‘Radiant, accomplished and exquisitely written, this is an outstanding collection.’ Ryan O’Neill

An art teacher sends four of her students on a guerrilla mission. A young runner struggles to make sense of his best friend’s death. A health-food company adopts a farcical promotional strategy. A factory worker spends her days applying radioactive paint to watches, while dreaming of a future with her new suitor.


With a keen eye for detail and rich emotional insight, Laura Elvery reveals the fears and fantasies of everyday people searching for meaning. Ranging from tender poignancy to wry humour, Trick of the Light is the beguiling debut collection from one of Australia’s rising stars.

Laura Elvery is a writer from Brisbane. Her work has been published in The Big Issue Fiction Edition, Review of Australian Fiction, Kill Your Darlings and Griffith Review. She has won the Josephine Ulrick Prize for Literature and the Margaret River Short Story Competition, and was awarded a Griffith Review Queensland Writing Fellowship. She has been shortlisted for the Overland NUW Fair Australia, Neilma Sidney and Victoria University prizes. In 2016, Laura was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript.