2. What is your nickname?
Malarkey, which is a play on my surname but also fairly fitting. I talk a lot of nonsense.
Malarkey, which is a play on my surname but also fairly fitting. I talk a lot of nonsense.
3. What is your greatest fear?
The dark, especially when there are strange noises in the dark and I’m all alone. Luckily I have a very tiny dog to keep me safe.
4. Describe your writing style in 10 words.
Unapologetically queer stories that inspire young people to be themselves.
5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Unique, weird, determined, excited, hardworking.
6. What book character would you be, and why?
Simon ‘Specky’ Magee. Specky Magee was the first book I was truly obsessed with as a kid, and it definitely awakened some confusing gender things for me. I remember wishing to be him so badly when I was about 10.
7. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why?
I’m currently writing a historical fiction novel set in the 1940s, so it would be cool to travel back and witness the events first hand.
8. What would your 10-year-old self say to you now?
My 10-year-old Specky Magee obsessed self would be overjoyed to learn that we got to grow up to be a beautiful non-binary boy.
9. Who is your greatest influence?
All the trans and gender-diverse kids who are trying to figure themselves out. I do all this for them.
10. What/who made you start writing?
I’m not sure how I started, but I was writing in primary school. I have a notebook still full of my old stories from then. I didn’t take it seriously until I was 20 and my boss caught me wasting time writing stories instead of working (we worked at a travel agency and I was writing travel stories, but still) and she encouraged me to quit my job and go back to uni to study creative writing.
11. What is your favourite word and why?
Dad. Being a writer is awesome, but I’m most proud of being a dad.
12. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Ursula K Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet, which is the first four books in the Earthsea series, conveniently printed in one volume.
Seth Malacari (he/they) is an award-winning writer and member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Their work has appeared in Underdog: LoveOzYA Short Stories (2019). He is the founder of Get YA Words Out, has a Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) from Deakin University specialising in Queer YA and was the former chair of LoveOzYA. For more information, see https://fremantlepress.com.au/contributor/seth-malacari/.