Mary Colussi’s debut novel Touch Grass presents the internet as more than a tool. In her novel, it becomes porous and all-consuming – sounds familiar? However, her novel takes a more dystopian turn as she blurs the lines between memory, identity and the selves we perform online. One of my favourite things about her writing in this novel isn’t her cynicism on the internet, but her curiosity. She's fascinated with the way people continue searching for one another to yearn for genuine human connections.

Set within a futuristic landscape, Touch Grass makes even the strangest ideas feel deeply human. Even her points on online embarrassment, parasocial relationships and the pressure to turn ourselves into content is sharp and incisive. Exploring what happens when technology begins reshaping not only how we live, but how we remember, connect and exist. Asking a very important question: what does it actually mean to be present – with ourselves and with each other? Speaking with Colussi about her debut novel, that releases on 2 June, it’s clear she draws inspiration from the greats like Octavia E. Butler, and storytellers such as Emily St. John Mandel. And more often than not, you’ll find her curled up on a mountain of pillows with a good book looking like a "Pharaoh".

Below, we speak with Mary Colussi about authenticity in the age of monetisation and the books that continue to shape the way she sees the world.

Touch Grass leans into absurdity of the digital age – what do you think it means to be human in increasingly online world?

It’s likely different for everyone you ask, but for me, I always come back to our relationships with one another. Romantic, platonic, professional, familial, intellectual, parasocial, whatever. The best that the internet can achieve is serving and strengthening those relationships, while some of the worst it can do is claim to replace them. Charlie, the main character in Touch Grass, is deeply isolated at the book’s start, but she still has connections, with her weird boss, her shut-in housemate, and a local psychic, to name a few. If she didn’t, I think I would’ve been much less interested in writing the story.

Do you think true disconnection is possible, even when we ‘log off’?

I think it has to be, because there are things you find in day-to-day life that you just can’t online. That being said, sustaining that disconnection for longer than a few seconds is difficult, because it’s designed to be.

What is it about minor online embarrassments feeling so permanent, that drew you to write about the idea?

Part of it is the scale, and the idea that it’s never been easier for millions of people to see you screw up. Then there’s the loss of control. I remember once on the subway I looked up and saw a guy filming me on his phone, and I thought, ‘Goddammit, where is that going to end up?’ Because there’s no way to know. (This happens to Charlie, too, but she reacts in a much cooler way.) You’ve never been able to choose how you’re perceived in life, or how you’re remembered once you’re gone, but that truth becomes much more confronting when we’re all recording and archiving ourselves on a daily basis. There’s just a lot of past in the present.

Do you think authenticity can survive monetisation?

What a question! I’d like to think so. Art and money are always going to have a relationship – I was only able to afford to take some time off to write a novel because I’d had a full-time job making pop culture content for the two years leading up to it – and I don’t think that’s inherently damaging to the quality of the work. But I guess that’s on an individual level. On a societal one, there’s a push to turn your life into content, and recently, to outsource every little decision to AI, which is as monetised as monetised gets (considering it’s built on a foundation of stolen work). So actually, I don’t know. Am I allowed to answer with this guy?

\_(ツ)_/¯

Currently on your bedside table, what book are you reading?

I just finished Juice by Tim Winton, and next up is Periodic Bitch by Emma Hardy, which is a memoir about the author’s experience with premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It’s a hell of a title (and cover) and I can’t wait to read it.

What is your favourite book of all time?

I have a list of around twenty books that I'll call my favourite depending on my mood, what I’m working on, the direction of the wind, et cetera. But Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler is always a contender. It’s a speculative fiction masterclass.

Is there a literary character you most identify with?

Maybe Meg from A Wrinkle in Time. I’m a little bit awkward, a little bit belligerent, and a little bit prone to getting into weird situations. And my dad is a scientist, just like Meg's, though luckily I haven’t had to go on an intergalactic adventure to save him from a big evil brain. Yet.

Is there a book that changed your life?

It’s a play, but easily the length of a novel: Angels in America by Tony Kushner. I read it in high school, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, you can do this?’ Followed closely by, ‘I would like to do this.’ It’s so surreal and funny and profound. I was very self-conscious then about not being a particularly bold person, and reading a truly bold piece of work had an impact on me.

Who is your favourite living author?

Probably Emily St. John Mandel. Her work is often about these cataclysmic events – like a global pandemic, or a massive Ponzi scheme – but the storytelling remains grounded and human. The scale of her ambition sneaks up on you in a way I really admire.

What is your favourite reading spot?

A couch where I am the sole person in control of the couch real estate, because I like to recline on a bunch of pillows, like a Pharaoh.