by Ben Karwan
‘Dude, shut up,’ I say. ‘I don’t talk about it that often.’ Except that I do. Along with uni, it’s pretty much all I’ve talked about for the past two weeks. Without the pressure of year twelve, I figured I’d be able to fit it back into my week. Mum thought it was a good idea, too, because she thought it might be easier to study if I had something to do that wasn’t related to my education. I’m not too fussed about reasons like that. I just really missed it.
Maybe a week after I got my uni offer, I called my old instructor and she was happy to put me back into one of her classes. I’m still getting back into the swing of things but Thursday nights are now the highlight of my week. As soon as I’d gone back to dancing, my instructor had immediately given me a spot in the next performance night. I’ve spent the past few weeks working on a tap ensemble performance and a contemporary hip-hop routine with three other girls. It’s tiring but so much fun. I always come home with the most ridiculous smile on my face. I don’t know how I lived without dance for an entire year.
Elliot has half-finished his plate of food by the time I pick up my knife and fork. A butterscotch sauce coats my toast and it’s garnished with bacon, banana and crushed pistachio nuts. It’s possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten.
It doesn’t take long for me to lose track of time and much too soon I have to say goodbye.
I get back to my campus twenty minutes before my class is scheduled to begin. My timetable says room G23 in the Humanities building, but I have no idea where that is. Map in hand, I wander across the campus trying to find the right spot.
Five minutes before class, I enter the building. Now where the hell is room G23? Just inside the entrance is a lecture theatre. I head up a staircase and walk along the hallway. Room 102, 103, 104 …
This isn’t helpful.
I head up to the next floor. Room 203. Room 204.
It’s an embarrassingly long time before I realise the first number refers to the floor number. The G must stand for ‘Ground floor’.
I race back down the stairs to the ground floor and look for room G23. I slowly push open the door. Six round tables occupy the room, each with three or four people at them.
‘Is this the tute for The Craft of Writing?’ I ask.
‘It sure is,’ says a middle-aged woman sitting by herself. The stacks of paper on the table before her and her general look of organisation tell me she’s our tutor. ‘Take a seat and we’ll get started in a few minutes. I’m expecting four or five more people, so we’ll give them some extra time to find the room.’ She gives me a warm smile, which I return.
I glance around the room at the different people. A few of them are keeping to themselves, others are in the early stages of getting to know their neighbours, while some talk to people they’ve obviously known for years.
Where’s the best place to sit? A few people make eye contact and give me warm smiles.
I take a deep breath. I can sit anywhere I like.
Acknowledgements
My first and foremost thanks must go to everyone involved in the Sony Young Movellist of the Year competition. Charlotte and Yvonne, thank you for your tireless work and prompt replies to my incessant emails. Thank you to everybody who read all the entries and formulated the shortlist, narrowing down the entries to the top three.
A huge thank you must go to Skye Melki-Wegner. Thank you for finding the potential in my story and for your kind words.
I have been beyond fortunate to have the expert team at Random House behind me. Thanks is not enough for what you have all done. Particular thanks to Zoe Walton and Bronwyn O’Reilly, without whom this book would not exist. Or if it did, it would be a thousand per cent worse than it is now. Your talents have not gone unnoticed.
Thanks also to my fantastic agent, Rick Raftos.
Special thanks to Emma Hall, Kate Glenister and Gabi Minutillo for being the best workshopping partners. Sorry for being the worst person ever while working on the edit of Coasting. I promise I have things to talk about other than my writing.
Thanks must also go to my mum and first reader, Leanne Connell, and my brothers, Matt, Adam and Josh.
Thanks to Greg, Chelsea, Ali and Simon Barker, and to Phil van der Klift.
And finally, a massive thank you must go to the beautiful Elly Spiteri. Thank you for keeping me grounded, dealing with my stressed-out rants and being the best support I could ask for.
About the Author
Ben Karwan is an avid contemporary YA fan who lives in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne with his family and his dogs. He completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne in 2014, majoring in Psychology, and he is currently studying a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing, also at the University of Melbourne. Through this degree, he has been taught by such writers as Penni Russon, Tony Birch and Kalinda Ashton. His short fiction has been published in the University of Melbourne anthology Above Water. Ben’s first novel is Coasting, the winner of the Sony Young Movellist of the Year Australia Award 2014.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Coasting
9781925324464
First published by Random House Australia in 2016
Copyright © Ben Karwan, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Random House book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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www.randomhouse.com.au
Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Karwan, Ben, author
Title: Coasting / Ben Karwan
ISBN: 9781925324464 (ebook)
Target audience: For young adults
Subjects: Teenage girls – Fiction
Friendship – Fiction
Teenagers – Conduct of life – Fiction
Dewey number: A823.4
‘Just be happy, and if you can’t be happy, do things that make you happy. Or do nothing with the people that make you happy.’
From This Star Won’t Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl by Esther Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl. Copyright © 2014 by Lori and Wayne Earl. Used by permission of Dutton Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Cover image © Daxiao Productions/Shutterstock
Cover design by Isabel Keeley–Reid
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