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  • Holden Sheppard

    Holden Sheppard

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Holden Sheppard

Bachelor of Arts Honours, 2012 
Diploma in Language Studies, 2014

When he first clicked the ‘unlicenced’ four-coloured pen and put it to paper, seven-year-old Holden Sheppard knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life: he wanted to write stories.

It was a ‘little lightning bolt moment’ on holiday amongst the bookshelves of Dymocks in Morley, Perth that led to this revelation, and this avid reader became a writer.

“I just started (writing) the next day. I got home to Geraldton. It was very exciting, because I was seven – at school, you didn’t get your pen licence until you were nine. So, I grabbed this (four-coloured) pen – I can do whatever I want now. I’ve just never stopped writing since. I knew it was what I wanted to do from that age, and I just pursued it.”

Holden first wrote stories to occupy his active and creative brain, taking his granpa’s old saying to heart: “Boredom is the product of a lazy mind”. As a teenager he realised he “had something to say”, so began using his writing to process his feelings. Now, as an award-winning author he adopts the Hemingway approach ‘writing hard and clear about what hurts’ drawing on his own life with ‘a nice veneer’ of fiction over the top of it.

“The more honest I can be about how I’ve felt, and what I’ve gone through, the more it resonates with people. When you go super inward-focused into unique individual experiences, somehow it becomes more universal.”

“When I get to meet readers, I get to hear their stories, and they say to me ‘you made me feel less alone’.  They’ve only had that experience from one person - me. I get that from hundreds of people, and it's a really nice feeling to know that I'm not so weird and they're not either. (We’re) just humans going through life.

Connecting with people is what he does from Perth to Paris. His books help people “feel less alone” and “seen”. His audience, particularly those in the LGBTQIA+ community, see their own experiences reflected back at them. It’s this universal feeling of not quite fitting in that truly resonates:

“Everyone knows how it feels to be a misfit or to feel shame or have poor mental health. Everyone from any background has gone through that”  

Holden shares that meeting his readers, hearing their stories, and learning how his art has resonated with them, is one of his favourite aspects of his national book tours.

“When I get to meet readers, I get to hear their stories, and they say to me ‘you made me feel less alone’.  They’ve only had that experience from one person - me. I get that from hundreds of people, and it's a really nice feeling to know that I'm not so weird and they're not either. (We’re) just humans going through life.

It’s this sense of belonging that he also still associates with ECU, his cohort, and others in his alumni network. From the moment he first stepped onto the leafy old Mt Lawley grounds as a first-in-family, regional Year 11 student, Holden felt welcome.

“I’m a country boy from Geraldton. No one in my family had a degree, and I’m one of six kids. I felt like university was not for people like me. Not for a Geraldton kind-of bogan… I chose ECU because it made me feel welcome.”

At ECU he found the perfect combination of a supportive environment that fosters and values creativity, a broad range of subject areas that challenged his different talents, and perhaps most valuably, the opportunity to develop practical skills and create work that can be used professionally.

“I got my first short story published while I was still a student (and) my first feature article published from something I did in journalism class…The ECU coursework directly led to me publishing my first pieces of work.”

Holden’s latest novel, Yeah the Boys, a follow up to Holden’s hugely popular, debut novel, Invisible Boys – is available to buy now. Visit his website to learn more.

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