The Dressmaker’s backstory, a universe of stars to expand our ideas about nature writing, and fragments and tricks galore: Kate and Cassie read Inga Simpson’s The Thinning, Brian Castro’s Chinese Postman and Rosalie Ham’s Molly with guests Ella Jeffery and Amanda Hampson
BOOKS
Inga Simpson, The Thinning, Hachette
Brian Castro, Chinese Postman, Giramondo
Rosalie Ham, Molly, Picador
GUESTS
Dr Ella Jeffery, poet and lecturer in Creative Writing at Griffith University, Qld; ABC Radio National ‘Top 5 Arts’ candidate; currently examining insecure housing as a theme in 21st-century literature
Amanda Hampson, novelist whose latest series feature tea ladies in 1960s Sydney . . . solving crime. The first, The Tea Ladies, won the 2024 Danger Award for Best Crime Novel. The second is The Cryptic Clue; and the third – The Deadly Dispute – will be published in April 2025. There will be five in the series.
Other books mentioned:
Patricia Wrightson, The Nargun and the Stars
John Marsden, Tomorrow when the War Began
James Bradley, Deep Water: The World in the Ocean
Richard Powers, Playground
Robert C. O’Brien, Z for Zachariah
Cormac McCarthy, The Road 
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
A B Facey, A Fortunate Life
Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life
Ruth Park, works 
Helen Garner, Works
John Birmingham, He Died with a Felafel in his Hand
Andrew McGahan, works
Bernadette Brennan, Brain Castro’s Fiction: The Seductive Play of Language

CREDITS

Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer: Harvey O'Sullivan, Peter Climpson, Emrys Cronin
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown