Touch Grass #author Mary Colussi

When her consciousness starts spontaneously ejecting from her body, Charlie becomes the first known case of a bizarre new phenomenon – and the unwilling centre of a global crisis.

And an immortal sheep might be the key to everything.

As disembodiment spreads, corporations celebrate it, governments fear it, and Charlie can’t decide whether she’s losing herself or finally escaping. But the memories she worked so hard to delete won’t stay gone, and the only way to survive a world splitting at the seams may be to reclaim the self she tried to erase.

Astute and inventive, Touch Grass explores identity, consent and the hilariously messy business of being a friend, sister and person – especially when someone keeps editing the footnotes..

To connect with Mary ....
https://www.penguin.com.au/books/touch-grass-9781761358548
https://www.instagram.com/mary.colussi/
https://linktr.ee/mary.colussi

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good morning, Mary Kosley. Welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Oh, it's my pleasure. Mary, you are a busy human. You've got a book out. Congratulations. Touchgrass. Tell us all about it. What do we need to know?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

I first of all you're correct. I am a busy human, but I'm very happy to have Touchgrass the loose on the world on June 2nd. And the sort of elevator pitch for Touchgrass is that it is about a woman who wakes up one day and she's no longer in her body, she's a cactus, and whether or not that's an improvement for her and for society at large. So I'd sort of place it in the weird girl fiction space. I've called it a body comedy as opposed to a body horror, because it's definitely more comedy forward. Yeah, that's sort of the super quick pitch, yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

And Mary, do you want to tell us a little bit about um, you know, you writing this is your debut novel. Is that fair to say? Um, tell us about, yeah, tell us about your writing. Tell us a bit about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, absolutely. This is my debut novel. I'm very uh happy and excited to say. And I've been writing forever. It's been, it's always been the thing I wanted to do, always been the thing I wanted to be. And I sort of do it across different media and formats. I'm a screenwriter as well as a novelist. I've written short form satire, I've written sort of pop culture content for digital media companies. I've kind of done it all. I'm I'm a bit of a word slinger. And I, yeah, my work, I like to explore in my work sort of speculative futures, which Touchgrass definitely does, and the impact that the digital world has on our physical reality, and do that with a sense of humor and I hope a sense of humanity as well, and ultimately going back to the relationships, which I think will always be more interesting uh than the technical side of things.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah. And, you know, I think everyone's felt that experience, and I'm talking everyone, has felt way too connected at times.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is the sort of idea of a person who has become separated from their body is really inspired by that sense of like you cannot separate from the digital world. But by being in the digital world, you feel less connected to your daily physical reality. So, yeah, definitely following that sort of through line across over 300 pages is what I was dropping on.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

But the book was good because it kind of when I was reading it, it kind of gave me a nudge to think about, you know, what what my footprints like for me. And then, or obviously gave me permission to think about and and have a bit of a reality check. So it was good. It was a good experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Oh, thank you. I'm really happy to hear that. And yeah, I hope it, I think it is ultimately hopeful. I am um, I'm not, I don't see much of a point in um nihilism. I think the characters are cynical, but they ultimately do want to be living in a better world. So, and that's and that's part of the reason it it is allowed to be as funny as it is, because there is a sense of absurdity and ridiculousness, because I think there's a bit of a human heart at the center of it, or they're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yeah, and there you're right, there's lots of humor. I laughed a lot. Mary, do you want to tell us about um, yeah, you mentioned your writing journey, all the different uh aspects to your writing? What was it um as far as writing a novel? Um yeah, diving into is there more to come? Like, do you want to share anything that we need to know? What was the experience like, I guess, of writing a novel as opposed to writing for uh a publication?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah, I mean so one of the things I love and hate about writing is the fact that it is a very solitary experience until you're towards the end. Like obviously, editors come in and then other members of the publishing team, like the sales folks, publicity folks, they come in and do a wonderful job. But really, it is you on your own wrestling with a word doc or Google Doc, which is what I use. And I wanted to write something that was complete and that was big. And I was like, a novel was big. And I felt that I had enough to say to fill a novel. I kind of tried a couple different ideas before landing on Touchgrass and its concept, and I couldn't really finish anything because nothing sustained my interest long enough. And it's part of the sort of digital impact on my attention span. It's been put in a bit of a blunder. But yeah, I wrote the novel kind of like in under three months, actually, of the first draft. It was a bit of a rush. As soon as I sort of found the rhythm, found the voice, it was just so much fun to write, and I really enjoyed writing it. And then it was lucky enough to, I was lucky enough to win the Penguin Literary Prize in 2025, which is how the book went from being a Google Doc to being like a physical object that's on my desk.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

What a cool story! Congratulations. That's awesome. Oh, thank you. And Mary, I sense that there's gonna be more writing. I think you know, you enjoy this journey, you put it out there, you're gonna be busy. Um, but you know, is that the plan? Is there more writing? Do we have more ideas?

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah, absolutely. Again, like writing is really it's at the center of my life. And I, you know, I wrote this book without anticipating there being an audience for it. Like I wasn't really thinking about selling it later on. So, you know, that go just goes to show how deranged being a writer is. You're like, I'll dedicate hours and hours to this thing that probably no one will ever see. And yeah, absolutely. I'm working on my second book right now. I'm uh I'm thinking a lot about doing research. Probably not gonna be in a speculative fiction space, but maybe, I don't know. We're so early on. Well, we're gonna do that. And then I'm also a screenwriter.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yes, yes. Oh, is there anything you want to tell us about that? Because that sounds interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, so I actually I moved to Sydney to get my MFA in dramatic writing. So do writing for performance um at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. It's also what I studied in undergrad. And you know, the great thing about writing for performance is it is collaborative in a way that fiction writing isn't. So you're working with, depending on the format, you're working with directors, you're working with actors. And I am not a multi-talented person. Like I am only sort of good at writing, and I have kind of nothing, I bring nothing else to the table. So it's nice to be able to draw from other people's talents and kind of work with that. But yeah, I got a couple, got a couple of those projects uh bubbling in the background right now, though. Touchgrass is the focus for now.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Ah, super interesting. Well, Mary, we want we want those curious humans out there to get curious about touchgrass. Thanks for joining us, Mary. If we're watching anywhere in the world and we're curious about you, I know you're on Instagram, but do you want to point us in the direction of where you'd like us to go to check you out or to check out the book?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, absolutely. Uh Instagram's the best place to find me. I'm just Mary.calusi on Instagram. And other than that, I have a website which is marycalusi.com. Basically, if you Google my name, you will find me. I'm not I'm not hiding myself. I'm not hidden anywhere. But Instagram or my website's the best way to uh find me and see what I'm up to.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Awesome. Well, I'll put those links in the show notes. Mary, all the best. Enjoy, enjoy debut novel. Thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Cheers.