yeah. When I heard the words congratulations and shortlisted, I was just elated and overjoyed.
And since then I've been pinching myself and rereading the confirmation email and just laughing.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: It's such a nice feeling. I was at work when I got mine as well and I remember rereading over and over thinking, I just want to make sure this is real.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think I checked it once a day just to make sure
[00:03:23] Speaker B: it didn't go anywhere.
It's such a nice story to hear. Now, in terms of your manuscript, can you maybe tell us a bit in your own words? What is the manuscript all about?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Torch is a coming of age story about two boys who grow up in Perth's tight knit Jewish community.
So Sydney grows up in a violent home and he learns at a young age that softness is unsafe. And his cousin Frankie is his refuge because Frankie seems unafraid of anything. Frankie is also Sidney's first love, but this is a love he can't name, so he hides it in roughhousing, in jokes and in silence.
As the boys grow up and Sydney experiences more violence and loss and jealousy, this love sharpens into an all consuming obsession. He sees Frankie as his way out of a life that is dark and painful.
When they're 16, Sidney knows something isn't quite right with Frankie anymore. At first he tries to hide the signs, but eventually it's unmistakable. Frankie has inherited his father's mental illness and Sydney is losing him slowly. The next decade follows Sidney and Frankie through cycles of illness, addiction, hospitalisation and relapse.
And Sidney stays by Frankie's side and he lets his world shrink around him. His entire identity becomes his devotion to Frankie. And then as an adult, Sidney has to confront what it means to love so fiercely that love starts to erase you and harm the person that you love.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: It sounds absolutely fascinating and confronting probably in its own way as well. When you're ready, could you please share a reading from Torch with our listeners?
[00:04:53] Speaker A: This chapter is Called Glory Box, and it comes from part one of the novel, which takes place during the summer of 99 to 2000, when the boys are 12.
I can see your backyard from my bedroom window. The patch of grass with the washing line, clothes left overnight, the wooden deck strewn with wet towels. The pool lit up and a little unearthly.
I sit there some nights, watching your yard, crappy headphones on, listening to my Portishead tape gifted to Stevie by some girl rescued by me.
I turn it over when I finish a side or just rewind that one song again and again, wishing I lived there.
And some nights, you late, early, really. You've never been good at sleeping.
You come out in your jocks, dark hair wild, like you've been tossing, turning, Discman on, lips moving. You look like you're singing, pacing circles round the pool, nearly naked and just fine with it, with your body dancing a little.
Some nights your dog follows you, quiet, looking up at you with something like wonder.
One night you go in, go under, come up and float on your back, your stomach slick.
I think I can see the flicker of you breathing.
You stay like that a while, then go out and lie on one of the deck chairs. No towel dripping warm enough anyway.
Fingers moving like you're conducting an orchestra.
I want to know what you're listening to. I want to know.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: What an absolutely beautiful reading and such a lovely intersection of prose with poetic, you know, touches and language. I also loved the reference to the Portishead song. And I have to admit, at first I was like, oh, it's gotta be Rhodes by Portishead. That song fits the sombre mood of this piece perfectly. And then I remembered the title of this piece is Glory Box. So is it correct that it's meant to be Glory Box? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: And I understand that you'd appreciate that because, you know, your work is full of references to music as well.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: So I think my latest book has a Portishead reference to Rhodes specifically. So. But yeah, really, really evocative music. And it fits so well with this piece. So well done.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Could you talk to us about why you chose to write this as a verse novel and using such a pared back, simple form?
[00:07:28] Speaker A: So I didn't actually set out to write a verse novel. I don't know that I really knew what a verse novel was when I started writing. It sort of just happened. So. Torch is told as a direct address from Sidney to Frankie. It's his Torch song and his confession. It's everything that he's Never said aloud.
So Sydney's voice is the entire novel and I wanted the form to reflect his voice and I wanted the page to behave the way that his mind does.
So the words that he uses, but also his emotional state, his internal rules, his conflicts around his masculinity, his desire, his softness, how he self polices and where he loses control.
So I used fragmentation, line breaks and white space to do this.
So sometimes Sydney hides in the white space in what he won't say or what he can't say, and he's clipped or he's shell shocked or he's simmering and his thoughts fragment and he stops short or he withholds and then other times his longing and his love just like leak all over the page and he becomes breathless and sentimental and lyrical.
Sidney's also a lot more comfortable with his sensory experience and his emotional one, so I used a lot of imagery, especially around the body. There's not actually a lot of dialogue in the novel and Sidney is an unreliable narrator, so he'll often get things wr and then he'll lie about what was said. And then even when he gets it right, everyone else is a liar too. Cass and Jules and Frankie, so it doesn't matter. But the artefacts don't lie. So Sidney won't say that he loves Frankie, but he'll tell you that he listened to Glory Box for hours on repeat.
He can't say that Cass is hurting, but he'll tell you that the chemical burn seen in Fight Club soothes him.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: A really clever choice of form and it works really well to construct Sydney's voice as a narrator. So well done on that.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Let's talk about your day job a little bit. How much influence has that had on what you write about?
[00:09:35] Speaker A: So I work as a doctor in mental health and of course that influences the subjects that I'm interested in. And Torch is partly a novel about mental illness and caregiving, but it's not a clinical novel and it's not told from a clinical perspective. And I also deliberately didn't write from inside Frankie's experience of his illness.
So my work gave me a strong factual understanding about mental illness and the mental health system, both what it can offer people and where it can fall short.
But Sidney and Frankie are fictional characters and I want them to be more than just a. A person with an illness and a carer. I was interested in what happens around an illness. So fear and love and anger, autonomy and dependence, enmeshment and what it means to stay by someone's side for so many years.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: It certainly doesn't feel in any way like a clinical look at mental health. It feels like the blood is pumping through the veins of every page that you've read. So is there anything else you would like to share with listeners today?
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yes. Keep writing and finish what you're working on. I spent nearly a decade thinking about and trying to write this novel and there were so many times when I was sure I would never finish it. I needed time to read and to think and to write. I really believe that establishing and protecting regular writing time helped me to write through my fears and develop my style and my voice.
I wasn't ready a decade ago, but I feel like I wrote myself somewhere more ready and I'm halfway through something new and messy and it's a lot more fun because there's less pressure on it now and I still have bad days. But I know that I'll be doing this for the rest of my life whether or not I have the privilege of readers.
So, yeah, keep, keep writing. You're a writer if you write.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: That is the nicest encouragement. And it's so true that this job takes perseverance. And I liked what you said about, you know, I'll be doing this whether or not I have the audience. I mean, that's what it's about. We do this because it's fun and it feels good. So I'm really happy to hear. The second one is feeling enjoyable as you work on it.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Michael and Kate, for being here today and for sharing more from your manuscript. Torch listeners, you can meet Michael at the 2026 Hungerford announcement on Friday 16th October at Wolup Civic Center, City of Fremantle Town Hall. Tickets are free and available from the Fremantle Press website. I'm Holden Shepherd. Thank you for listening.
Sam.
