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What do books tell us about the world we live in? Join Lucy Clark, Paul Daley and Zoya Patel for conversations with top authors about the ideas that shape their work. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify
24 Episodes
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1At a time when our society is growing increasingly divided, world champion debater Bo Seo argues that we shouldn’t be aiming for fewer disagreements. Instead, he tells Lucy Clark that we’re better off using the principles of competitive debate to disagree well and, in doing so, to get along with our co-workers, friends and family despite our differences
Robert ‘Nosey Bob’ Howard sparked both fear and fascination as the longest-serving executioner in New South Wales. Paul Daley speaks with Rachel Franks, the author of An Uncommon Hangman: The Life and Deaths of Robert ‘Nosey Bob’ Howard, about his 62 hangings and why Indigenous people and women were disproportionately sentenced to death
The winner of the 2022 Miles Franklin Award, Jennifer Down, had only one rule when she set out to write about a fictional survivor of child sexual abuse: do no harm. But she tells Jane Lee she still worries about the ethical questions involved in publishing and winning the prestigious award for her novel Bodies of Light
People who devote their lives to preserving Aboriginal culture and heritage are often caught between local communities and the legacies of museums. Yuwaalaraay woman Jilda Andrews and John Carty, author of Balgo, chat to Paul Daley about the meaning of Country, anthropology and art in the Western Desert
For many Australians, classic children’s book characters like Blinky Bill and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie represent innocent adventures in the bush. But Stella prize winning author Evelyn Araluen argues you can also find the story of Aboriginal peoples’ displacement at the heart of these beloved tales
Movie buff Siang Lu watched hundreds of movies for his debut novel The Whitewash, including many where white actors played characters of colour. Researching the history of whitewashing and the evolution of the Asian action hero in Hollywood helped him learn what movies can teach us about how we see ourselves and each other in real life
SL Lim’s award-winning novel, Revenge, follows the life of Yannie, a protagonist who watches her brother live a life of prosperity while they go without. Set between Malaysia and Sydney, Lim exposes the vivid frustrations of inequality and disadvantage in one family and what happens when rage erupts into revenge
In 2018, Brigid Delaney experimented with the idea of living like a Stoic. From relinquishing things out of her control to practising voluntary hardship, after adopting the ancient philosophy Brigid noticed a remarkable change in her life - and her emotional wellbeing. Drawing on the works of three Stoics, Brigid Delaney’s book Reasons Not to Worry argues the 2,000-year-old philosophy is a valuable tool for dealing with life’s modern dilemmas
Paul Cleary documents the Yindjibarndi community’s resistance and fight against Fortescue Mining Group. It’s an ongoing David versus Goliath story that has taken decades, and even gone to the high court
Drawing on a printmaking technique he learned from punk-rock climate activists in Borneo, Malaysian Australian author and poet Omar Musa wrestles with race, family and isolation in Killernova, his new book of poetry and art. He talks to Zoya Patel and also performs poems from his new book
Hannah Kent’s novel, Devotion, is a queer love story that is set in a pious, nineteenth century religious community. In resisting the narrative of shame that has dominated the retelling of this time in history, Kent is challenging the way authors represent the past
Craig Sherborne’s novel The Grass Hotel tells the story of caring for a mother who is declining with dementia. He talks to Paul Daley about his own complex upbringing – one that was affectionate, but also filled with stilted and misunderstood expressions of care
Australiana is a novel set in a nameless town in rural Australia, where Yumna Kassab explores interconnected experiences of inequality. In doing so, she also makes us pause and reflect on how Australia is represented through literature
Paul Daley speaks to Chelsea Watego about why she says ‘fuck hope’ and why she wants to take her book, Another Day in the Colony, to Aboriginal readers in prisons
Based on more than four decades of lived experience in the public mental health system, Heidi Everett uses the lyricism of music and the drawings of a four-legged friend to describe her various mental states. In doing so, she expresses the difference between treatment and cure, recovery and healing, and existing and living
In a road trip prompted by an Australian man’s imagination of America, Emily Bitto explores the literary trope of the masculine hero’s quest – through her novel Wild Abandon
Paul Daley talks to Marion Frith about how she wrote a novel about life after loss and human resilience in the midst of trauma – by telling the story through an unlikely friendship between two fictional characters
Through personal tragedy and time spent telling the stories of victims, investigative crime journalist Debi Marshall says she’s found that closure doesn’t exist. So why do people read, and why do authors write, true crime?
Rawah Arja was determined to write a YA novel for – and about – teenage boys in Western Sydney. She tells Zoya Patel about how she created a story about religion, rivalries, romance, racism and redemption in The F Team
Paul Daley talks to Tony Birch about finding affection on the so-called margins of the inner city, the injustice of climate change and Blak humour. Birch also describes why he doesn’t view his fiction as having a political message
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