The Comforting Weight of Water

In a near future where it never stops raining, a young adolescent runs wild. With only the cantankerous Gammy and a band of terrified and broken villagers for company, this story explores coming of age when society - and all its cues - has been washed away.

For the few survivors, questions of identity, nature, love, and fear are explored through the eyes of a child, against a backdrop of encroaching water.

Roanna McClelland is an emerging writer of fiction and non-fiction with a background spanning environmental policy, law, politics, media, and research. Her debut novel, The Comforting Weight of Water, won the Arts South Australia Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2022. She is currently completing a PhD in environment and water law. Her work explores conceptualisations of climate, the environment, identity, and human nature in modern society.