Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle
Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama
“Butcher-McGunnigle transforms malady into force; a leaf in a whirlwind, splitting memory from frame…this collection forms a prelude to her stunning body of work.”
Giramondo, 2026
From the author of Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life comes a collection of prose poemswhich explore the relationship between thinking patterns and ill health. Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama is published alongside a new edition of Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle’s acclaimed 2014 debut, Autobiography of a Marguerite.
What are the appropriate emotions. Even with a map, it was difficult to determine. An ache which means let go. If she didn’t have the thought, she wouldn’t have the feeling.
Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama is a collection that invites the reader to consider the relationship between internalised beliefs and the development of illness, drawing on psychology texts and the language of self-help. Wheels fall off to create drama. Through wordplay, aphorism and inversion, these poems unfold and rebound to create a collage of melancholy and comic transformations. One thing leads to a mother. In their exploration of character traits and dramatic tropes, they resist fixed meanings, inviting the reader to reflect on their own experiences.
About the Author
Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle is a writer and counsellor from Auckland, currently living in Melbourne. She is the author of Autobiography of a Marguerite, Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life and Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama. With David Jalal Motamed, she co-runs the reading series Bad Flâneur.
