A Room Called Earth

A brilliant debut from a neurodiverse author that explores a young woman’s magical, sensitive, and passionate inner world.

A young woman gets ready to go to a party. She arrives, feels overwhelmed, leaves, and then returns. Minutely attuned to the people who come into her view, and alternating between alienation and profound connection, she is hilarious, self-aware, sometimes acerbic, and always honest. And by the end of the night, she’s shown us something radical about love, loss, and the need to belong.

Madeleine Ryan is an Australian writer, director, and author. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, SBS, Vogue, The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Vice. She is currently working on the screen adaptation of her first novel, A Room Called Earth. Madeleine lives in rural Victoria.