Sophie Quick
I’m a writer/editor living in Melbourne. I work across editorial, communications and copywriting - mostly for print media, arts organisations and non-profits. My freelance writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Meanjin, The Big Issue, The Monthly and The Weekend Australian Review.
As a copywriter, I’ve worked on projects for Intrepid Travel, TAC, Traffic NSW, ahm insurance and more.
My first novel, The Confidence Woman, was published by Allen & Unwin in April 2025. I’m represented by Grace Heifetz at A4 Literary.
The Confidence Woman
Christina is a single mother living in the Melbourne suburbs, but to her online clients she is the esteemed Dr Ruth Carlisle, an 'executive coach and mindset expert'.
Dr Ruth gains her clients’ trust through her coaching business; discovering their secrets and deepest fears. Through this elaborate scam, she’s saving money for the ultimate unobtainable Australian dream: a home deposit. But when she blunders, and her worlds begin to collide, suddenly everything is at stake.
The Confidence Woman is a novel about more than one kind of confidence game. It explores and hilariously skewers contemporary cults of self-optimisation, while drawing a too-real portrait of the difficulties of striving for success (or just security) in a rigged system.
Release date: April 1, 2025.
Pre-order The Confidence Woman here.
Reviews of The Confidence Woman
The Guardian: ‘Timely and slyly funny’
Books and Publishing: ‘Acerbic, almost vicious sense of humour’
The Age ($): ‘This sharp satire features a conwoman you can empathise with’
ArtsHub: ‘Christina stands out as a perfect creation, and Quick as an exciting new voice.’
Readings: ‘The twists and reverses... are as clever as they are believable.’
New Zealand Listener: ‘Sophie Quick is a writer in love with language.’
Interviews for The Confidence Woman
With Mel Fulton for Literati Glitterati on Triple R
Freelance Features and Criticism
First person piece: ‘Hustling is out, healing is in: what I learned following 400 online gurus’ The Guardian
First-person piece: ‘Stirrings of lust and a ginger bush: The Jilly Cooper sentence that sent me down a rabbit hole’.
The Guardian
Column: ‘Pluses and Sinuses’
The Big Issue
Book review: Ironbark by Jay Carmichael
The Monthly
Travel feature: Visiting Kidzania theme park in Singapore
The Saturday Paper
Travel feature: Finding family in Salt Lake City
The Saturday Paper
Book review: Loitering by Charles D’Ambrosio
The Weekend Australian Review
Book review: Unlike the Heart by Nicola Redhouse
The Monthly
Book review: The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells
The Weekend Australian Review