Craig Silvey - Honeybee

Honeybee is the new novel from Craig Silvey, author of Jasper Jones, widely considered a modern Australian classic. 

Honeybee is a tender, profoundly moving novel brimming with vivid characters & luminous prose. It's about two lives forever changed by a chance encounter.

Craig appears in-conversation with Melanie Kembrey. 

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$4 from every ticket sold will be donated to support an organisation supporting the LGBTQI community.

This event will take place on Zoom. The Zoom meeting details form part of your ticket, emailed to you after registration. 

About the Book

Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette.

The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other.

Honeybee throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show. We meet vivacious, hilarious and generous characters, and we contend with some absolute bastards.

At the heart of Honeybee is Sam: a solitary, resilient young person battling to navigate the world as their true self; ensnared by a loyalty to a troubled mother, scarred by the volatility of a domineering step-father, and confounded by the kindness of new alliances.

Craig says, ‘I put everything I have into writing Honeybee. It tore me up, but it filled me with joy. I’m enormously proud of it.

‘When we submit to a narrator and let them lead us, it’s an exercise in profound empathy. When we live their story on the page, it’s an experience that changes us. A story has the potential to demystify and humanise. Between a constellation of letters and a willing reader, disparate lives intersect and adhere, bound by their commonalities and enriched by their differences. It’s part of the reason why I believe diversity is so vital to our culture.

‘At the thematic heart of Honeybee is the importance of support and understanding. It’s a very sincere, hopeful book.’.

About the Author

Craig Silvey is an author and screenwriter from Fremantle, Western Australia.

His critically acclaimed debut novel, Rhubarb, was published in 2004. His bestselling second novel, Jasper Jones, was released in 2009 and is considered a modern Australian classic. Published in over a dozen territories, Jasper Jones has won plaudits in three continents, including an International Dublin Literary Award shortlisting, a Michael J. Printz Award Honor, and a Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlisting. 

Jasper Jones was the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year for 2010. The stage adaptation of Jasper Jones was produced by no less than five different companies, who all performed separate sell-out productions, the Barking Gecko Theatre Company, Belvoir, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, and the State Theatre Company of South Australia.

Honeybee is his third novel.

About the Moderator

Melanie Kembrey is Deputy Culture Editor at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, where she also writes about books, arts and pop culture.