YA Debut Insights: An Interview with Torres Strait Islander Author Jasmin McGaughey

Our team had a lovely time speaking with Jasmin McGaughey about her previously published books and her upcoming debut young adult novel, Moonlight and Dust, which will be published on the 30th of June by Allen & Unwin and is now available for pre-order.

Jasmin is a Torres Strait Islander and African American author and editor. She has completed a Master of Writing Editing and Publishing at the University of Queensland and a Master of Philosophy (in creative writing). She has spent time as a black&write! editor intern and was a winner of a 2019 Next Chapter Fellowship with the Wheeler Centre and 2022 Nakata Brophy Prize. She has written for Overland, Kill Your Darlings, SBS Voices, Griffith Review and has had work highly commended for the 2020 ABR Elizabeth Short Story Competition. Jasmin’s passions have always been writing and reading and she is the proud author of Ash Barty’s Little Ash Series

Pacific Islanders in Publishing: We’re excited to have you, Jasmin! Congratulations on your YA debut, Moonlight and Dust, coming out this July with Allen & Unwin! We can’t wait to learn more about this book, but first, can you tell us a bit about yourself? 

Jasmin: Of course! My name is Jasmin and I’m a Kulkalaigdescendant from the Kulkalgal Nation in the Torres Strait Islands and I’m also African American. I grew up in Cairns and went to university in Brisbane (to do psychology and justice weirdly enough) and at the moment I live in Darwin. Reading and writing are my most favourite things and bring me so much joy!  

PIIP: You co-authored the middle grade Little Ash series. Can you tell us about your experience collaborating with another author, and how did it differ from writing your solo novel? 

J: Writing a novel is so lonely sometimes! Working in a more collaborative way can be challenging (particularly managing the anxiety of hoping your team love what you’re doing) but it’s also comforting. Co-working with others on books is a lovely experience because I don’t bear the full weight of the responsibility and also, I get to share in the excitement of a book worked on by many. 

PIIP: You’re the editor of Words to Sing the World Alive (2024), a collection of Indigenous writing, along with several other anthologies. How has your work as an editor informed or influenced your writing practice? 

J: I love this question! When I was younger, I thought I’d never be an editor because my spelling and my grammar was and still is atrocious. But through the State Library of Queensland’s black&write! editing internship, I learnt that it’s a practice that’s about more than just spelling. Now I find my creativity sparks when I get to edit the work of others. I get satisfaction from helping others find ways to tell their stories. Editing has also helped me understand that writing is never usually a one step process. It can take years or many eyes running over your work to reach a result you’re happy with.

PIIP: Moonlight and Dust marks your debut in YA fiction. What inspired you to write this story? What did you most enjoy about writing it? How has your culture influenced your writing? 

J: I haven’t read much fiction set in Far North Queensland, Australia and I’m not sure I’ve ever read a young adult novel with a Torres Strait Islander protagonist! This is what drove me when working on Moonlight and Dust. 

I tried to be intentional in how I included my culture. I didn’t want to explain things that would be normal for my Island characters just for the sake of readers who aren’t Torres Strait Islander. Though of course I didn’t want to alienate those readers either! Really, I just tried to be aware of when I was writing for Torres Strait Islander readers and when I was writing for non-Indigenous readers – constantly asking myself why I was doing this or that. It was difficult, but I enjoyed the process!

PIIP: Can you tell us more about the publishing journey of Moonlight and Dust, from its inception to its upcoming release?

J: I actually started this novel as a short story for the collection Unlimited Futures: Speculative, Visionary Blak+Black Fiction (edited by Rafeif Ismail and Ellen van Neerven). I wanted to write a story about what an Island girl might do if she were in a story like Twilight or any of those young adult books that I grew up reading (and not seeing myself represented in). Except instead of a vampire, I gave her boyfriend superpowers. The short story ends differently to the novel! But this was the premise that kicked things off for me. 

I also developed a very different version of it as a novella that was part of my master of creative writing thesis. It was about 30,000 words shorter than the novel currently is and had a different ending to the one now published (I don’t know what it is about me, but I hate writing endings). This was actually more difficult than the short story, as I had I struggled with knowing a reader would take the story and make it their own (which they should) but I didn’t want anything I wrote to be considered the “one way Torres Strait Islanders must be” – and that’s an anxiety I have because of the scarcity of our voices in traditional publishing.

PIIP: What advice would you give to aspiring writers from the Pacific region? 

J: I’m not sure how helpful this is, but my advice would be to write what you love and write something you would like to read. It could be fantasy, memoir, poetry, or children’s picture books! I spent so many of my early years worrying that I had to write a certain type of book for the Australian publishing market. And possibly I do have to do that, but I’ve realized now that I’ll be writing and enjoying stories whether I’m published or not. Publishing is not really my end goal (though it would be nice to be able to financially sustain myself with it), instead my goal is storytelling and finding happiness through the act of writing.

PIIP: Thank you, Jasmin, for sharing your publishing journey and for your words of wisdom. We wish you the best!