RJ. Healey


Science fiction writer



Long. Short. Poem. Play.
Cat: Mia
Music: Ghostsoul (Breakbeat, dub & Ambient) 2008 to 2024

BIO: Robert J. Healey is a philosophical sci-fi and surrealist fiction writer, an occasional poet and, in a time long ago, an electronic music producer. He’s lived in and around Melbourne, Naarm, Australia for nearly twenty years, and was born in Perth, WA in the nether time of 1981.  

Rob was first published in 2024 with his sci-fi short story Music of Orchard that was included in the At What Cost Anthology (of graduating PWE student works) through Clover Press RMIT University. His poem We Hold Each Other In appeared in Visible Inc magazine, online, also in 2024. In 2025 he wrote his first play, and in October of that year The Demigod of Preston Woolies appeared in Melbourne Fringe Festival. He’s currently in the obsessive weeds of several sci-fi novel manuscripts.
In 2024 he completed an Associate Degree of Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT, with honours. And in a previous life, from about 2008 to 2024 he produced a catalogue of ambient music, cinematic breakbeats and electronic dub under the moniker Ghostsoul. Over those years, he performed live beat sets around Australia, mainly in little bars, a few dusty warehouses and some underground festivals – as well as composing and having sync’d his original music for TV, documentaries and computer games.  

He started writing prose and poems and existential dread in 2019, after an ill-fated attempt at living a suburban life burned itself out and left him wondering, “Why does it hurt when people talk?”  Possessing the sort of mind that prefers nights to people, he’s worked in event sound and lighting for close to twenty years, a space that leaves a version of the world where a person can sit on the outside and look in, across the passage of the world falling night and day in the great void of space and time.

Novels: in the works . . .


Philisophical Sci-fi & Surrealism



Here lies excerpts of and synopsis for two philisophical sci-fi novel manuscripts, I’ve written past draft 1, draft 8, 2, 3, maybe 47 ... there’s others on the way to 1 ... these fragments have been workshopped and edited. 
Of all things I’ve started these are the ones that obsess me completely. 

Sky so Blue

Synopsis: To save his lover’s life, an unwitting time-traveller becomes willing to destroy himself.

Beware the god that manifests as time... 

Sky so Blue is a philosophical sci-fi novel about human meaning lost in cosmic timescales.  

A spacetime paradox has doomed Jacob to forever meet the death of his lover, Leah, our solar system’s post-exodus future and the annihilation of Earth. 

During a gallery exhibition of Leah’s work, hallucinations are experienced around a particular painting. Jacob and Leah experience premonitions while obsessed collector, Harcourt, becomes unhinged and threatens Leah. Harcourt later arrives at Leah’s home demanding the painting before a mysterious explosion kills them both. Shocked into a fugue, Jacob encounters strange technology: a spacesuit that pulls him two-thousand years into the future.  

Temporal-shock shatters Jacob’s mind. The luna AI, Qsenn, discovers him near death under an abandoned dome and saves his life by augmenting his brain. Amnesia plagues his recovery but his perception expands. He senses an unstable, artificial singularity orbiting earth, and learns it caused the mass exodus of humanity from the solar system. After experiencing hallucinations and making an accidental spacetime jump, the Martian Keeper, Vanteltash, summons him to Mars for study – concerned his arrival suggests a paradox that could destroy them all. On Mars Leah’s painting is discovered emitting the same radiation as the spacesuit, among a collection of artefacts. Tash exposes Jacob to it. Overcome by memories, he’s pulled to return and save Leah. 

He returns to the night of her death, but he’s unable to control his augmented mind and causes the explosion. Desperately, he attempts to kill Harcourt before he can attack Leah, but fails. And he’s flung three-thousand years into the future. Tash meets him and confirms the paradox. He returns to warn Leah, but causes the premonition that inspires the painting. An unguided jump infuses her canvas with the spacesuit’s radiation. Eleven-thousand years pass. He seeks Qsenn and pleads to be destroyed to collapse his loop. Qsenn is curious and drops Jacob into the singularity. One billion-years pass. Jacob’s arrives on earth moments before its annihilated. Temporal-shock afflicts his mind, and he’s unable to hold against the pull to return. 

Sky so Blue plays with time and meaning like Stories of Your Life, holds existential reflections like Roadside Picknick and interweaves human stories like Ministry for the Future. 

TV in 98

Excerpt: Endon, Chapter 3

Excerpt: Barry, Chapter 4

Synopsis: When Barry, an undiagnosed-autistic man living in a share house in Perth, 1998, starts receiving visitations from an alien through his share house TV, his life begins falling apart, and before long abduction seems more enticing than life in Perth.  

Sometimes, being human can be so alien … 

TV in 98 is written for an adult readership of 25- to 45-years, who enjoy science fiction novels, films and series that can be viewed through a philosophical or surrealist lens. 

Barry’s an undiagnosed-autistic man, long-term unemployed and confused by his life and how people live. He’s started waking at 2:00AM to static in his living room TV; through which, he’s started receiving communications from an Alien named Endon. His housemates, Marcus and Lilly, threaten to evict Barry if he doesn’t seek help. Barry fears becoming homeless. Things get worse when he assaults a cop in a Centrelink office, due to an ill-timed communication from Endon. Barry then fears going to jail.  

Endon exists 500-years in Barry’s future, orbiting the solar system, stealing Earth’s history via its multitude of transmissions. She’s perplexed by humanity, so communicates with Barry, and others like him, in an effort to understand. Barry is just as perplexed and asks Endon to abducted him. He admits to his housemates he’s been talking to an Alien. Marcus has Barry sectioned. Endon then devises a process to transfer Barry to her realm. Barry’s unsure what awaits, but is so confused and distressed he’s willing to leave Earth and never return. 

While Barry’s in a psychiatric hospital, Endon tries to contact him but communicates with Lilly. Having met Endon, Lilly gets Barry released. With Lilly’s help Barry is abducted by Endon. He travels across space and time to Endon’s spaceship where he awaits his transformation to a new state of being. Endon has constructed a temporary environment for Barry that resembles a sterile version of his share house. Endon allows Barry to view the past five hundred years of human history. Little of it makes sense to him. He contacts Lilly, finding her ten-years in her future. She has a good life, she tells him about people he knew; some have died, most live suburban lives. Barry lets go, ready for transformation.  

TV in 98 has a sense of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy meets the surrealism of Kafka on the Shore, and the other worlds of Exhalation. 

Short Stories


A couple of short pieces that have found there way to the crack of dawn ...


Music of orchard



read here
read on Medium


Published in the At What Cost Anthology — a collection of 1000-word fiction and creative non-fiction pieces written and edited by the 2024 graduating class of RMIT PWE (Professional Writing and Edting) students. The collection exists in print, available for purchase at Readings bookstore Australia. 

Last drinks before the impact zone

read here
read on Medium
I like this piece; it feels complete . . . so few things every feel that way. 



Poem


Something published . Something performed .  Something other


We Hold Each Other In


Edge of Self



City Block

 

Play
Playwrite

The Demigod of Preston Woolies


Melbourne Fringe Festival 2025

MC Showroom. October 15 - 18


The Demigod of Preston Woolies was my first foray into playwriting. Darren Thao, the producer and director, who brought us all together for the project, asked that I write an original play; while we were both on comms at the rear of the plenary theatre, Melbourne Convention Centre, waiting for direction to jump on our follow spots.

‘Hey Rob, ever thought about writing a play?’ Darren asked. 

‘I’ve never thought about writing a play,’ I responded. 

Being an anxious robot, I offered to write a first draft within a month so if I couldn’t he’d ahve time to find someone else. I ended up writing two first drafts: one sci-fi and one absurdists panic attack - and so the existential crisis that is The Demigod of Preston Woolies was born.  



ALT: Video taking on iphone by Robert Healey, playwrite, closing night (18 October 2025) at MC Showroom Prarhan, Victoria. This performance was 4 of 4. Acknowledgement of country was given by Helene Dunlop.

Synopsis:Suburban nightshift worker, Seb, is in his mid-thirties, lost and wayward in life. Burnt out, hungover and unsure if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, he encounters Sheryl, an ex-dedicated-party animal in her late fifties. Sheryl’s knowledge of the cosmos and cathartic lack of care for humanity’s tribulations leaves Seb uncertain if he’s encountered a potently articulate local drunk, an alien in human form, or a fallen deity. Whereas Sheryl – whether hyper-dimensional-being or just shopping for abundant cheap wine – hasn’t any fucks to give.

Credits:
  • Robert J. Healey - Playwrite
  • Darren Thao - Producer, Director, lighting designer
  • Helene Dunlop - Lead Actor (Sheryl)
  • Luke Andrews - Lead Actor (Seb)
  • Chloe Munro - Sound design 
  • Kaleb  Macdonald - Theatre technician





Music: Ghostsoul Albums 2011 — 2023


Ambient . Electo dub . Cinematic breaks . Downtempo . Glitch
All those years of looping time . . .



Between 2008 & 2023 I wrote and produced music under the psuedonym Ghostsoul. It was a strange time, but it was strange before that and is still strange so strange I guess is normal; up is the same as down with a gravtitational body beneath you.  
Ghostsoul Bio Decemebr 2025

bandcamp . soundcloud . apple music . tidal . spotify . youtube music
2023 Album: Clutching Jaw Tightens Eyes
Label: Ende records

Clutching jaw tightens eyes consists of four tracks of rhythmic soundscapes, downbeat, dub, house and ambience. Each track was written using field recordings taken by Ghostsoul, in and around Melbourne during 2022.

Post Melbourne’s pandemic lockdowns the noise floor of the inner suburbs grew louder as people re-entered work and social environments. The growing loudness resulted in a returning social anxiety. The anomaly of society shutting down had resulted in a peace, or at least a break from the burnout noise that results from making life while trying to not fall over the edge.

Clutching jaw tightens eyes uses field recordings from various locations around Melbourne.

1. Edge of self, features recordings of birds at 6am from a living room window, a tram with people conversing, and a freeway overpass.

2. Dark horizon, features leaves scraping across concrete in the wind, outside a living room window.

3. Behind my eyes, features a recording of the M1 freeway from a fourth story bathroom window at midnight.

4. Waiting rain, features a high gain recording, captured after midnight, from a living room window, as the rain travelled over the city.

Released July 21, 2023


2023 Album: Robot QuietLabel: Ende records
Robot quiet is a collection of ambient-works and soundscapes by Ghostsoul. The album came together over ten years and is comprised of tracks created for several projects. Tracks 1. On this day and 2. Over water were originally written for an earlier album that never found completion. Track 4. Wilful energies was composed as a personal meditation and was never meant for release. And tracks 3. Pouring rain and 5. Dark past were originally created as part of the sound track to the steam-game Hurtworld.

These tracks I kept coming back to because I'm highly anxious and they relax my mind.
Released May 30, 2023


2021 Album: 1981
I started this so long ago that to finish it is to free myself of it.

I would call this new music but it's really quite old, well for me anyway. I've had these four ambient tracks - plus quite a few more - sitting on hard drives since 2014; created as off-cuts from a video game sound track. Each year I would bring them up several times, tinker and then forget them again; creating version after version. I've put these four together as an album as they were created from the same session file then became different ideas.
Released November 30, 2021


2021 Album: Clouds Hiding Moon
Clouds Hiding Moon is an album built of the offset times of my life - reminding me that I make music, and have for so long, that I have lived at night for so long.

I have included in the album field recordings to link the songs, they are from moments across my life; places that have become of note to me as they now exist in my memory.

Released April 12, 2021


2019 Album: Nothing is real except the lie you tell yourself
I wrote this during a strange time in my life

The video clip for Sensing You by Ghostsoul is a colaboration suggested by Pixelwhip using original footage taken during his travels through Japan.


The video clip for Creatures by Ghostsoul is a colaboration suggested by Pixelwhip using original footage taken during his travels through Japan.

Released January 1, 2019


2017 Album: No Reality







released August 3, 2017


2017 EP: Lost in Time
Lost in time is a collection of older tracks that have been included on compilations and media projects. Each peace of music, though written separately and at different times, have stuck with me over the past few years. When played against each other they feel as though they fit as a cohesive part of a single whole.


Released May 20, 2017


2016 (Album): Hurt World Sound Track
The original sound track to the game Hurtworld (Steam Platform) by Bankroll Studios Melbourne.




Released December 23, 2016


2013 Album: Celestial ArtefactsLabel: Uncomfortable Beats


The video clip for Dark Rooms by Ghostsoul was created by Leon Williams.
The album is ‘a spiritual transmission’ with ‘every composition part of a different universe, seemingly drifting through leftover remnants of fallen civilisations.’ With his experience creating soundscapes for screen and computer games, it’s no wonder Ghostsoul’s melodies have such a filmic luminosity. Echoes of Bladerunner synths and brooding sci-fi surrealism are coaxed back into real time with stuttering dancefloor drums and the smoky blues of London-born guest vocalist Melody Myla.

An upbeat pace is set with the spliced breaks and samples of opening track ‘Luna to Sol’, leading on to the contrasting shadowy cataclysms that lurk behind the ‘Dark Rooms’ of the second track. Highlights include the brooding bass and sleazy urban squalor of ‘The Opening Dusk’, the haunted vocal melancholia of ‘Burning Lungs’ and the glitchy goodness of Gutter Smash (Funky Orwell Mix).creditsreleased December 12, 2013

Track 2. Remixed from Gutter Smash by WarPa!nt
Track 4. Vocals written and performed by Melody Myla
Track 7. Vocals written and performed by Wyldcard and Bellz
Track 8. Vocals written and performed by Melody Myla
Released December 12, 2013


2012 EP: Dark City Vibes Label: Hopskotch Records 
After a string of self released EPs and compilation releases, Melbourne beatsmith Ghostsoul joins the Hopskotch Records stable with 'Dark City Vibes' furthering his slip into the glitch hop and future beat sound..Mastered by Schallzentrale GmbH Artwork by Jack Dougla
Released October 22, 2012


2011 EP: Broken Symmetry
A sweet mix of dub, hiphop and glitch.





Released February 7, 2011


Various Dates: Live sets performed in the dark, little corners of Melbourne/Naarm  

Live sets original beats and beatless pieces together in ableton live — laptop, pads, triggers & FX


2020: Studio Mix: Cinemtaic Breakbeats, dub step, dub, glitchhop, triphop: recorded in my studio in Reservoir, or the converter granny flat out the back of Mike’s place while the Covid Pandemic lockdowns dropped in Melbourne and the traffic left the streets to rare silence.


Link: Ghostsoul Soundcloud


2012: Senza Misura: beatless ambient: performed in a living room above a bar in Northcote 2012. Recorded and released on Senzamisura Vol 1. Released 2014 through Ende Records, thanks Noistruct.



Link: Ende Records Bandcamp (Entire Album)
Link: Ghostsoul Soundcloud


2012: Uncomfortable Beats: Cinematic Breakbeats, dub, glitch & triphop: performed at Bar Open, Fitzroy, Victoria April 2012. Recorded on my old Zoom H5 through an older, dusty A&H Mix Wizard.



Link: Ghostsoul Soundcloud


2011: Glitch, dub, triphop, cinematic breakbeats: This one’s a little bit lost in time — like me — maybe I performed this at Comfy Chair in Brunswick West; maybe in my living room in Northocte. Either way it was several brief life times ago. However my healthy obsessions continue.



Link: Ghostsoul Soundcloud