Delighted to say that Elegy, Southwest has won the ALS Gold Medal!
Madeleine Watts
@madeleinewatts.bsky.social
Writer. Novels THE INLAND SEA (2021) and ELEGY, SOUTHWEST (Feb 2025). Berlin/NYC. Perpetually Australian.
Berliners! We’re spending a fine June evening talking about Sebald and then listening some great new writing in the spirit of all we’ll have chatted about. Join us? @marcelkrueger.bsky.social @madeleinewatts.bsky.social @return2sanders.bsky.social @ajbwells.bsky.social @juliabosson.bsky.social
In 2025, with her due date approaching, @madeleinewatts.bsky.social sought to prepare for parenting by arming herself with knowledge—all the better to stave off annoying narratives of motherhood floating in the cultural ether.
Mama Tried | Madeleine Watts
Is creating new life in the face of rising authoritarianism, a casually accepted genocide, and climate collapse inherently cruel?
thebaffler.com
Last year, with her due date approaching, @madeleinewatts.bsky.social sought to prepare for parenting by arming herself with knowledge—all the better to stave off annoying narratives of motherhood floating in the cultural ether.
Mama Tried | Madeleine Watts
Is creating new life in the face of rising authoritarianism, a casually accepted genocide, and climate collapse inherently cruel?
thebaffler.com
On Friday 21st November, I'll be at Lettrétage in Berlin with my great pals @vijaykhurana.bsky.social and @madeleinewatts.bsky.social for an event hosted by @berlinwriters.bsky.social. Entry is free, come along if you're in town!
Group Chat - Lettrétage
Reading and discussion Busting the myth that novel-writing is a purely solitary pursuit, three Berlin-based writers who regularly read and critique each other’s work will talk about the intimacy of sh...
lettretage.de
“You were stung then, and you’re stung again now. It got you in its tentacles.” In new fiction from @madeleinewatts.bsky.social, jellyfish summon heat waves and prophecy. pioneerworks.org/broadcast/te...
Tentacle Memory | Broadcast
When heat waves summon jellyfish and prophecy.
pioneerworks.org
A new short story about pregnancy, jellyfish, and heat for Broadcast by Pioneer Works, available now: pioneerworks.org/broadcast/te...
Tentacle Memory | Broadcast
When heat waves summon jellyfish and prophecy.
pioneerworks.org
Caught a 22-hour flight to Perth last week to attend a symposium on Helen Garner. Sometimes, as it turns out, it's very nice to meet your idols! madeleinewatts.substack.com/p/helen-garn...
Helen Garner and the In-between Space
For the last five days, I’ve been in Perth, attending a symposium at the University of Western Australia on the work of Helen Garner.
madeleinewatts.substack.com
"Part of why I loved the diaries is that in the diaries the character of ‘Helen’ emerges in full force, fictional and non-fictional all at once". @madeleinewatts.bsky.social on her encounter with Helen Garner at 22, and ever since... madeleinewatts.substack.com/p/helen-garn...
Helen Garner and the In-between Space
For the last five days, I’ve been in Perth, attending a symposium at the University of Western Australia on the work of Helen Garner.
madeleinewatts.substack.com
A return to Substack because I have new Thoughts on making art and having children. madeleinewatts.substack.com/p/revisiting...
Revisiting Stravinsky's Lunch
Thinking about women artists and having children
madeleinewatts.substack.com
I’m talking to Vijay Khurana about his extremely tense and impressive novel THE PASSENGER SEAT (Peninsula) on Thursday 22 May at @burleyfisher.bsky.social. It’s the London launch. Free tickets! burleyfisherbooks.com/products/lau...
LAUNCH: The Passenger Seat By Vijay Khurana
Thursday 22nd May 6.30 to 9pm Join us to celebrate the launch of The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana, published by Peninsula Press. Vijay will be discussing his new novel with Lucie Elven; author of...
burleyfisherbooks.com
Berlin! I will at Lettretage tomorrow night (May 9), talking with @ajbwells.bsky.social about ELEGY, SOUTHWEST. Drinks + books for sale, admission free.
I reviewed (and loved) Madeleine Watts’ second novel, Elegy, Southwest, which is thoughtful and quietly compelling, and conjures the familiar sense of steadily trundling towards disaster…. In this week’s @thespectator1828.bsky.social www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...
The road trip from hell: Elegy, Southwest, by Madeleine Watts, reviewed
Throughout her quietly compelling second novel, Elegy, Southwest, Madeleine Watts conjures a sense of trundling steadily towards disaster. The narrator, a young Australian woman called Eloise, is reco...
spectator.co.uk
it was genuinely hard to express just how brilliant Madeleine Watts’ second novel Elegy, Southwest is. I reviewed it for @financialtimes.com in the Weekend Mag out tomorrow. www.ft.com/content/8ec8...
Elegy, Southwest — a road trip though America’s apocalyptic landscapes
Madeleine Watts’ shrewdly funny novel anchors the climate crisis in personal grief and prescient parallels with California’s wildfires
ft.com
madeleine watts and i are just two millennial ladies who wrote sad climate road-trip novels so this was an esp. fun interview thecreativeindependent.com/people/write...
Writer Madeleine Watts on balancing growth and guarding against burnout – The Creative Independent
Writer Madeleine Watts discusses taking creative work seriously, describing a world impacted by climate change, and the importance of replenishing the soul with art
thecreativeindependent.com
"Part of falling in love, and the foundation of the relationship, was the fact that we were both writers, and both really liked one another’s writing. That was woven into the fabric of the relationship ..." — @madeleinewatts.bsky.social minorliteratures.com/2025/04/01/b...
“Both our novels interrogate the juxtaposition or paradox of being on the road with somebody”: A Conversation between Vijay Khurana and Madeleine Watts
With The Passenger Seat and Elegy, Southwest coming out within weeks of each other, minor lits decided to capitalize on the coincidence and get novelist couple Vijay Khurana and Madeleine Watts tog…
minorliteratures.com
“Both our novels interrogate the juxtaposition or paradox of being on the road with somebody”: A Conversation between Vijay Khurana (@vijaykhurana.bsky.social) and Madeleine Watts (@madeleinewatts.bsky.social) minorliteratures.com/2025/04/01/b...
“Both our novels interrogate the juxtaposition or paradox of being on the road with somebody”: A Conversation between Vijay Khurana and Madeleine Watts
With The Passenger Seat and Elegy, Southwest coming out within weeks of each other, minor lits decided to capitalize on the coincidence and get novelist couple Vijay Khurana and Madeleine Watts tog…
minorliteratures.com
Melbourne! This Thursday evening I will be launching Elegy, Southwest in Australia at Readings Emporium with Katherine Brabon. It would be lovely to see you there. Registration here: www.readings.com.au/events/book-...
Against a backdrop of climate change, @madeleinewatts.bsky.social’s ‘Elegy, Southwest’ (@pushkinpress.com) is a lament for a world, a relationship, and the American road-trip novel, writes Abi Andrews www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/03/eleg...
Elegy, Southwest, by Miles Franklin shortlisted author Madeleine Watts, weaves together the themes of imminent personal and environmental collapse.
Uncertainties, mysteries, doubts: Madeleine Watts takes an elegiac road trip through the American southwest
theconversation.com
Elegy, Southwest is out in the UK today. If you’re in London next Wednesday, the 19th, I would love to see you at the launch at Daunt Books Hampstead. dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/events/...
Madeleine Watts in conversation with Chloë Ashby
Buy tickets for the event with Madeleine Watts in conversation with Chloë Ashby at Daunt Books Hampstead from Daunt Books today.
dauntbooks.co.uk
"'Elegy, Southwest' (Simon & Schuster) is artful and beautifully written, as are the depictions of Southwestern wastelands and the life that somehow perseveres there." Reviewed by Meredith Boe
A Paradise Built on Quicksand in Madeleine Watts’s "Elegy, Southwest" - Chicago Review of Books
Our review of Madeleine Watts novel Elegy, Southwest.
buff.ly
keep your eyes on minor lits to read Madeleine and Vijay discussing The Passenger Seat and Madeleine's Elegy, Southwest
Madeleine Watts@madeleinewatts.bsky.social · last yr.Vijay’s book is out today in North America! A genius novel by the loveliest of men.
Vijay’s book is out today in North America! A genius novel by the loveliest of men.
Biblioasis@biblioasis.bsky.social · last yr.THE PASSENGER SEAT by Vijay Khurana is out today! A searing examination of male friendship and masculinity in an age of toxic loneliness, the NYT called it "unsettling and powerful" and the Literary Review of Canada said it "will both mesmerize and refuse comforting resolution."
Lovely @readingsbooks.bsky.social notice (by head buyer Alison Huber) for @madeleinewatts.bsky.social's Elegy Southwest: "...sad and funny, grand and intimate, informed and inquisitive, and above all, a beautiful piece of writing." www.readings.com.au/product/9781...
Elegy, Southwest
Elegy, Southwest is a novel which entwines a tragic love story with an intelligent and profound consideration of the way we now live alongside environmental breakdown; an elegy for lost…
readings.com.au
A beautiful read on land art and climate change by @madeleinewatts.bsky.social for @orionmagazine.bsky.social orionmagazine.org/article/when...
When the Water Falls - Orion Magazine
How Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty tells the story of a changing climate
orionmagazine.org
Baltimore! Wednesday evening I will be in conversation with Jeannie Vanasco at Greedy Reads Remington. www.eventbrite.com/e/madeleine-...
Madeleine Watts presents ELEGY, SOUTHWEST
Madeleine Watts joins us in Remington to talk about her new novel ELEGY, SOUTHWEST, in conversation with Jeannie Vanasco!
eventbrite.com