More Lies is a highly referential comedy thriller about a writer being held hostage in their own apartment and forced to type to hide the manoeuvres of a femme fatale, holding a pearl handled gun, and her brother, a small-time thug with big time ambitions. This wild tale about assassination, lost gold, betrayal, passion and identity theft engages the reader in the many layers of the author’s witty but deceptive journey. Through a series of lies, backflips and alternative versions of the tale, the author moves from being a trapped hack, forced to prostitute themselves, to dazzling the world with the acrobatics of their imagination, to the heart of the matter: storytelling is all that is keeping them alive.

Richard James Allen’s writing has appeared widely in journals, anthologies, and online, and he has been a popular reader at multiple performing arts venues, over many years. In 2019, a collection of poetry, The short story of you and I, was published by UWA Publishing, and a suite of poems, Minimum Correct Dosage, was commissioned by Red Room Poetry. Previous critically acclaimed books of poetry, fiction and performance texts include Fixing the Broken Nightingale (Flying Island Books), The Kamikaze Mind (Brandl & Schlesinger) and Thursday’s Fictions (Five Islands Press), which was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. More Lies is his first novel. Well-known for his multi-award-winning career as a filmmaker and choreographer with The Physical TV Company, and critically acclaimed as a performer in a range of media and contexts, Richard has a track record for innovative adaptations and interactions of poetry and other media, including collaborations with artists in dance, film, theatre, music and a range of digital platforms.

Jadzea Allen