Compulsive Reader talks

Charles Freyberg reads from and talks about his latest book of poetry The Crumbling Mansion and chats with me about performance and the power of memorisation, bringing characters to life, Kings Cross and its importance in his work, on nostalgia and ecological loss, on breaking binaries, his new work-in-progress and much more.  You can find some excerpts from Charles' latest show in the links...

KA Rees is a writer of poetry and short fiction. She has been published by Margaret River Press, Cordite, Australian Poetry, Overland, Review of Australian Fiction, Spineless Wonders and Yalobusha Review, among others. She received a Varuna fellowship for her manuscript of short stories, she was shortlisted for the 2016 Judith Wright Poetry Award, was the recipient of the 2017 Barry Hannah Prize i...

On its one-year anniversary, we've re-aired, with permission, James Bradley's wonderful conversation with Beth Spencer from Climactic's ArtBreaker.  James and Beth Spencer spoke about James' new book Clade, about climate fiction, and about the imperative for art and the conversation is even more relevant today and deserves a replay.  Original publication is here: https://www.climactic.fm...

Beth Spencer in conversation with Kit Kelen about his creative practice as poet, artist, publisher, collaborator, academic, mentor, musician and blogger. Kit reads selections from some of his many books intercut with original guitar tracks. They discuss Holden cars, bushfires, coal-addiction, and the role of place in his work -- as a writer who uses a lot of Australian idiom, colloquialisms and re...

Lillian Avedian is an Armenian American journalist and poet from Los Angeles. In this episode she reads from and talks about her debut book of poetry, Journey to Tatev .  We talk about many of the key themes in the book - the many journeys: physical, metaphorical, about the uneasy alliance between grandmother, mother, daughter, on coming out, the rejection of shame and the acceptance of the r...

Adam Aitken reads from and talks about his memoir One Hundred Letters Home.  We talk about the book's multi-genres structure, the limits of memory, artefacts and perception, "fluid subject positions" and the shifting nature of identity, his poetry book Archipelago and the ongoing appeal of France, his new book due out later in the year, and lots more.  Find out more about Adam and his bo...

Australian academic, writer, and poet, Michael J. Leach reads from and talks about his latest poetry book Chronicity.   We talk about such things as the relationship between the visual/concrete poems on the page and their sonic qualities in live readings, the sensual, visceral nature of the work, how he chooses and works with constraints, his use of humour and the way he plays scientific prec...

Australian writer Emily Maguire's  new novel is a clear-eyed and compassionate novel about love and family, betrayal and forgiveness, and the things we do to fill our empty spaces. In this interview, created for The Newcastle Writers' Festival's Stories to You series https://www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/news/#podcasts , Emily reads from and talks about Love Objects .  Find out mor...

In this guest episode, author and podcaster Alison Treat interviews Leslie K Barry about her book Newark Minutemen . Note that this is a re-pod from Alison's excellent podcast Historical Fiction: Unpacked . In this interview, author Leslie K. Barry talks Newark Minutemen , and its historical 1938 setting, including the little known history behind the book around a shadow Nazi party called the Germ...

Chris Mansell is one of Australia’s notable powerhouses in the poetry world.  Chris was one of the founders of Five Islands Press and now runs PressPress , an independent publishing house she founded in 2002.  Chris has had over a dozen of her own books of poetry published as well as artist books, CDs, a collection of short fiction and even a children’s book. Her extensive body of work h...

Does being vegan mean having to miss out on burgers, jalapeno peppers and deep-fried banana fritters? No way, according to Melbourne writer and vegan recipe developer Zacchary Bird. In this episode that aired for the Newcastle Writers Festival's Stories to You series, Zacchary spills the tea on his first book  Vegan Junk Food .

Paul Rabinowitz talks to Tinfoil Crowns author Erin Jones about his novella The Clay Urn. They talk about the inspiration for his story, on working with a real situation--the Arab/Isreali conflict--in a fictional context, his evocative setting, his own experiences in the Isreali army, the complexity of war and the impact of that on young people, on seeing both sides of any conflict, key themes and...

The author of Black Rabbit and co-owner of Sappho Books reads from and talks about his latest novel and its quirky characters, about the impact of 2020, about themes and his writing style, the inherent beauty of writing for oneself, the value of small publishers, his work-in-progress, the book he's reading and loving (Janet Frame's An Autobiography) , and lots more.   Angus' website: https://...

Denise O'Hagan reads from and talks about her new poetry book The Beating Heart.   We cover such things as how the book came about, the relationship between memoir, poetry, and meaning making, on the use of sensual stimulus and poetry is everywhere, on time, and the way our pasts are ever present, on the 'heart' of and in the book, on editing for The Blue Nib, and lots more.  Connect wit...

Author, mentor, writing teacher and speaker Lee Kofman reads from about talks about her memoir Imperfect.   In this brief but far-reaching conversation, we talk about some of Lee's key themes such as body surface and how it shapes us, the power of creative nonfiction, combining memoir and research and the connection for her, how she chose the people who were profiled in the book, the antholog...

Nicola Redhouse reads from her book Unlike the Heart  and talks about the way her research grew from her own postnatal anxiety to something much bigger, about the relevance of the literary perspective on scientific inquiry, her readership, the genetic links that drive us, on the way in which her book helped her family, her works in progress and lots more. You can watch this in full video at t...

Maria Tumarkin reads from her award-winning book Axiomatic and talks about language and accents,  the many different representations of time in Axiomatic: horizontal, vertical, chronological, cyclical, and 'real' and how she represents these multiple temporalities, about her characters and their complexities, about memory and the limitations of narrative, on axioms and the way they are true a...

Sophie Hardcastle reads from her latest and much lauded novel Below Deck . We also talked about many things including her Provost scholarship at Oxford, on being an artist-in-resident with Chimu Adventures in Antarctica, the big themes of Below Deck , including ecology, respect, compassion, and the interconnectedness of all things, the link between visual art and written art, the current pandemic,...

Following the cancelled Newcastle Writers Festival, Gillian Swain and I decided to launch her new poetry book, My skin its own sky ,  online.  The launch was featured in this year's online Newcastle Writers Festival #NWFSTORIESTOYOU (see video link below). My skin its own sky was published in Dec 2019 by Flying Island Books, and is Gillian's second published work following Sang Up (Picar...

As the Newcastle Writers Festival had to be cancelled this year due to Coronavirus, we did a virtual launch for Morgan Bell's  poetry chapbook Idiomatic, for the people .  The session, which we conducted with Zoom, was a lot of fun and after my launch Morgan read and spoke about several of the poems in the collection, as well as how the book came together. The full video version can be f...

In this guest episode, Daniel Flahie of the Die Healther podcast  shares a recent interview with Dr Jim Reese on his new book Bone Chalk.    Jim talks about how he became a writer, his transition from narrative poetry to prose (and the inspiration for that), the relationship between his personal experience with crime, working in prisons (especially San Quentin) and some of the surpr...

Roslyn McFarland reads from and talks about her new novel All the Lives We've Lived , and discusses such things as her transition from English teacher and author of English HSC text books to fiction writer, the Salt Pan Creek setting of her book, the unique narrative structure and multiple stories within the narrative, her work in progress, and lots more.  Find more about Roslyn at: https://w...

In this wide-reaching and warm conversation, novelist and poet Jessica Mehta talks with novelist and poet Nina Murray, who reads some of her poems and talks about her latest poetry book Alcestis in the Underworld , the writing year in review, book titles, their relationship with Shakespeare, the appeal of the list poem and variety packs, on poetic themes, poetic sequencing and the critical importa...

Multi-talented polymath Jenny Blackford reads from her new middle-grade novel The Girl in the Mirror and talks about her attraction to different genres, how the book came about, her attraction to sci-fi (and why she chose to entangle her protagonists), the book’s lovely illustrations (especially those redbacks), on her different fan streams, her large garden, her work-in-progress (and the name of...

The author of The Wolf Hour reads from and talks about her latest novel, its origins and her research, her characters, writing about Uganda, the micro world of her family and the macro world of global politics, on sibling tension and bonds, her work in progress, and lots more.   Find out more about Sarah and The Wolf Hour at https://sarahmyles.com.au/