About Trish Bolton

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Trish Bolton is a writer based in Melbourne. Her debut novel Whenever You're Ready is published by Allen & Unwin.

She has a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing from RMIT. Her writing has been published in The Saturday Paper, The Age, Sunday Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times, Overland, New Matilda, The Big Issue and Visible Ink.

Trish has been the recipient of an Australian Society of Authors mentorship, a Varuna Publishing Introduction Pathway Fellowship, a Varuna Residential Writer's Fellowship, joint-winner of a Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Jim Hamilton unpublished manuscript award, runner-up FAW Whitelight Drama Script Award and longlisted for the Virginia Prize for Fiction (UK) and the Mslexia Women's Novel Competition (UK).

She has been a media adviser to the federal leader of a political party, worked in policy and research in women's health, and lectured in Media and Communications at Swinburne University.

Trish lives with her partner on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people.

INTERVIEWS

ABC Saturday Morning Breakfast with Alice Zaslavsky

Not A Rich Kid Podcast with Kath Dolheguy

The WestWords Podcast with Elizabeth Walton: How long does it truly take to learn to write a novel

Wordroom Podcast with Elizabeth Walton: The Novel: Whenever You’re Ready with Trish Bolton

Better Reading: Stories behind the Story Podcast with Cheryl Akle: Ageism, grief and the lives of older women

No worries if not podcast (UK) with Lily O'Farrell: Why are women afraid of looking old

Date with a Debut: Interview with Nick Wasiliev

The Change Podcast: Grieving the different versions of ourselves as we age

OTHER WRITING

Election Night

Jilly would have taken a running leap off the balcony of the 25th floor of Sydney’s best hotel if it hadn’t been blocked with smokers. She sighed. What did it matter when she’d be dead before the clock struck twelve.

It was election night and senior ministers and advisers had gathered to watch the count of votes, never doubting for a minute they’d be back for a third term.

The television was still on but the volume had been lowered, the tone funereal, though not so low mourners couldn’t hear the cheers celebrating the party’s demise. The PM departed.

The sky, purple, and hovering with intent, reflected the mood. A sudden gust of wind sent a banner of the PM in a hard hat, spinning. No matter, it was destined for tomorrow’s recycling.

She lounged in the chair, crossed her legs and considered her future. She’d endured the barbs, the silencing, the denial for months. The wrong tack, she’d told them, take a different approach, she’d said. Get a grip, they said. Yeah, get a fucking grip.

She’d worked and weasled, kissed up and pissed down. Given the best part of fifteen years to keeping them in government. She’d done what she’d had to do: lying, cheating, manipulating, living in purposeful ignorance. When it came to her party, no bar had been too low. With lightning speed she had limbo-ed her way beneath that bar and climbed the ladder, head of comms, strategic director… Hey, she’d made it.

But tonight, and for weeks to come, fingers would point, blame had to be found. One by one the smokers left to join their comrades – they still clung to the language of the left – pour another drink, then another. Voices dropped to a low rumble as they awaited their leader’s appearance on the screen to concede defeat.

Other than catching the first flight home, she had no idea what she’d do. Of course she’d find a job, but politics was all she knew. She’d never been out of work, never not had an income. There hadn’t been a reason to save, rainy days were something her parent’s generation went on about.

A hush: her leader. She wandered into the room, most of the gathered not meeting her eye, she felt their eyes though, sliding over and around and her body. Something she wouldn’t have to put up with anymore.

Her boss adopted just the right tone, disappointed not devastated, contrite but not grovelling, congratulated the new leader, no snark. Because, after all, he respected the wishes of the voters, he lauded the democratic process and the great land on which they lived. How many times had she reminded him…but once again he’d forgotten to mention: unceded, stolen.

Oh well, not her problem now.

The Minister for Immigration consoled himself with yet another glug of whisky sans ice, and a salty handful of peanuts.

The PM’s wife stood beside him, smiling, ruefully, nodding as he outlined the policies of which he was most proud, occasionally looking up in admiration as she and Jilly had rehearsed many times. The world could never have too many good wives.

More thank you’s, a smile, a wave to the faithful and the soon-to-be ex-PM vanished into the history books. And a plum job with…well, name your poison. And your salary. People poured another drink, broke into their cliques and clichés and murmured, the murmuring growing louder by the minute. If she’d listened in, she would have heard her name mentioned more than once. She didn’t have to eavesdrop to know what they were saying.

The talk would quickly turn to whether they’d give their boss another go or dump him – they’d dump him – language politer than that of course because they were civilised about such things. Clearing of throats and eyes distant, they’d secretly weigh up their chances. She’d seen it all before.

There’d be much handshaking and promise-making as they made their way to their tax-funded hotel rooms, perhaps someone to comfort them organised on the way. But for most, they’d be on the phone plotting the demise of old mates and the rise of whoever would keep them in a shadow portfolio, before the Comcar driver dropped them off. Those drivers could write a bloody book.

Maybe she’d write a book – it wouldn’t be a novella. But sentences longer than a soundbite weren’t her thing. She wandered to the bar, the only one taking any notice of her was the bartender.

They’d been exchanging looks all night. He was her sort of guy, slim-hipped, cheeky-eyed, hair in a man-bun that taken down, would give him that hairy hippie 60s look that turned her on. Maybe he even had a stash of dope on him.

‘Hey,’ he said.

‘Gin and tonic,’ she said.

‘Sorry about…’ he glanced towards the tv and shrugged.

‘You voted for him?’

He laughed. ‘Nah, no way.’

She leaned over the bar and whispered. ‘Me neither.’

He laughed again, slid the drink towards her. ‘Secret’s safe with me.’

She swizzled and sipped. ‘When’s knock off.’

He peeled off his apron. ‘Right about now.’

Jilly took another sip, eyes glued to his. ‘Your place or mine?’

‘Your’s, I reckon.’

‘Meet you in the carpark in ten.’