Better Words

Welcome to our favourite episode: the yearly wrap! We're sharing our reading stats, 2024 goals and the books, TV, film and audio we loved in 2024. Make sure you're also following us on Substack . On the last day of the month, we share recommendations for two things we reckon you should read/watch/listen to – and we try to keep these separate from regular episode recommendations. The beauty of Subs...

Jennie Godfrey was raised in West Yorkshire and her debut novel,  The List of Suspicious Things , is inspired by her childhood there in the 1970s. Jennie is from a mill-working family, but as the first of the generation born after the mills closed, she went to university and built a career in the corporate world. In 2020 she left and began to write. She is now a writer and part-time Wate...

Emma Grey is a novelist, feature writer, photographer, professional speaker and accountability coach. She wrote her first adult novel, The Last Love Note , in the wake of her husband’s death. It’s a fictional tribute to their love, an attempt to articulate the magnitude of her loss and a life-affirming commitment to hope, which has gone on to win hearts around the world. In the US, it was selected...

Pip Drysdale writes ‘sexy-cool’ thrillers with a dash of witty humour. She grew up in Africa, Canada, and Australia, became an adult in New York and London, and lives on a steady diet of coffee, dreams, and literature. Her books — The Sunday Girl, The Strangers We Know, The Paris Affair and The Next Girl — have been bestsellers. She currently lives in Sydney and we're chatting about The Close Up....

Melanie Cheng is a writer and general practitioner. She was born in Adelaide, grew up in Hong Kong and now lives in Melbourne. Her debut collection of short stories, Australia Day, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2016 and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2018. Room for a Stranger , her highly acclaimed first novel, was published in 2...

Steph Tisdell is a rising star of the comedy scene in Australia. Her acting credits include Class of ’07, Total Control, Bump and Netflix Original Love is in the Air, while her writing credits include Fisk, Bump and Rosehaven. Steph lives in Meanjin with her pet parrots, Parky and Eddie. Today we're delighted to discuss her first novel, The Skin I'm In. *There is a lot of swearing in this ep* Our...

Kate Young is a writer and cook. Her award-winning Little Library Cookbooks feature food inspired by beloved works of literature. After a sunny Australian childhood, spent indoors reading books, she moved to London, which suited her much better. She now lives in a converted mill in a Gloucestershire town. Today we're discussing her debut novel, a queer rom-com called Experienced. Our intervie...

Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin man, who grew up on the Far South Coast of New South Wales as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Gary was always writing as a child, and continued his creative journey when he moved to Sydney to study at film school. Gary has experience working in youth work, Aboriginal health, child protection, the disability sector (including experience working in the youth...

Anna Zoe Quirke is a queer and autistic author and librarian from the North of England. She currently lives in Manchester with her partner, Rachael, and their very angry tortoise, Sheldon. They’re at their happiest writing stories about queer and neurodivergent people finding and claiming their place in the world, exploring the literary wonders of the UK, or making a big ol’ mess in the kitchen ba...

Welcome to a bonus episode where we catch up on things we've recently bought, read and watched. We've shared bits of this over on Substack , where we post monthly wraps of things we've loved. Books and other things mentioned: Caitlin's trip to PEI Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue* (listen to Caitlin chat about it here ) The Art of Catching Feelings by...

Sophie Green is an author and publisher who lives in Sydney. In her spare time she writes about country music on her website, Sunburnt Country Music. Sophie's debut novel, The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club , was a Top Ten bestseller and was shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards for General Fiction Book of the Year 2018, longlisted for both the Matt Richell Award...

Amy Hutton writes contemporary romantic comedies from her home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. An award-winning Television Producer by trade, she walked away from a successful career in network television, to follow her dream of becoming an author. Amy is a Romance Writers of America and Romance Writers of NZ Award Winner and the 2023 runner-up in the Romance Writers of Australia Emerald Award. Amy'...

Emma Steele was born and raised on the west coast of Scotland before studying law at The University of Aberdeen. Working as a solicitor in Edinburgh, she continued to dabble in her childhood passions of art and creative writing for several years. Emma now writes big love stories with a twist, and with a particular focus on phenomena. The stunning city of Edinburgh is generally her setting of choic...

Avi Duckor-Jones trained as a lawyer before gaining his MA in creative writing from Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters in 2013. His travel writing has been published with BBC Travel, The NZ Listener and Lonely Planet, among others. Avi has worked as a writing instructor and trip leader for National Geographic, directed a school in Ghana, and is the winner of the realit...

Born in Sweden, to a family of writers and readers, Josie Ferguson moved to Scotland when she was two. She returned to Sweden in her twenties, where she completed a vocational degree in Clinical Psychology (MSc). Upon graduating, she moved to London to pursue a career in publishing, something she had dreamed about since delving into fictional worlds as a child, hidden under the duvet with a torch....

Welcome to The Re-Read: bonus episodes where we chat with previous Better Words guests and catch up on what's happened since they joined us on the pod. Lauren Draper is a Melbourne-based writer and marketing professional. She is a graduate of RMIT's Professional Writing and Editing program and now works in publishing - she loves nothing more than a story infused with magic, hijinks and a touch of...

Welcome to The Re-Read: bonus episodes where we chat with previous Better Words guests and catch up on what's happened since they joined us on the pod. Bri Lee is a writer, journalist and activist. Her debut book Eggshell Skull was a multi-award winner. She followed this with Beauty and Who Gets to Be Smart . She is working on a PhD in law at the University of Sydney where she also lectures in med...

Liam Pieper is an author and ABIA-winning ghostwriter. The first was a memoir, The Feel-Good Hit of the Year , shortlisted for the National Biography Award and the Ned Kelly Best True Crime award. His second was the Penguin Special Mistakes Were Made , a collection of funny true stories. He was co-recipient of the 2014 M Literary Award, winner of the 2015 Geoff Dean Short Story Prize, the inaugura...

Brydie Lee-Kennedy is an Australian TV writer. She has written on shows for Netflix, Apple TV and Disney. In a former life, she was a cabaret performer, kid's party entertainer and sex columnist. Today, we're discussing her debut novel Go Lightly . Our interview begins at  26.00 We've got a Substack publication now! On the last day of the month, we share recommendations for two things we reck...

Welcome to The Re-Read: bonus episodes where we chat with previous Better Words guests and catch up on what's happened since they joined us on the pod. Dr Jodi McAlister is a romance author and romance scholar. Her latest novel is Not Here To Make Friends. Listen to our previous chat with Jodi here . You can follow @jodimcalister on Instagram In this interview, we chat about: The complex reality T...

Emma Darragh spends most of her time on Gadigal and Dharawal Lands. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong, where she works as a sessional academic. Her writing has appeared in numerous Australian publications, including Cordite, Westerly, Meniscus, TEXT, and The Big Issue Fiction Edition. Emma’s debut novel-in-stories, Thanks for Having Me , is published by JOAN. Ou...

Lottie Hazell is a contemporary literary scholar, board game designer and writer in Warwickshire. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and her research considers food-writing in 21st Century fiction. Today, we’re discussing her debut novel Piglet . Our interview begins at  16:00 We've got a Substack publication now! On the last day of the month, we share recommendations for two things we recko...

Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. She was a 2021 Finalist for the Walkley Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism and has written for many publications. She also lived in the UK for several years, has an MSt in English Literature from the University of Oxford and is a current (remote) doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester. Green Dot is her debut novel. Our interview begins a...

Kelly McCaughrain is a YA writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her first book, Flying Tips for Flightless Birds won the Children's Books Ireland Book of the Year Award and NI Book Award. She was the Queens University Belfast Children's Writing Fellow 2019-2021. Her new YA, Little Bang , is about teen pregnancy and was published by Walker Books in January 2024. When she's not writing she's mentor...

Welcome to The Re-Read: bonus episodes where we chat with previous Better Words guests and catch up on what's happened since they joined us on the pod. Libby Page became a Sunday Times bestselling author with her debut The Lido and has since become a staple of the 'up-lit' genre with her following novels The 24-Hour Cafe , The Island Home , and The Vintage Shop . Before becoming an author, Libby w...