#welcome to orphancorp

[aroaessidhe]

2022 reads // twitter thread    

The Orphancorp Trilogy

fast paced Australian YA about a girl trying to survive in the orphanage > soulless capitalism workers > prison pipeline

lack of human rights in a brutal capitalist dystopian future

sapphic

[left-handlibrary]

Welcome to Orphancorp by Marlee Jane Ward (2015)

This one’s a reread for me, as I’m preparing to read the final two in the series soon. I enjoyed it even more the second time around. This is a punchy, fast-paced Aussie YA set in a dystopian futuristic Australia. Children in this world are taken to oppressive institutions known as orphancorp and their only chance of freedom is to ‘age out’ at 18 and make their own way in the terrible world. As it’s a novella, the plot seems to sometimes move too quickly, but I put that down to its form. This one is still a great racially, sexuality and gender diverse read. I’m excited to continue the series!

[auslgbtqya]

Psynode by Marlee Jane Ward

2017

From the publisher:

Having barely made it out of Orphancorp alive, Mirii is on a mission to find the most important babe in her life, Vu. Vu has been taken to ‘Psynode’, a secret facility operated by the megacorp Allnode.

After wrangling her way into the Allnode warehouse as a picker, Mirii meets Rowe, the daughter of one of Allnode’s execs, who may just be the perfect person to help her with the mission.

But life at Allnode is far from cushy and Mirii has to battle her way through the dangers of her new job, the corps that she knows are watching her and get to Vu before it’s too late.

Fast-paced, gritty and original, Psynode follows on from Welcome to Orphancorp, winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Young Adult fiction and confirms Marlee Jane Ward as one of Australia’s best YA authors.

Praise for Marlee Jane Ward

‘This gritty, greasy story is peppered with violence and lit with the slenderest shafts of affection and hope. It will make your jaw clench with fear for the indomitable Mirii Mahoney and your fist punch the air at every tiny victory.’ Margo Lanagan

‘Punchy, crunchy, sexy and smart ... a short sharp shock of a story with bruised-but-not-broken characters and a bonsai dystopia you can actually believe in. Marlee Jane Ward is a writer of heart and passion, muscle and slowburning anger.’ Ian McDonald

Goodreads

[auswomenwriters]

Saturday Spotlight: Marlee Jane Ward

Saturday Spotlight: Marlee Jane Ward

Today’s Q&A is with author Marlee Jane Ward whose YA Speculative Fiction novella, Psynode, is released this month. Welcome, Marlee Jane, and thanks for participating in Sunday Spotlight.

How many novels have you written and published and what prizes, if any, have they won? I’ve published one novella – Welcome To Orphancorp, the first in my Mirii Mahoney series. It was published because it won the…

[patricklenton]

WRITERS I REAL LIKE: Marlee Jane Ward

WRITERS I REAL LIKE: Marlee Jane Ward

Marlee is a boss, pure and simple. I could leave it there. Everything else I am going to write is mere window dressing, is just garnish. Pure boss. She’s also a fantastic goddamn writer of brilliant, imaginative spec fic. She’s a graduate of the Clarion West writers workshop, and also the very famous and elite Creative Writing degree at the University of Wollongong. She is the author of Welcome…

[ap0calypse-chic]

Yo tumbl.

I guess I wanna tell you all about my book that came out in August last year.

It’s a sharp-edged semi-futuristic riff about a rebellious teenager’s last week at an industrial orphanage. If she can just keep outta trouble, Mirii Mahoney is going to taste freedom for the first time, but she's fighting against the system, against the other kids, and against herself. A heartfelt, brutal, funny, and diverse story about when corporate interests overwhelm human rights, and what happens to children when they bloom in the darkest of places. 

It’s sex posi, full of rad queer characters, giggles and hard stuff too. 

I wanted to post this to tumblr because a lot of the stuff I jammed in there, I got from stuff I first started to learn about here: social justice, indigenous representation, consent, queer issues, gender issues. 

It’s shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Literary Awards in the YA category (but don’t let that dissuade you - I wrote it to a broad audience and the themes are universal), and you can read more about that here: http://www.wheelercentre.com/projects/victorian-premier-s-literary-awards-2016/welcome-to-orphancorp

And if you read it, and like it, you can vote for it in the People’s choice section: http://www.wheelercentre.com/projects/victorian-premier-s-literary-awards-2016/vote-people-s-choice-award

[left-handlibrary]

What’s your favorite sapphic book? Written in like year 2015 til now. I like more current books from this Era as opposed to like Fingersmith that was based in the Victorian Era.

Hey friend, sorry for the late reply to this! I decided to write a whole list of some sapphic books I’ve loved in the spirit of Pride month and just simply because they’re all good! Clearly I couldn’t stop at one 😂 I hope there’s something in here you might enjoy!

SFF

- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir

- The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

- Ash by Malinda Lo

- Payback’s a Witch by Alana Harper (fantasy + romance)

- The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

- Amatka by Karin Tidbeck

Literary fiction

- Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

- Attraction by Ruby Porter

- Disorientation by Négar Djavadi

- Fair Play by Tove Jansson

- Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith

- The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson (published 2007 but set in a future world)

- Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne

Non-fiction

- Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

- Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden

- Brown White Black by Nistha J Mehra

- In the Dreamhouse by Carmen Maria Machado

Poetry

- Lemons in the Chicken Wire by Alison Whittaker

- Anything Mary Oliver (I adore her)

YA & Graphic Novels

- Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki

- Welcome to Orphancorp by Jane Ward (dystopian)

- Heathen by Natasha Alterici

- The Afterward by E K Johnston (ya fantasy)

- We Are Okay by Nina Lacour

- When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over by Mandy Ord

- Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

[left-handlibrary]

Yesterday I posted a picture of some of the Australian lit on my soon to-be-read pile for #AussieApril. Today I wanted to share some Aussie reads I’ve read and loved. Some of these are more recent additions and some I’ve loved for a while.

I particularly want to highlight:

Sister Heart by Sally Morgan - a brilliant middle-grade novel written in verse which tells of one child’s experience as a child of the Stolen Generation. That is, forcibly taken from her family by the Australian government under the white Australia policy.

Carrying the World by Maxine Beneba Clarke - a fantastic poetry collection that many more people need to read.

Welcome to Orphancorp by Marlee Jane Ward - a weird, fascinating dystopian novella set in a semi-futuristic Australia. It discusses oppressive institutions and features LGBT+ and POC characters (I need to reread this one so I can pick up the sequels!)

Note: Fiona Wright’s The World Was Whole would 100% be on this list, but I read it from the library and will be purchasing my own copy soon!