Oliver Mol & Ryan O'Connor in conversation | 2nd of August @ 7pm
Oliver was a successful, clever, healthy twenty-five-year old. Then one day the migraine started. For ten months, the pain was constant, exacerbated by writing, reading, using computers, looking at phones or anything with a screen. Slowly, Oliver began to disappear.
One evening, Oliver googled the only thing he could think of: 'full-time job, no experience, Sydney'. An ad for a train guard appeared. For two years Oliver watched others live their lives, observing the intimacy of strangers brought together briefly and connected by the steady march of time.
Exquisitely written and bravely told, Train Lord is a searingly personal yet hugely relatable book, which asks what happens when your sense of self is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back.
Oliver Mol is the author of the critically acclaimed Lion Attack!. He was the inaugural winner of the Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers as well as the recipient of an Australian Council Grant. In 2020, the stage show of Train Lord proved a runaway success during the Sydney Fringe Season. Oliver grew up dividing his time between Texas and Brisbane and now lives in Sydney.
He'll be joined in conversation with Ryan O'Connor. Ryan received the Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Award in 2018; later the same year he was Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize short story category. His debut novel, The Voids, was published by Scribe in 2022. Shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Awards, it has received widespread critical acclaim. In the Guardian, Benjamin Myers called it 'Luminous,' in the Scotsman Sturt Kelly declared it 'Remarkable … the most intriguing Scottish debut for a decade. While Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile said, 'I want to say this is a book God would like.' He currently lives in Glasgow with his partner and two young sons.
As always tickets are free but must be booked in advance and you can pre-order your copy in advance.