Beejay Silcox is a writer and literary critic. She is the Artistic Director of the Canberra Writers Festival, and in 2023-2-24 the Chair of Judges of The Stella Prize. Her literary criticism and cultural commentary regularly appears in national arts publications, and is increasingly finding an international audience, including in the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian and The New York Times. Read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the memoir The Hate Race and the poetry collections Carrying the World and How Decent Folk Behave. Her children's picture books include the CBCA Honour book The Patchwork Bike and the illustrated poem When We Say Black Lives Matter, which was longlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Her latest poetry collection is It's the Sound of the Thing, which was nominated for The Guardian's Best Australian Children's Books of 2023 and shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2024. In 2023 she was Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne. Read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pip Williams was born in London, grew up in Sydney, and now lives in the Adelaide Hills. Her debut novel was the wildly successful The Dictionary of Lost Words (2020), which was based on her original research in the Oxford English Dictionary archives and became an international bestseller. The Bookbinder of Jericho (2023) is her second work of historical fiction, and exists in the same world as The Dictionary of Lost Words. Read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja writer and educator. Her 2023 memoir We Come With This Place - a book she never intended to publish - won the ALS Gold Medal and four NSW Premier's Awards, and was also listed for many other prizes. An educator, she has worked in teaching and learning for many years – a gift given through the hard work of her parents. She continues to experience the privilege of living with country and with family. Debra completed her PhD in Narrative Theory and Semiotics at Deakin University in 2021. Read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lucy Treloar is a novelist. Her debut, Salt Creek, won the Dobbie Literary Award among others and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UK's Walter Scott Prize. Wolfe Island, her second novel, won the Barbara Jefferis Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's and NSW literary awards. Lucy's essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including Meanjin, The Age, Overland and Best Australian Stories. You can read the transcript of this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Brigid Mullane is a publisher at Ultimo Press, and in this interview she discusses her career and her path into publishing. She was previously Managing Editor at Hachette, Editor of Kill Your Darlings, and Communications Manager at Writers Victoria. She has also worked in a variety of roles at Melbourne Writers Festival, National Young Writers’ Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival, the Sun Bookshop and the Brunswick Street Bookstore. You can read the transcript of this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tony Birch is an activist, historian and essayist. In this interview Tony reflects on his most recent novel, Women and Children. His works include The White Girl (winner of the 2020 NSW Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing and shortlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Prize), Ghost River (winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing), and Blood (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award). Tony has appeared on The Garret several times before, including for one of his first recorded discussions of The White Girl and reflections about creativity during the Pandemic. You can read the transcript of this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Charlotte Wood has won the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister's Literary Award (as well as many other awards). She is the author of ten books - seven novels and three non-fiction works. Her latest novel is Stone Yard Devotional, which she describes as an 'interior' and 'austere' work, and her most personal work of fiction to date. Charlotte has appeared on The Garret several times before, including to discuss her non-fiction work The Luminous Solution, as well as a deep-dive into her international bestseller, The Natural Way of Things. You can read the transcript of this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hedley Thomas is a journalist and has won eight Walkley awards, the first for his investigations into the Australian Federal Police investigations of Dr Mohamed Haneef, and the second for the podcast 'The Teacher's Pet'. In 2023 he published 'The Teacher's Pet' the book, and in this episode Hedley takes the reader behind the scenes of the global podcast. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar and founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne. He is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2020) and Right Story Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking (2023). His work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to resolve complex issues and explore global crises. You can read the transcript for this interview here. This episode comes with a trigger warning for suicide and mental ill-health. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie author of Bundjalung and European heritage. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead, and her latest novel is Edenglassie. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Killing Darcy won the Royal Blind Society Award and was shortlisted for an Aurealis award. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Laura Jean McKay is a fiction writer, and her latest work is the short story collection Gunflower. Her previous novel, The Animals in That Country, was awarded the international Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as the Victorian Prize for Literature and the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year. Laura was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mirandi Riwoe is an award writer of historical non-fiction. In 2023 she released Sunbirds, a historical fiction romance interrogating a bygone era - Java in 1941 before the Japanese invasion of World War II and in the lead up to the revolution to overthrow the colonial administration of the Dutch East Indies to become Indonesia in 1949. Her 2020 novel Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and the Queensland Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her short fiction and novellas can be found in the collection The Burnished Sun. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sara Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other, and made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) is her first novel. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chris Masters has practiced the dark art of investigative journalism for decades. He spent extended periods with Australian forces in Afghanistan, and in 2023 published Flawed Hero, his account of reporting on Ben Roberts-Smith and subsequent defamation trial. He is the author of Flawed Hero (2023), No Front Line (2017), Uncommon Soldier (2013) and Jonestown (2006). His reports 'The Big League' and 'The Moonlight State' both led to Royal Commissions. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most recognised and respected journalists. As the new presenter of Australian Story and the recent host of the ABC’s flagship current affairs program, 7.30, she has interviewed dozens of prominent people. Leigh is the winner of three Walkley Awards. She has written three long form works - Detainee 002 (2007), Any Ordinary Day (2019) and Storytellers (2023), as well as the essay On Doubt. In 2023, her service to journalism and the community was recognised with an honorary doctorate from Edith Cowan University. Leigh has previously appeared on The Garret, and you can listen to that interview here. You can read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kate Mildenhall and Robbie Arnott recorded this session 'Into the Wild' LIVE at Canberra Writers Festival in August 2023. Robbie's acclaimed debut, Flames, won a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist award and a Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prize, and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, a New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, a Queensland Literary Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the Not the Booker Prize. His follow-up, The Rain Heron, won the Age Book of the Year award, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the ALS Gold Medal, the Voss Literary Prize and an Adelaide Festival Award. Limberlost is his third novel. It won the Age Book of the Year Award and the BookPeople Book of the Year Awards, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Read the transcript for this interview here. Thanks to Canberra Writers Festival This recording took place at 2:30pm on Sunday 20 August at Kambri Cultural Centre (ANU), and thanks go to the phenomenal team at Canberra Writers Festival for sharing this audio with us. If you are interested in running festivals, judging prizes and writing reviews, we recommend this interview with Beejay Silcox, Judge of The Stella Prize and Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kate Mildenhall and Astrid Edwards recorded this session 'The Hummingbird Effect' LIVE at Canberra Writers Festival in August 2023. Kate's debut novel, Skylarking, was longlisted for Debut Fiction in The Indie Book Awards 2017 and the 2017 Voss Literary Award, and her bestselling The Mother Fault was longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and shortlisted for the 2020 Aurealis Awards. The Hummingbird Effect is her third novel. Kate also teaches creative writing and co-hosts The First Time podcast. Read the transcript for this interview here. Thanks to Canberra Writers Festival This recording took place at 2:30pm on Saturday 19 August at Kambri Cultural Centre (ANU), and thanks go to the phenomenal team at Canberra Writers Festival for sharing this audio with us. If you are interested in running festivals, judging prizes and writing reviews, we recommend this interview with Beejay Silcox, Judge of The Stella Prize and Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Erin Riley is a social worker, and has spent most of the last decade working alongside marginalised populations in community aged care. Erin is also a writer, and their A Real Piece of Work is their debut memoir and collection of essays. Erin brings a queer lived experience to their professional work and to their writing. They were a Penguin Random House Australia Write It fellow in 2021, and have been published in Kill Your Darlings, Bent Street and various corners of the internet. Read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Anna Funder is the author of the international bestsellers Stasiland (2002) and All That I Am (2012). Her third major work, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life (2023) interrogates the historical record to uncover Eileen O'Shaunessy, the wife of George Orwell, and her influence on his writing. Her books have won multiple literary awards: Stasiland received the the Samuel Johnson Prize (the UK's premier award for non-fiction and All That I Am the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Originally trained as an international human rights lawyer, Anna is a former DAAD Fellow in Berlin, Australia Council Fellow, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Read the transcript for this interview here. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Poppy Matters
I loved Isobelle Carmody since I was a 10 year old. For a long time she was my favourite author and the only person from whom I have ever had a signature. But now, after waiting for 21 years for the last Legend Song Saga installment, I feel that Isobelle has lost respect for her readers. In what universe can leaving a story untold for so long, and instead telling other stories, be necessary? I am certain there are readers who have dies waiting in the 21 long years.