#sofie laguna

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The Underworld

By Sofie Laguna.

[oubliettemagazine]

The Choke di Sofie Laguna: una storia di violenza sulle donne ambientata in Australia

The Choke di Sofie Laguna: una storia di violenza sulle donne ambientata in Australia

“The Choke” (Allen & Unwin) è uno dei romanzi più belli che mi sia capitato di leggere in questi ultimi anni.

  The Choke di Sofie Laguna

Ambientato nel Victoria, in Australia, il romanzo di Sofie Laguna parla di Justine, una bambina che vive con il nonno.

Il padre di Justine, Raymond, si guadagna da vivere in modo non sempre legale, mentre la madre di Justine, Donna, ha deciso di abbandonare la…

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[solitaryfossil]

Book Review

Sofie Laguna: One Foot Wrong. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Australian Literature, Fiction, Religion. Published 2008

blurb: A brilliant first novel of profound depth, startling originality and breathtaking talent. A child is imprisoned in a house by her reclusive religious parents. Hester has never seen the outside world; her companions are Cat, Spoon, Door, Handle, Broom, and they all speak to her. Her imagination is informed by one book, an Illustrated Children's Bible, and its imagery forms the sole basis for her capacity to make poetic connection. One day Hester takes a brave Alice in Wonderland trip into the forbidden outside (at the behest of Handle `turn me turn me`), and this overwhelming encounter with light and sky and sunshine is a marvel to her. From this moment on, Hester learns the concept of the secret, and not telling, and the world becomes something that fills her with feeling as if she is a vessel, empty and bottomless for need of it.

My review: Well dang, this left me spinning after the last word went into my brain. Magnificent writing, tragic subject matter. (Thanks, Religion, you did it again…) Sofie Laguna wrote with such an innocent and dreamy child’s narration, and I was enthralled from beginning to end. Brava.

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The Eye of the Sheep

Check out my latest book review of "The Eye of the Sheep" by Sofie Laguna

Literary fiction about an ordinary yet dysfunctional family told from the perspective of a differently-abled boy. 

Content warning: disability, chronic illness, domestic violence

Last year I saw Sofie Laguna speak about her new book “The Choke”, and it was one of the most fast-paced and scintillating author talks I’ve ever been to. Although I was really interested in buying a copy of her newer…

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Author and screenwriter Sofie Laguna was guest speaker at the ‘Read Like A Girl’ series. Riverbend Books owner, Suzy Wilson interviewed Sofie gleaning insights into her writing process and her latest book ‘The Choke’. Over half the audience had read her book, and by the end of her author talk, all books had almost sold out. Some 80 people learned of the success of the ‘Read Like A Girl’ program since its inception. From 2017, it had tripled the rate of girls borrowing books. ‘Read Like A Girl’ was a partnership between St Rita’s, Alvernia and Riverbend Books. Sofie ran 3 x 1 hour workshops about character development, plot writing techniques for St Rita’s and St John Fisher students during the series.

Riverbend Books owner Suzy Wilson knows her authors well. She had a personal love for Sofie Laguna’s style of writing. ‘It’s beautiful even and flowing…’ with its single narrative voice and character driven themes. 

Sofie said in whatever genre she has written – picture book, middle grade or adult fiction, she is ‘one and the same’ storyteller. As the ‘one storyteller’, she considers the concerns of the character, playing with language, listening to sound of story flow, and economical dialogue to further the story. No matter what, she still stays true to the story. In moving the story forward, ‘there always has to be consistency. I feel for the music in language, rhythm of the story and structure.’

Sofie hadn’t considered it ‘a leap’ when she kept her own name in writing between genres. From picture books (eg., My Yellow Blanky), to middle grade (eg., Saving Grace – Australian girls series), adult fiction (eg., The Eye of Sheep and The Choke) Sofie never saw it as a leap, rather as a natural progression.

Sofie Laguna’s novel, ‘The Choke’ has sped up the charts after her second novel for adults, ‘The Eye of the Sheep’ – shortlisted for the Stella Prize – won the 2015 Miles Franklin Award. ‘The Eye of the Sheep’ was optioned for film and theatre. Sofie’s first adult novel, ‘One Foot Wrong’ was published throughout Europe, US and UK. It was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Screen rights have been optioned and Sofie has completed the screenplay.

  Sofie Laguna’s numerous books for young people have been published in the US, the UK and in translation throughout Europe and Asia. She has been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Award, and her books have been named Honour Books and Notable Books by the Children’s Book Council of Australia.

  Read Like A Girl – Sofie Laguna Author and screenwriter Sofie Laguna was guest speaker at the 'Read Like A Girl' series. Riverbend Books owner, Suzy Wilson interviewed Sofie gleaning insights into her writing process and her latest book 'The Choke'.

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(via Author Event: Big Holiday Read with Bruno Lettieri and Sofie Laguna)

[my-personal-blogger]

Excited Book Review of The Choke Sofie Laguna’s The Eye of the Sheep won the 2015 Miles Franklin - and is one of my favourite reads of recent years.  

[shutupvan]

Books and scripts and other things

I’ll begin with what I’m writing. 

My screenwriting module requires me to produce an eight minute short script on whatever I like. The broadness of that brief was daunting, and it took me a while to find an ideal that stuck. It came to me when I was thinking about this book I read over Christmas - One Foot Wrong by Sofie Laguna. It’s about a child (presumably with some sort of mental disability) who is imprisoned in her house by two extremely abusive parents. It was an exhausting book to read, and one that emotionally drained me to the point that I now read the first page of every book I buy to make sure the blurb isn’t misleading me.

In saying that, I made myself finish it because it was an important book to finish. I refuse to close my eyes or silence another’s suffering, even where fictional. Despite the fact it scarred me, it also had a profound effect on me. During the short stint where Hester was allowed to go to school, she befriends this rough-as-guts girl named Mary, I think, who had a clef palette and swears like a truck driver. Years later, when Hester befriends a woman with schizophrenia in the mental institution she’s been checked into, she is convinced that this woman is actually Mary pretending to be someone else. I loved that so much.

The reason I got to my script idea was not because of the book. It’s because my tutor is this famous director who made a short called The Ground Beneath. When I went home and stalked him, I tried to find his film online, but I couldn’t get a hold of it anywhere. The most I could find was a teaser and a trailer, so I watched both. I have no idea what the plot is about, honestly, but it’s a gritty, Australian schoolyard bullying sort of vibe, with a caged-in child, and it triggered the memory of Mary and Hester. 

I wanted to play with outcasts and I wanted to appeal to my tutor and I wanted to follow this lead. So, I came up with my own script (first draft written, but needed revision) about a girl named Kellie with a cleft lip, who is hostile to everyone because everyone is so cruel to her. Rene just gave me feedback based on my treatment, so I need to revisit the character of Heather, the best friend she meets at school. 

In terms of what I’m reading, I needed something comforting because my head has been feeling a bit too full lately. I love rereading books. I could reread books until I can predict the moments I will well up and cry, the moments I will have a pang of longing in my chest. As a kid, I used to read a lot of Sarah Dessen’s YA books. I can tell you with confidence that they were infinitely better than John Green’s drivel (no offence, John) and I was particularly fond of Just Listen, which is the one I chose to reread. 

At the back of all my books, I write the date I start and finished reading, plus a little summary of my thoughts. It’s handy, with my poor memory, because it means I know that the first time I read this book, it was January 2009. I was fourteen. I used to sign my name as Nessiii or Ness, not Van, just to give you some perspective. In any case, following this first entry, I also reread it in April of 2009, and June-July of 2009. I read it three times within several months. I remembered I had reread it, but was stunned to find I had read it so many times over such a short period, then hadn’t touched it since.

 Rereading it has been a better experience than I expected it to be. I remember all the motifs perfectly - Whitney’s eating disorder, Annabelle’s modelling, their family portrait, the glass house that everyone can see into - mainly because I read this enough to have it engrained in my memory. But new things stood out to me too - like Kirsten’s decision to study communications and film (what I am literally studying now, I would’ve never guessed at the time), or the quite frankly terrifying scene where Annabelle is sexually assaulted, which never really seemed that scary at fourteen, because it was before I had faced situations that were similar, and before I had been in situations that made me feel just as powerless. 

But what has stood out remarkably is my love for Owen Armstrong. I knew this would be the case, because I loved Owen the first time I read this as a teeny-bopper. But I really loved Owen this time round. In fact, it gives me hope that 14 year old me was a well-rounded enough character to love someone like Owen. His intensity, his honesty, his authenticity. His politeness. I wish I had an Owen Armstrong in my life. God knows, I need a dude like that to ground me.

That’s all. That’s the whole shindig. That’s who I’m reading and what I’m writing.