q and as and interviews
Peter Salmon
by Kabita Dhara[[peter-salmon]]Kabita Dhara interviews Australian author and former editor of our Readings Monthly newsletter, Peter Salmon, about his pitch-black satirical debut novel, The Coffee Story.
Teddy Everett, the head of the Everett and Sons Coffee company, is telling his ‘coffee story’ from his deathbed. As his story progresses, the reader becomes aware of how unreliable Teddy’s narrative is, and how unlikeable Teddy himself is. Of course, the idea of the main character being an anti-hero is not unusual,…
Mary Horlock
by Andrew McDonaldHanif Kureishi has called Mary Horlock’s novel
‘an unforgettable and brilliant debut’. We think highly of it as well as you can see in our
You were born in Australia but grew up in Guernsey in the Channel Islands where the novel is set. How did your own experiences of island life shape the writing of this book?
It was strange to move from a very big island to a very small one, although I was…
Malcolm Knox
by Fiona CappMalcolm Knox is the author of three novels,
The first thing that hits you when you open Malcolm Knox’s The Life is the narrative voice. Half demotic poetry, half twitchy stream-of-consciousness, it plunges the reader into the head of the tormented, delusional Dennis Keith, a mercurial champion surfer-turned-recluse who now lives with his mother in a retirement unit in Coolangatta. Full of sly wordplay and ironic edgy bravado, it’s a voice that perfectly captures the eternally adolescent energy of surfing…
Georgia Blain
by Phoebe BondPhoebe Bond talks to Georgia Blain about her new novel
,
writing about and engaging with the politics of the times and the challenges of being a non-Aboriginal writer writing Aboriginal characters.
This is the first adult novel you’ve written in seven years. How did the writing of this book compare to previous novels? Can you talk a bit about the impetus to write
I started the book when I was writing my memoir, Births Deaths…
Craig Sherborne
by Jon BauerCraig Sherborne is an extraordinary Australian writer – one who burst onto the local literary scene with an impressive splash with his childhood memoir,
Love, let’s face it, is the topic. Love is at the heart of generations of literature, film, oral tradition. If our love of love isn’t instilled through our mother’s milk, it’s promptly spoon-fed to us through fairytales. And we continue to happily devour it, ever after. Most commonly though, love stories are about a struggle against…
S.J. Watson
by Jo Case, editor of Readings Monthly[[SJ-Watson]] Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletter, interviews S.J. Watson about his debut psychological thriller Before I Go to Sleep, which was borne out of the Faber Academy writing program in the UK.
Your narrator, Christine, is afflicted with a rare kind of amnesia, in which her memory can only retain the events of the day. Each time she wakes, she starts her identity from scratch, not knowing how the years between childhood and middle age unfolded.…
Geraldine Brooks
by Mark Rubbo, Managing Director of Readingsand
Geraldine Brooks, about her new novel
.
All of your novels are based on historical events and explore big themes. In
It’s always all about the story for me. The themes just seep into the tale telling without any conscious thought. But I do think the stories from the past that attract me tend to be about people under stress, during moments of crisis or decision.
In an interview you said that…
Will Hill
by Holly Harper, Childrens' Book Specialistis the new action-packed horror book from Will Hill which we loved – you can read our review
So, Will, you’ve written an action-packed horror book complete with secret government agencies, vampires and Frankenstein’s creature. Where does an idea like that come from?
This is the question most commonly asked by my mum, who is continually trying to juggle being proud of her author son and being worried about some of the things I think up!
To be…
Andreas Deja, Disney animator
by Gerard Elson, DVD Specialist at Readings St KildaDuring his time as a Disney animator, Andreas Deja has brought to life some of the most memorable animated characters of the past two decades. Gaston, Roger Rabbit, King Triton and Jafar all owe their ‘physical’ charisma to Deja’s skills with a pencil. His latest creations are the august Great Prince in Bambi II and Tigger in the forthcoming Winnie the Pooh. Gerard Elson from Readings St Kilda spoke with Andreas about the release of Bambi and Bambi II on…
Leslie Cannold
by Phoebe BondLeslie Cannold, author of the critically acclaimed
(2000) and
(2005), which made the
Australian Financial Review’s
top 101 books list, talks to
Readings Monthly
editorial assistant Phoebe Bond about her third book and first work of fiction
,
The Book of Rachael
I began the fiction-writing journey in a different place on this question to where I ended it. When I started The Book of Rachael, my experience was…
Téa Obreht
by Jo CaseTéa Obreht is the 24-year-old writer who has been spending more than her fair share of time in the literary spotlight lately. And for good reason too. Colum McCann says she’s the ‘most thrilling literary discovery in years’, she was named as one of the
New Yorker
‘s top 20 writers under 40 last year and
- her debut novel - has been received extremely well by critics. Jo Case spoke to her for Readings on the…
Jane Sullivan
by Patrick AllingtonJane Sullivan is bestknown to Melbourneliterature-lovers as thescribe behind the*Saturday Age’s
Don’t let the title of JaneSullivan’s new novelfool you. Little People iscrammed with big ideas andlarger-than-life characters,several of whom are famousmidgets. ‘I’d like people to have the sensethat they’re watching a wonderful show andthe curtain swings open and the characterscome on and they perform, and have someof that exhilaration of a live performance,’Sullivan says. ‘I hope it’s convincing … butI don’t mind if it seems a bit over the…
Cherise Saywell
by Jo CaseJo Case talks to Cherise Saywell about her debut novel Desert Fish.
This story is so intrinsically Australian, with its droughts and desert and distinctive imagery. (‘Saltbush clinging bitterly to sand. Sharp blue glitter of sky.’) Yet you wrote it from the UK. Was recreating this distant landscape a challenge, or did distance help fuel your imagination?
Definitely the latter. I was worried when I started that it would be difficult – the landscape I was living in was…
Kevin Hart
by Paul Mitchell.
Your previous collection,
I finished Young Rain in 2006, and put it away to ferment for a couple of years, and then revised it a little. Morning Knowledge took about four years to write. The books I publish don’t represent all that I write; sometimes a poem may wait ten years before it fits into the right book. So I composed other poems while writing Morning Knowledge, as well as translating René Char.
The title,
I…
Jennifer Mills
by Jo Case.
You’ve said, ‘My life has been research for this novel’ (though it’s in no way veiled autobiography). How have aspects of your lived experience fed into and inspired the book?
I have been a no-budget traveller in many parts of Australia and the world, and hitched rides with a lot of people over the last fifteen years. Some of them have formed the basis for characters in Gone. Hitchhiking is getting harder, but it’s still a great…
Meg Mundell
by Sophie CunninghamMeg Mundell has been a Melbourne-based working writer for over a decade, with her features published in
Once you’ve read Meg Mundell’s debut novel Black Glass, you won’t look at Melbourne quite the same way again. Set in a city that is either Melbourne in a parallel universe, or in the near future, the effect is like a shadow version of the author’s hometown. A country girl from New Zealand, Mundell has lived in Melbourne for over ten years…
S.J. Finn
by Jo Case.
This novel is so firmly rooted in Melbourne and surrounds, with your descriptions of judgemental hippie rural towns, disengaged urban commuters, and details like St Kilda’s date palms, trams and cafes. How important is place to this novel?
Place has been central to me as a writer – perhaps before anything else. It could be because I find it more straightforward to put on paper. But there’s also no doubt it helps me to envisage…
Ferdinand von Schirach
by Johanna AdorjánJohanna Adorján, author of
The Berlin criminal defense attorney Ferdinand von Schirach has joined the ranks of writers with his first book of short stories. A conversation about the depths of the human soul and the empirical advantages of writing attorneys.
The stories that the Berlin criminal defense attorney Ferdinand von Schirach offers us in his first book are true. All of them are based on cases he has experienced in his law practice. Along with jealousy, greed, lust, despair,…
David Vann
by Jo Caseabout his debut novel,
which
The Australian
said honours ‘his promise as one of the most exciting writers at work today’, the
New York Times
said was ‘beautifully written’ and Readings staff member Jason Austin called ‘powerful and moving’.
You draw on elements from life for your fiction, but create your own characters and narratives from real-life starting points. What is the relationship between truth and fiction for you, as a writer?
The true…
Gail Jones
by Fiona McGregorGail Jones is one of Australia’s most loved and respected writers, renowned for both her novels and her short stories (gathered in two collections). And her critical acclaim can be measured by the long list of prizes, both Australian and international, that she’s either won or been shortlisted for – including three shortlistings for the Miles Franklin, two longlistings for the Orange Prize, and winning the
Circular Quay: she loved even the sound of it. Before she saw the bowl…
Lloyd Jones
by Geordie WilliamsonLloyd Jones has been a big name in his native New Zealand for over a decade, but he became internationally renowned with the Booker-shortlisted
Forgive me if I’m particularly dozy,’ says Lloyd Jones when I reach him by phone in London, before resting his receiver long enough to drop a sash against the morning noise. It is 8am, UK time, and the author has spent a restless night. It seems the accommodation above Soho’s Groucho Club exposes guests to the…
David Michôd, Writer/Director of Animal Kingdom
by Gerard Elson, DVD Specialist at Readings St Kilda18 AFI award nominations isn’t bad going for your first feature film, and with Animal Kingdom David Michôd has achieved just that. Motivated by Melbourne’s bleak gangland history, the film inducts audiences into a pride of backbiting career criminals – Ben Mendelsohn, Jackie Weaver and Joel Edgerton among them – with a confidence which marks Michôd as one of the country’s most promising emergent filmmaking talents.
Animal Kingdom is available now on both DVD and Blu-ray though Madman. Michôd answered…
Lian Tanner
by Leanne HallWhen you were a child, were you also bold and impatient like Goldie?
No, I was actually a very shy child and not at all brave. I think this is why I enjoy writing about Goldie and Toadspit, because I would have loved to have been as bold as they are!
Did you have any particular country, society or historical time in mind when creating the city of Jewel, with its overbearing Guardians and oppressive rules?
…
Things Bogans Like
by Jo CaseJo Case spoke to authors Intravenus De Milo, Hunter McKenzie-Smythe, Flash Johnson, Enron Hubbard, E. Chas McSween and Michael Jayfox about their book of Things Bogans Like.
What’s the difference between the ‘harmless’ bogan and the aspirational bogan?
Fundamentally, the ‘harmless’ bogan is self-actualised. It is comfortable in the knowledge that it likes cheap beer, pub rock and machismo. It does not need the validation of its peers, strangers or celebrities. It does not hold Harvey Norman in as…
Shaun Tan
by Gerard Elson, DVD Specialist at Readings St KildaShort film director is the newest feather in Shaun Tan’s already crowded cap. The beloved author/illustrator of such contemporary classics as Tales from Outer Suburbia and The Arrival has plundered his own back catalogue for his first foray into animated filmmaking.
Based on Tan’s 32-page storybook from 1999, the animated The Lost Thing is a fifteen-minute project eight years in the making. It’s slow going by anyone’s standards, but the effort paid off when the film claimed the Gran Prix…
Toni Jordan
by Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletterJo Case interviews Melbourne author,
What made you decide to write about a family of charismatic con artists? And was it a challenge making your heroine – whose aim is to hoodwink her love interest – sympathetic?
Ha! I love this question. It makes me sound like I know what I’m doing. I’d actually sat down to write a very serious novel that said extremely insightful things about the human condition couched in lyrical prose. This took one year of…
Shaun Tan
by Oslo DavisRecently I spoke with Shaun Tan about
Are you worried you’ve given the game away by revealing your trade secrets?
Not really – I don’t think being an artist is the same as being a magician. In fact, a large part of the appeal of painting and drawing is to do with the visibility of process, all the lines, paint blobs and material facts of creation are exposed. I think it’s also good to appreciate the fundamental simplicity of The…
Paul Kelly
by Michael Green, freelance journalistA few days before I was scheduled to interview Paul Kelly, I happened to be in Newcastle, watching a singer-songwriter night in a quiet bar. A rangy looking man stood up and performed a halting, anguished cover of Kelly’s song ‘How To Make Gravy’. In the lyrics, a man calls his brother from jail, just before Christmas. He passes on his gravy recipe, together with an extra serving of regret. It’s the kind of taut, empathetic storytelling for which Kelly…
Anna Krien
by Alan AttwoodAnna Krien is a major Australian writer to watch. It’s not just Readings who thinks so - the Melbourne Writers’ Festival chose her to help launch this year’s program alongside Frank Moorhouse. Chloe Hooper says her book ‘pulsates with life and truth’. And her writing has featured in
Walkley award-winning
Anna Krien arrives by bicycle to talk about her first book, Into the Woods. In an hour or so, she will start a waitressing shift at a city restaurant…
Anjum Hasan
by Prithvi VaratharajanIndian novelist and editor of the Indian literary magazine
The Caravan
Anjum Hasan’s first two novels
-
and
have been published by new Melbourne small press
Your first novel
When I was in school, the Indian National Pledge was dinned into us—“India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sister. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage…”
One may believe in this textbook pledge…
Lara Fergus
by Kate Goldsworthy, editorial assistant at Readings MonthlyLara Fergus – a long-time human rights worker – has created a gripping, powerful and intelligent tale about the exile and survival of twin sisters in
My Sister Chaos ,
published by Spinifex, an award-winning feminist press that always releases challenging, progressive material. Kate Goldsworthy spoke to her for Readings.
You’ve worked overseas with refugee and newly arrived immigrant women, and your characters are refugee women who’ve survived a brutal war. How much of their lives did you base on…
DBC Pierre
by Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletterJo Case talks to Booker Prize-winning author DBC Pierre about his new novel
Lights Out In Wonderland.
You call
This loose trilogy is a human snapshot of life in the first decade of a millennium; the twentieth century saw more change come to humans than any century before it – and yet we remain whimsical and self-absorbed creatures, often still driven by animal instinct. The works were meant to paint a cutting yet ultimately forgiving portrait of our mad ways…
Patrick Holland
by Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletterJo Case speaks to Queensland writer Patrick Holland about his beautiful and arresting new novel, The Mary Smokes Boys.
The town of Mary Smokes is a key character in the novel – it’s infused with such a rich, evocative sense of place. How important is place to your writing, and to this book in particular?
It’s absolutely essential. Mary Smokes Creek is very real, though it’s 20 kilometres further north, as the crow flies, than the book has it…
Leanne Hall
by Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletterJo Case interviews Leanne Hall about her Text Prize-winning YA debut *This Is Shyness*
Leanne Hall arrives at the State Library engulfed in a coat and scarf, a lavender beanie over her pixie haircut. Her attention to detail when it comes to costumes – literally following my suggestion that she bring a coat and beanie so we can brave the cold on the pavement tables outside Mr Tulk’s – makes me laugh. It’s just what one of the two…
Fiona Wood
by Leanne HallLeanne Hall talks to Melbourne TV writer turned YA novelist Fiona Wood about her debut YA novel
Six Impossible Things.
Dan Cereill is a wonderful narrator - funny, wry, sensitive and angsty - how did you get into the head of a teenage boy so effectively?
Dan was tapping at my shoulder when I was supposedly writing something else - a film script. I started writing bits and pieces of him down. He was so much himself from early on…
Gregory Day
by Lisa GortonFor Victorian novelist Gregory Day, his writing is inexorably linked to a sense of place. His three novels - all very different in form - are linked by their characters and setting, the fictional Victorian coastal town of Mangowak. Like the real-life coastal town Day calls his home, along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, Magowak is being transformed by corporate cultural tourism.
In
Lyrical though it is, Gregory Day’s writing takes its energy from contradiction. He loves to challenge stereotypes, to…
Peter Rose
by Jo CasePeter Rose is one of Australia’s foremost literary figures – well known in his long-running role as editor of Australian Book Review and as author of the bestselling memoir Rose Boys and Miles Franklin longlisted novel A Case of Knives. Jo Case spoke to him for Readings about his latest novel, a wickedly funny satire set in the literary world, Roddy Parr.
In
Yes, as with nearly everything I write – unfinished business. I knew I wanted to…
Nicolai Lilin
by Anthony MorrisNicolai Lilin’s memoir
Tattoist and writer Nicolai Lilin.
What was the reaction to your book from the people you grew up with?
My mother says that I speak too much and that in describing many situations I got little right. Before he died, my grandfather knew that I was going to publish my book and was happy. In the telephone call I placed from Italy to Transdniestria a few days before his death he told me: ‘I am happy that…
Fiona McGregor
by Christos TsiolkasChristos Tsiolkas, much-loved author of
Indelible Ink
, is Marie, a divorced grandmother in North Shore Sydney who one day drunkenly wanders into a parlour and demands a tattoo. From this startling premise we are introduced to Marie’s children, to her friends, to a brutally and lovingly detailed world of Sydney bourgeois society. From the first burst of ink flowing from the tattooist’s needle underneath Marie’s skin, she experiences the beginning of a liberation that will lead to a reconsideration…
Benjamin Law
by Marieke HardyBenjamin Law is one of those writers who, when you mention his name to those in the know, evokes exclamations of warm enthusiasm. Within the writing community, and among readers of the ultra-hip
It is odd, after reading glorious sample after glorious sample of Benjamin Law’s pithy, stark, delightfully graphic prose (torn vaginas * ,anybody? Teaching your Malaysian migrant mother the word ‘c@#t’?), to find the man in person such a sweet, wholesome type of chap. Butter wouldn’t melt. Smegma…
Rod Moss
by Barry HillRod Moss has been living and painting in Alice Springs for over two decades, forging close ties with the Aboriginal community there. He shares his experiences – and his artwork – in this amazing new memoir
,
.
Barry Hill, award-winning author of
,
spoke to him for Readings’ New Australian Writing feature series
.
Rod Moss, a strongly built, gentle man who arrived in Alice Springs 25 years ago, has a body…
Philip Pullman
by Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletterPhilip Pullman is one of the world’s highest profile atheists. His
,
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
.
Jo Case spoke to him for Readings.
You have been much celebrated for your anti-religion trilogy, His Dark Materials, and recognised as an outspoken atheist. What made you decide to tackle the story of Jesus in this book? What questions are you hoping to raise or stir?
I’m always a little sorry when people reduce His Dark Materials to…
Maile Meloy
by Jo CaseMaile Meloy earned both critical and popular acclaim with her compellingfirst novel
Liars and Saints,
a literary soap opera following 60 years inthe life of one Catholic family from World War II onwards. But it’s thequietly addictive, impressively diverse short-story collection
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
-
which comes with raves from Richard Ford and Ann Patchett as well as
The New Yorker -
that has made her a major American name. As she tells Readings’…
Susan Maushart
by Christine Gordon, Readings' Events CoordinatorIn this Mother’s Day special feature, Readings’ Chris Gordon talks to Susan Maushart about her funny, engaging and thought-provoking new book
, The Winter of Our Disconnect –
about her household experiment in going cold turkey with technology for six months, and the impact it had on her family’s life.
There are many elements of your book that I enjoyed. In particular I was pleased not to be reading a self-help book or a discourse on what’s wrong with the…
Maria Tumarkin
by Rachel PowerMaria Tumarkin is one of Australia’s most interesting writers and thinkers. Her books are intellectual journeys deep into the core of their subjects, blending the personal and the political; philosophy, history and memoir. Her first book, Traumascapes, was a survey of the impact and meaning of sites of horrific events. Her second, Courage, is an eclectic and engaging study of the true meaning of that much-discussed quality. Rachel Power spoke to Maria about her new book…
Jon Doust
by Jo CaseJon Doust’s debut book, Boy on a Wire has been longlisted for the 2010 Miles Franklin Award. A darkly funny coming-of-age story, it’s a ripping read with echoes of Craig Sherborne’s Hoi Polloi. Jo Case spoke to him for Readings.
The cover of your book says it’s a memoir; on your website you’ve said it’s ‘a sort of fiction based on a kind of life’ you once knew. What is it – fiction or memoir? Or something in-between?
…
David Musgrave
by Jo CaseDavid Musgrave is a poet, publisher and critic – and now a novelist. Jo Case spoke to him about his wonderfully Australian satire, Glissando for Readings.
The journals of Archie Fliess’s grandfather are an important thread of the story, interwoven throughout the text. What made you decide to use this technique of the journals to tell his portion of the story? Were there any challenges in crafting the distinctive voice of Heinrich Fliess in the journal form?
I…
Brenda Walker
by Jo CaseBrenda Walker is one of Australia’s most respected novelists – loved and admired for books such as
and
Poe’s Cat.
When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, books became her comfort and her sanctuary. In her memoir
Reading by Moonlight,
she shares her experience – and her intimate relationship with her favourite books. Jo Case spoke to her for Readings.
There is a fine literary tradition of moving and intelligent memoirs about facing serious illness, the…
Joel Deane
by Jo Case, editor of Readings MonthlyJoel Deane is well known in literary circles as a poet: his collection Magisterium was shortlisted for the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2009. He has also been a journalist and a political speechwriter (for Steve Bracks, then John Brumby). Jo Case spoke to him for Readings about his eagerly anticipated, utterly engrossing debut novel, The Norseman’s Song.
This is a wildly original novel – combining the confession of a nineteenth-century whaler with those of an ex-con taxi…
Abla Amad
by Joe Rubbo, Readings State Library of Victoria ManagerOn the eve of the publication of her new cookbook
, Abla’s Lebanese Kitchen,
legendary Carlton restaurateur Abla Amad took the time to chat with Readings’ resident foodie, Joe Rubbo, about her approach to cooking, the history of her restaurant, Abla’s, and her new book.
I arrive at Abla’s late on a Friday afternoon. In the dining room, a few tables of diners still linger over coffee and Lebanese sweets. If you haven’t yet dined at this landmark Melbourne restaurant…
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