Major project: THE LOVE OF THE GAME

Image description: a grassy sports field with a crowd in the stands.

THE LOVE IS THE GAME is Heated Rivalry meets Young Mungo. A gritty, literary, dual-timeline queer sports romance set across 1993-present, from Melbourne to Brisbane, within the fishbowl of Australian rules football.

Over 15,000 men have played AFL/VFL at the highest level and not a single one, playing or retired, has ever come out as gay.

THE LOVE OF THE GAME is the conflicted story of the life, love, and grief of an in-the-closet AFL player and the boy he’s loved since he was fourteen.

The novel was one of three projects shortlisted for the 2025 Kat Muscat Fellowship, was highly commended by Faber Academy for the Writing A Novel program, and will be on submission in 2026.