q and as and interviews

Interview with Jess Ho

We were thrilled to have the chance to chat with author Jess Ho about their recently published memoir, Raised by Wolves. They talk to us about where the work began, the writing process, advice for their younger self, and the future of food writing.

Congratulations on the publication of Raised by Wolves! Can you tell us in your own words a bit about the book? Where did it originate for you and what made you want to write…

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Interview with Yassmin Abdel-Magied

With her major new essay collection, Talking About a Revolution, Yassmin Abdel-Magied explores themes of resistance, transformation and revolution with clarity and a confidence of vision. She talks to Readings about preparing the collection, the essay she’s most excited for people to read and her new home in London.

Hi Yassmin! Tell us about your new essay collection, Talking About a Revolution.

Talking About a Revolution is a collection of essays, reflecting on, critiquing and analysing the challenges…

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Q&A with Charmaine Ledden-Lewis

by Leanne Hall

We chat with Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, the illustrator of the wonderful new picture book Found.

Congratulations on winning the Kestin Indigenous Illustrator Award! What is your background as an artist, and what was it like undertaking a mentorship as part of the Award?

Thank you! I’ve enjoyed art my whole life; the practice, appreciation and exploration of it. My parents have always been very encouraging and supportive, as is my husband, and having that support and encouragement is important. On…

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Readings Prize spotlight: Q&A with Alice Robinson

by Alice Robinson

The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here, we chat with Robinson about parenthood, the very real threat of climate change, and what she’s reading now.

Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction! Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Thank you so much! I’m absolutely stoked to be included on this shortlist! I’ve been buying…

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Readings Prize spotlight: Q&A with Amanda O'Callaghan

by Amanda O'Callaghan

This Taste for Silence by Amanda O'Callaghan is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here, we chat with O'Callaghan about her road to publication and the power of silence in fiction.

Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction! Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Thank you! I’m truly honoured to be on the list. My book, This Taste for Silence

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Readings Prize spotlight: Q&A with Alice Bishop

by Alice Bishop

A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here, we chat with Bishop about how and why she chose to write about the long aftermath of Black Saturday.

Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction! Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Thank you. I feel very lucky to be on this list.

A Constant Hum is…

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Readings Prize spotlight: Q&A with Joshua Lobb

by Joshua Lobb

The Flight of Birds by Joshua Lobb is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here, we chat with Lobb about birds, climate change and whether fiction can be political.

Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction! Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Thank you for including me on the shortlist!

The writer and teacher Pip Newling plays a game with students…

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Readings Prize spotlight: Q&A with Angela Meyer

by Angela Meyer

A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Here, we chat with Meyer about ghosts, female desire and blurring the lines in fiction.

Tell us a little bit about your book?

A Superior Spectre is about a man who abuses an experimental technology that allows him to enter the mind of a woman in the past. It’s also about Leonora, a young woman in 19th-century…

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Q&A with Readings Children’s Book Prize winner Carly Nugent

We sat down with the Carly Nugent – author of the 2019 Readings Children’s Book Prize winner The Peacock Detectives – to talk about what makes a good mystery, what inspired her book and what she’s been reading.

Congratulations on winning the Readings Children’s Book Prize! Can you tell us a bit about why you wanted to write this story? Has the book been with you for a while?

Thank you! It’s such an honour to win this prize. I…

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Q&A with Stephanie Bishop

by Chris Gordon

In 2015, Stephanie Bishop was named the winner of the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction for her stunning second novel, The Other Side of the World. We’re thrilled that her new book, Man Out of Time, has arrived on our shelves.

Events manager Chris Gordon chats with Bishop about her inspiration behind the book and how her writing process works.

We are so thrilled that your third novel has arrived in-store. Congratulations! You always write with such…

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Meet emerging children's book illustrator Sophie Beer

We chat with emerging children’s book illustrator Sophie Beer about her craft and inspirations.

We love how bold and fizzing your art is. Can you tell us a little bit about your process and the materials you use?

I usually start off with a mood board of things that inspire me. Photos! Other illustrations! Cross-stitches! A soup recipe! Interpretive dance! Anything can be inspirational. I then rush to get my ideas down on paper as quickly as possible while in…

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Mark Rubbo chats with Peter Carey

by Mark Rubbo

Our Managing Director Mark Rubbo chats with Man Booker prize winning author Peter Carey about his .

A large part of A Long Way from Home takes place during one of the famous round-Australia endurance races of the late 50s, commonly referred to as the Redex Trial. Your descriptions of this race have an authenticity to them that thrills. What kind of research did you undertake to make these scenes feel so vivid?

The answer, I’m afraid, is really boring…

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We chat with Pilgrim Lee about her gorgeous new picture book

by Leanne Hall

Pilgrim Lee is a super-talented designer and illustrator, and she just happens to work at our Readings Kids shop. We chat to her about her debut picture book, The 12 Days of Christmas.

How did you approach presenting a traditional Christmas carol in a modern picture book?

Initially the illustrations were just a fun self-initiated project. I’ve always loved the imagery of the song and it seemed like an irresistible project for a set of postcards. I’m bored by…

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Josh Langley on exploring mental health in children's books

In recognition of Mental Health Week (8 October to 14 October), we chat to Josh Langley, an Australian author/illustrator who has written two picture books that can open up discussions with young kids about taking care of their mental health.

It’s OK to Feel the Way You Do is designed to get kids talking about their feelings. What inspired you to write this book?

It was my partner’s idea. I initially thought the topic of feelings and emotions was too…

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Our Teen Advisory Board interviews Zana Fraillon

The Readings Teen Advisory Board is a volunteer group of teens that meet once a month to chat about young adult books, learn about careers in the book industry and give us advice.

The Board recently read The Bone Sparrow, a moving story about a Rohingyar refugee born in a detention centre. Here, they ask author Zana Fraillon their most pressing questions.

How hard was it to maintain a balance of the sad reality of Subhi’s life as well…

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Mark Rubbo interviews Richard Flanagan

by Mark Rubbo

Our Managing Director Mark Rubbo chats with Man Booker prize winning author Richard Flanagan about his new genre-bending novel, First Person.

Your new novel First Person has some connection to your own experience, in that it is about a young writer who is commissioned to ghostwrite the memoir of a notorious conman. You were commissioned to ghostwrite the memoir of notorious conman John Friedrich. Why did you decide to write a novel based on this experience?

Why not? At…

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Alice Pung interviews Jock Serong

by Alice Pung

Alice Pung interviews Jock Serong about On the Java Ridge, his literally page-turning novel of politics, asylum seekers, a storm, a surf trip… and treason on the high seas.

Jock Serong tells me a true story about a British surfer who went out to ride the waves immediately after a tsunami struck Sri Lanka: ‘Tens of thousands of people were killed, but he went out the very next day. This guy would have had to clamber over debris and…

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Jamila Rizvi interviews Briohny Doyle

by Jamila Rizvi

Jamila Rizvi interviews Briohny Doyle about her memoir of ‘adulthood’, Adult Fantasy.

Briohny Doyle and I are seduced by the same kinds of clickbait.

Acknowledged collectively with the hybrid term ‘listicle’, these are the stories Buzzfeed pioneered but that are now produced en masse by everyone from Cosmopolitan to Business Insider. Thirty things you should know by thirty, 12 signs you’re ready to settle down, What percentage ‘grown up’ are you really? and, of course, How

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Q&A with artist Adam John Cullen

by Adam John Cullen

Melbourne based artist (and St Kilda bookseller!) Adam John Cullen is one of 78 dynamic Australian artists featured in Melissa Loughnan’s Australiana to Zeitgeist. We chat with Adam about his practice, and the best ways to learn more about other Australian artists.

1. Tell us a little bit about your art practice.

My practice is largely based in sculptural installation, working with themes of commodity exchange/trade, and personal histories of found objects. I studied photography at RMIT and Monash…

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Q&A with Annie Smithers

by Chris Gordon

Chef, gardener and restaurateur Annie Smithers chats with our events manager Chris Gordon about her new cookbook, Annie’s Farmhouse Kitchen.

Your new cookbook is a collection of the menus you’ve cooked for your wonderful restaurant (du Fermier). I love this. How do you collect your ideas to pull such an such an impressive array of recipes together? Are you a note taker?

When I first thought of writing this book, it was because I had amassed a…

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Jo Case interviews Jessica Friedmann

by Jo Case

Jo Case interviews Jessica Friedmann about her debut collection of essays, Things That Helped.

The opening chapter in Jessica Friedmann’s memoir-in-essays, Things That Helped, closes with her lying on her bathroom floor in the middle of the night, resolved to drown herself in the Maribyrnong River, but unable to get up. She’s a young woman engulfed by early motherhood, distanced not just from her creative self, but from her very grasp on language. Her body is scarred and…

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Hear from one of the contributors to They Cannot Take the Sky

They Cannot Take the Sky is a collection of first-person accounts of the reality of life in mandatory detention. It has been compiled and edited by Behind the Wire, an award-winning oral history organisation.

Amir Taghinia is a 23-year-old man who has been in immigration detention on Manus Island since 2013. His story appears in They Cannot Take the Sky, under the title ‘We are all convicted to live on this planet’. It is based on two long conversations…

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Q&A with Alison Evans, author of Ida

We chat with debut Australian author Alison Evans about their debut YA crossover novel, Ida, an evanescent story of doppelgangers, time travel and deciding what to do with your life.

Your protagonist Ida has the intriguing ability to move between parallel universes – an ability that grants her power and control, but also brings her much confusion. What were the origins of this idea?

I was working in a cafe at a tourist railway and had finished for the…

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Q&A with Matthew Griffin, author of Hide

by Jason Austin

American author Matthew Griffin chats with our own bookseller Jason Austin about his powerful debut novel, Hide. (You can also read Jason’s rave review of the book here.)

First of all let me say congratulations! I loved Hide so much, not just for the exquisite writing but also for the subject matter. Your novel tells the story of two men, Wendell and Frank, who meet and fall in love at the conclusion of WWII and follows them into…

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Mark Rubbo interviews Tim Winton

Mark Rubbo interviews Tim Winton about his new memoir, The Boy Behind the Curtain.

Mark Rubbo: Some of the pieces that appear in your new memoir, The Boy Behind the Curtain, have appeared in various journals, but some, like the title piece, only appear now for the first time. What prompted you to collect these often very personal pieces in one volume?

Tim Winton: Well they’ve been written over quite a while, but they felt as if they…

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Jayneen Sanders on Body Safety Education in children's books

by Jayneen Sanders

In recognition of National Child Protection Week (4 – 10 September) we chat with Jayneen Sanders – an experienced primary school teacher, author and publisher who actively advocates for sexual abuse prevention education.

Tell us why you decided to write children’s books that address personal safety.

I have three daughters so when they were very young I naturally taught them that their body was their body and no-one had the right to touch it in an unsafe way. I was…

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Q&A with Miles Franklin winner A.S. Patrić

Congratulations on being named this year’s winner of the Miles Franklin! How did you react when you got the news?

It’s near the end of winter in Melbourne so my wife and daughters were all home on a Monday because of a shared cold. The news came via a phone call near lunchtime and when I hung up and told my family, there was lots of hugging, cheering and dancing around our kitchen. And then, since it was a secret…

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Emily Bitto interviews Kate Mildenhall

by Emily Bitto

Emily Bitto interviews Kate Mildenhall about her debut novel, Skylarking.

At a low point during the writing of her debut novel, Skylarking, Kate Mildenhall wrote herself a letter in the voice of her main protagonist, a young nineteenth-century woman called Kate Gilbert.

‘I don’t totally believe in that idea of channelling characters,’ Mildenhall tells me, ‘but writing the letter did have the impact of being able to do that for me. She said to me, this is what…

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Inga Simpson interviews Rajith Savanadasa

by Inga Simpson

Inga Simpson interviews Rajith Savanadasa about his debut novel, Ruins.

Rajith Savanadasa’s debut novel, Ruins, is a vibrant portrait of a family, city and country in the midst of change. It is set in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, around the end of the thirty-year civil war, in 2009. Initially, the conflict is off in the distance, reflecting Savanadasa’s own experience. The war was ‘Something happening up in the north,’ he says, ‘not part of daily reality.’ And yet…

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Q&A with Readings Children's Book Prize winner J.C. Jones

We sat down with J.C. Jones – author of the 2016 Readings Children’s Book Prize winner Run, Pip, Run – and asked her about her ideas, her road to publication, and what we can expect next.

Where did the first spark of the idea for Run, Pip, Run come from?

When I was growing up, I always loved stories about kids who weren’t afraid to take their destiny into their own hands. Shortly before I wrote the book, I’d met…

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Q&A with Ben Pobjie

by Chris Gordon

When I read Error Australis I thought… This is a history book but not as we know it. This is a book that could be used in schools, but it’s not like the textbooks we had in the 1980s. This is a book that shows irony is not lost on us as Australians. And I wondered, what was your intention in writing the book? Was it to help readers learn more about history, or was it to make people laugh…

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Emily Maguire interviews Jane Harper

by Emily Maguire

Emily Maguire talks with Jane Harper about her highly anticipated debut novel, The Dry.

The Dry opens on a scene of horror in a drought-stricken Victorian town, Kiewarra. Blowflies, ‘spoiled for choice’ and moving from one set of ‘unblinking eyes and sticky wounds’ to another as desperate farmers shoot their starving livestock, feast upon three smaller, smoother bodies: those of local farmer Luke Hadler, his wife, Karen, and their young son, Billy. In the background, a baby cries.

It’s…

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Q&A with Will Kostakis

by Isobel Moore

Will Kostakis’ new YA novel is the featured book for this month’s YA Book Club, and we’re delighted that Will himself is joining us on the night. Come along to Readings St Kilda on Wednesday 20 April and make sure to bring your very best questions.

Here, children’s bookseller Isobelle Moore asks Will a few questions about The Sidekicks.

The Sidekicks is set in a Catholic school, with the school administration taking a very conservative stance on LGBTQIA+ lives…

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Mark Rubbo interviews Helen Garner

Mark Rubbo talks with Helen Garner about her new book, Everywhere I Look, a collection of her short non-fiction pieces.

What drew you to reportage?

I was faced with an immediate need to make a living, after I got the sack from teaching in 1972. Also, it has always felt natural. It suits me. It gets me into places and situations that I would otherwise be too shy to broach.

I remember asking Peter Carey once whether he drew…

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Elke Power interviews Jennifer Down

by Elke Power

Readings Monthly editor Elke Power talks with Jennifer Down about her debut novel, Our Magic Hour.

Those of us at Readings who have been fortunate enough to read Jennifer Down’s debut novel, Our Magic Hour, have struggled with fears that anything we say or write about this outstanding book will be dismissed as hyperbole. Admittedly, we are not the first to recognise Down’s talent. Down won the 2013 Overland Short Story Award in 2013, and is now a…

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Fiona Hardy interviews Alecia Simmonds

by Fiona Hardy

Our crime fiction specialist, Fiona Hardy, chats to author Alecia Simmonds about Wild Man.

On a strange dark night in April 2012, a peaceful gathering at a remote property in New South Wales was marked by violence when Evan Johnson threatened people with a crossbow and was shot by police. These are the bare bones of Johnson’s story; in Wild Man, Alecia Simmonds does some digging. We follow Simmonds as she heads deep into the heart of this…

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Q&A with Patrick Ness

by Chris Gordon

Our events manager Chris Gordon chats with Patrick Ness about his highly anticipated new YA novel, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which will be released next Thursday 27 August.

Special note: Five lucky people who pre-order The Rest of Us Just Live Here limited edition will also receive a copy of More Than This signed by Patrick Ness. Pre-order online by Tuesday 25 August to automatically go into the draw. Only the five winners will be notified.

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David Haworth interviews Gail Jones

Gail Jones discusses her latest novel, A Guide to Berlin, with David Haworth.

David Haworth: This is your second novel in a row that borrows its title from a previously existing work – in this case a story by Nabokov –and also vividly evokes a particular city. In very Nabokovian fashion, the novel is brimming with small, tender details – one could call them easter eggs –which seem specifically designed for lovers of Nabokov and lovers of Berlin. What…

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Q&A with Kate Beaton

by Bronte Coates

Kate Beaton is an award-winning Canadian comics artist, and creator of the much-loved comic strip Hark! A Vagrant. Here, Bronte Coates talks to her about writing and illustrating her first picture book, The Princess and the Pony.

The first time I ever met the fat pony of your book (on your popular comic website Hark! A Vagrant) I was immediately smitten – and I’m obviously not alone! Can you talk a bit about this character’s origins?

It…

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Q&A with Tess Masters, author of The Blender Girl Smoothies

by Chris Gordon

Tess, firstly congratulations on taking the very humble smoothie to a whole new level. How did you find out that you had a passion for the drink to end all drinks?

Oh, thank you. It has been so much fun changing the way people think about smoothies with this book. I get messages from people all over the world who are making their way through every single recipe in the book. I love titles that read: I’m on #62 and…

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Q&A with Jane Harrison, author of Becoming Kirrali Lewis

by Neika Lehman

There are not any other Australian books quite like Becoming Kirrali Lewis. What were the initial motives for writing this novel? What made you decide: “Okay, it’s time to write this story now”?

Great to know that the book is unique! I want to break into new areas, and explore new themes. I do think there is a hunger for Aboriginal stories and yet there is a bit of a gap in the market for contemporary, urban stories. But…

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Elke Power interviews Antonia Hayes

by Elke Power

Antonia Hayes talks with Elke Power about relative truth and her debut novel, Relativity.

EP: Your debut novel, Relativity, has been likened to A Beautiful Mind and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. However, it seems likely that another comparison will be hard to avoid, and that is between Relativity and Christos Tsiolkas’ award-winning, bestselling novel The Slap. Without wanting to reveal one of the compelling central questions at the heart of Relativity

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Q&A with Helen Macdonald

Bronte Coates talks with Helen Macdonald about her award-winning memoir, H is for Hawk.

In H is for Hawk, you decide to train a goshawk (Mabel) in response to the grief you felt at your father’s death. Would you now recommend this decision to others?

Ha! No, I don’t recommend it at all. Training and free-flying a captive-bred goshawk was my own rather eccentric way of dealing with bereavement. But there’s no ‘right’ way to go about grieving…

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Interviews with our Readings Children's Book Prize Shortlist 2015

We interviewed all six of the six shortlisted authors for this year’s Readings Children’s Book Prize.

The winner of the Readings Children’s Book Prize will be announced at midday on Tuesday 16 June!

Meet A.L. Tait, author of The Mapmaker Chronicles: Race to the End of the World

What were you like as a kid?

“I think the best word to use would be ‘self-contained’. I was a skinny, freckled, ballet-dancing redhead who loved reading and topped the spelling tests…

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An interview with Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on The Train

The Girl on the Train has been one of our bestselling books over the past few months. Here, we chat to the author Paula Hawkins about her popular novel.

You said recently in a New York Times interview that this book was ‘a last roll of the dice for me as a fiction writer’. Can you tell us a little more about that – the feeling that it was now or never?

Before I wrote The Girl on

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Interview with Emily Bitto

Emily Bitto has been named the winner of the 2015 Stella Prize for her debut novel, The Strays. Find out more here.

What does winning the Stella Prize mean to you?

Winning the Stella Prize is one of the most incredible, life-changing things that’s ever happened to me. I’m only just beginning to contemplate what it will mean in terms of my career as a writer, but even being on the shortlist has had a huge impact on…

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Chris Gordon interviews Alice Zaslavsky

by Chris Gordon

Chris Gordon chats with local foodie Alice Zaslavsky about her new fact-filled, kid-friendly cookbook.

Alice, it’s all going on for you! You must be super busy with your new book, your television show, your new business, being the face of Prahran Market – and goodness, do you have time to relax?

Ha! When you put it like that, it does sound like I should have way less time on my hands. I’m pretty sure that most of the people I…

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Martin Shaw interviews Rebecca Starford

by Martin Shaw

Rebecca Starford’s Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School is generating much excitement at Readings. After numerous sleep-deprived staff members turned up to work unable to think or speak of anything else, Martin Shaw decided to go straight to the source for the story behind this fantastic debut. Here, Martin and Rebecca discuss how this extraordinary memoir came about.

MS: I’d have to confess that I was a little stunned when I heard that this book had been…

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Inside the world of online romance scams

by Chris Gordon

Chris Gordon interviews Sofija Stefanovic about her new short book

I thought

Thanks very much! It’s the first big thing I’ve had published, so it’s really nice to hear you say you liked it. And yeah, it’s sad, the world of romance scams. People fall in love and are punished for it very badly.

I know you met Bill, the main subject matter, when working in TV. What made you expand his story?

Bill and I have been friends for…

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Mark Rubbo interviews Peter Carey

Readings Managing Director Mark Rubbo chats to Peter Carey about his new novel

Amnesia seems to me to be about Australia’s relations with the US: it begins with the little known Battle of Brisbane in 1942, which saw fighting between Australian and US troops over two days, but the novel also includes a substantial critique by one of the characters of the US role in Gough Whitlam’s dismissal. Is this a correct assessment and how much do the character’s views…

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