Pink Shorts Press acquires ‘Scared Angry Laughing’ by Merrilees

Pink Shorts Press has acquired Scared Angry Laughing, a nonfiction title by Margaret Merrilees.

Scared Angry Laughing is a creative memoir essay collection, said the publisher. ‘These pieces speak to her experiences as an aging activist, including stripping off and getting arrested to protest inaction on climate change.’

Based in Kaurna Yerta / Adelaide, Merrilees is the author of The First Week, which won the Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award and was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award and a NSW Premier’s Literary Award, Big Rough Stones and two collections of Fables Queer & Familiar (illus by Chia Moan). Scared Angry Laughing is Merrilees’s debut nonfiction work.

Pink Shorts Press publisher Margot Lloyd said, ‘This unruly guide to civil disobedience is exactly the kind of creative and quietly hilarious non-fiction that we set out to publish. And it’s a reminder that we’re always living in “unprecedented” times.’

Scared Angry Laughing is slated for release during Adelaide Writers’ Week 2026, following the publisher’s model of two release periods each year.

Photo credit: Peter Barnes.

Category: Local news News Rights and acquisitions