Holden Sheppard
Holden Sheppard is an Australian novelist. His debut young adult novel, Invisible Boys, won multiple accolades including the 2018 T.A.G. Hungerford Award and the 2019 Western Australian Premier's Book Award and was adapted as a 2025 television series of the same name. His writing often focuses on themes of masculinity, sexuality and mental health.
Early life
Sheppard was born in the country town of Geraldton in Western Australia. At the age of 18, he moved to Perth and studied a bachelors of English literature at Edith Cowan University. While he was studying, he was also working part time as a grocery store assistant in Woolworths Supermarkets as a stock taker.Career
Sheppard's debut young adult novel, Invisible Boys, follows three gay teenage boys in rural Western Australia after one of them is outed. It was published by Fremantle Press in 2019 after Sheppard won the T.A.G. Hungerford Award in 2018 and received a cash prize and publishing contract. In 2019, he won the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for an Emerging Writer and received $15,000 in prize money. The following year, the book was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and was named a Notable Book by the Children's Book Council of Australia. It was later developed as a 10-part television series for Stan, as part of a Screenwest development initiative, with production occurring from March 2024 and the series released on 13 February 2025.His second book, YA thriller The Brink, was published by Text Publishing in 2022 and won the 2023 Indie Book Awards Young adult prize. The book follows a group of school leavers on a remote island off the coast of Western Australia, where they discover a dead body.
Sheppard's writing has been published in several literary magazines including Griffith Review, Westerly, page seventeen and Indigo Journal. His work has also appeared in anthologies Bright Lights, No City, Hometown Haunts: #LoveOzYA Horror Tales and Growing Up in Country Australia.
Sheppard's novel Invisible Boys was adapted for the screen by Nicholas Verso and streamed in 2025 on Stan featuring actors Joseph Zada, Joe Klocek and Aydan Calafiore in the lead roles. The series received critical reception among viewers for its screenplay and storyline which was written by an all-gay writing team including Verso, Sheppard, Allan Clarke, Enoch Mailangi and Declan Greene. Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen from Guardian Australia critiques ways Invisible Boys "begins to play into the cliche that queerness and relentless trauma go hand in hand, and veers close to trauma porn with a major plot event." Sheppard also announced a sequel for his novel, Invisible Boys 2.
In 2025, Sheppard released his 8th novel King of Dirt which opened up to positive reviews from critics. Sheppard stated. “King of Dirt tackles themes of masculinity, sexuality and mental illness and trauma in men and what that looks like. It also dives deep into issues of family dysfunction, family estrangement and fatherhood, as well as love and loss and finding hope after losing everything. King of Dirt explores what a traumatised, addicted, mentally-unwell Aussie bloke in his 30s looks like, through the main character of Giacomo “Jack” Brolo".