Madeleine Watts

Mama Tried | Madeleine Watts Is creating new life in the face of rising authoritarianism, a casually accepted genocide, and climate collapse inherently cruel?

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?

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.

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...

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!

Tentacle Memory | Broadcast When heat waves summon jellyfish and prophecy.

“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.

A new short story about pregnancy, jellyfish, and heat for Broadcast by Pioneer Works, available now:

pioneerworks.org/broadcast/te...

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.

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.

"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...

Revisiting Stravinsky's Lunch Thinking about women artists and having children

A return to Substack because I have new Thoughts on making art and having children.

madeleinewatts.substack.com/p/revisiting...

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...

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...

Wish I could go to this. A must for anyone in Berlin!

Berlin! I will at Lettretage tomorrow night (May 9), talking with @ajbwells.bsky.social about ELEGY, SOUTHWEST. Drinks + books for sale, admission free.

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...

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-...

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

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...

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

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...

“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…

"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…

“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...

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...

Tomorrow!

Uncertainties, mysteries, doubts: Madeleine Watts takes an elegiac road trip through the American southwest

Elegy, Southwest, by Miles Franklin shortlisted author Madeleine Watts, weaves together the themes of imminent personal and environmental collapse.

This is lovely, thank you very much!

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.

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/...

A Paradise Built on Quicksand in Madeleine Watts’s "Elegy, Southwest" - Chicago Review of Books Our review of Madeleine Watts novel Elegy, Southwest.

"'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

keep your eyes on minor lits to read Madeleine and Vijay discussing The Passenger Seat and Madeleine's Elegy, Southwest

Vijay’s book is out today in North America! A genius novel by the loveliest of men.

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…

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...

When the Water Falls - Orion Magazine How Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty tells the story of a changing climate

A beautiful read on land art and climate change by @madeleinewatts.bsky.social for @orionmagazine.bsky.social orionmagazine.org/article/when...

Baltimore! Wednesday evening I will be in conversation with Jeannie Vanasco at Greedy Reads Remington.

www.eventbrite.com/e/madeleine-...

WG Sebald’s Rings of Saturn Might Be the Perfect Climate Change Novel In the final months of 2020, finding myself stranded by travel restrictions in Berlin, I re-read W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. I had picked it out of my bookshelf and slipped it into my suitcase t…

Fantastic reflection by @madeleinewatts.bsky.social on Sebald’s Rings of Saturn as an inspiration for her fine new novel Elegy, Southwest lithub.com/wg-sebalds-r...

Beautiful novel by Madeleine Watts that I had the pleasure of reading as it was being written. Looking forward to reading in full when it’s published in the UK next month!