The Garret: Writing & Publishing

Edwina Preston is a Melbourne-based writer and musician. Preston is the author of a biography of Australian artist Howard Arkley,  Not Just a Suburban Boy (2002), the novel The Inheritance of Ivorie Hammer (2012), and the novel Bad Art Mother (2022). Her writing and reviews have appeared in  The Age ,  The Australian ,  The Sydney Morning Herald ,  Heat ,  Island ,  Griffith Review  and  The Conve...

Sarah Holland-Batt is the author of three books of poetry – The Jaguar  (2022),  The Hazards  (2015) and  Aria  (2008) – and a book of essays on contemporary poetry,  Fishing for Lightning  (2021). Her honours include the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo in the United States. She is presently the Judy Harris...

The Garret is back. We kick off with interviews with the six writers shortlisted for The Stella Prize - Sarah Holland-Batt, Edwina Preston, Debra Dank, Louisa Lim, Adriane Howell and Eloise Grills. New interviews start Monday 10 April 2023. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretp...

Our host Astrid Edwards is one of the judges of the 2023 Stella Prize . As a result, The Garret is on hold until March 2023. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com . Support the show: https://linktr.ee/garretpodcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robert Watkins is the Publishing Director of Ultimo Press. He has over 20 years experience in the Australian book industry having worked in book retail, sales, marketing, publicity, publishing and more recently as Head of Literary at Hachette Australia. Robert’s love for a good story well told has led to publishing some of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary authors, including Maxine Beneba Cl...

Dervla McTiernan is a wildly successful crime writer. Her debut novel, The Ruin , was a critically acclaimed international bestseller which won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, the Davitt Award for Best Adult Fiction and the Barry Award for Best Original Paperback. The second and third installments in the series, The Scholar and The Good Turn , garnered similar praise. In 2022 she relea...

Rick Morton is a senior reporter for  The Saturday Paper , a regular guest on ABC’s  The Drum  and an award-winning author of three non-fiction books:  100 Years of Dirt, On Money and My Year of Living Vulnerably. In 2022 he edited the anthology Growing Up in Country Australia. He has appeared on The Garret before, and you can listen to that interview from 2021 here . About The Garret Follow The G...

Dr Neela Janakiramanan is a reconstructive plastic surgeon and advocate, and with the 2022  publication of The Registrar she adds novelist to her list of achievements. Neela was also one of the medical leads in the Kids off Nauru campaign and in bringing together the Australian medical community and operationalising the Australian Medevac legislation to facilitate medical care for refugees in offs...

Claire Coleman is a Noongar writer, born in Western Australia and now based in Naarm. Her family have been from the area around Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun on the south coast of WA since before time started being recorded. She has written three works of speculative fiction to date - Terra Nullius: A Novel (2017), which was shortlisted for The Stella Prize, among many other awards, The Old Lie (2019)...

Phillipa McGuinness is a former book publisher turned author. She is the author of The Year Everything Changed: 2001, which was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and also Skin Deep: The inside story of our outer selves. Phillipa has appeared on The Garret before, and you can listen to that interview here. About The Garret Follow The Gar...

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese Australian writer and award-winning social advocate. She has published two middle grade novels ( You Must Be Layla  and the award-winning Listen, Layla ), as well as her memoir Yassmin's Story . Talking About A Revolution is her 2022 anthology, which combines new and old works. Yassmin has spoken in over twenty-five countries on social justice and inclusive leade...

Winnie Dunn is the editor of and Amani Haydar is a contributor to 'Another Australia'. Winnie is the General Manager of Western Sydney based literacy movement, Sweatshop. She is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt, and her work has been published in the Sydney Review of Books, Griffith Review, Meanjin, SBS Voices, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Southerly  and  Cordite .  Amani is an artis...

Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler are partners in life and writing. Tracks of the Missing (2022) is their second collaboration, after the highly-awarded Black Cockatoo (2018). Carl is a Jaru and Kija man from Halls Creek. Carl works with young Indigenous boys through the Clontarf Academy focusing in improving engagement with education and providing a positive role model. Carl was nominated for Austr...

Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell collaborated to create a genre-defying work about motherhood. Ceridwen  is a writer based in Sydney. She’s the author of several acclaimed works of fiction ( Blood Kin ,  Only the Animals ,  In the Garden of the Fugitives ,  Life After Truth ,  Once More With Feeling)  and non-fiction ( On J.M. Coetzee: Writers on Writers  and  Inner Worlds Outer Spaces :  The Working...

Melanie Ostell is a literary agent. She advocates for her authors and their works, and helps them build a writing career. She has more than twenty-five years’ experience in the Australian book publishing industry across a range of roles, including editor, publisher and educator. In this interview, she considers the role of the literary agent, why she represents the writers she works with, and what...

Julianne Schultz is a journalist and the author of several books, including The Idea of Australia , Reviving the Fourth Estate and Steel City Blues. She is the Chair of The Conversation and Professor Emeritus of Media and Culture at Griffith's Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. Julianne was the publisher and founding editor of Griffith Review. She has served on the board of director...

Anita Heiss is a proud member of the Wiradyuri nation of central New South Wales, and she writes across genres including non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial fiction and children’s fiction. Her memoir  Am I Black Enough for You? was a finalist in the 2012 Human Rights Awards, and was updated and republished in 2022. Anita’s other non-fiction works include Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight): Pu...

Lee Kofman is a Russian-born, Israeli-Australian novelist, essayist and memoirist. She has published a number of books, including her memoir,  The Dangerous Bride, and Imperfect: How Our Bodies Shape the People We Become. In 2022 she released The Writer Laid Bare , a book about the craft of writing. Lee holds a PhD in social sciences and MA in creative writing. She has also published three fiction...

Kári Gíslason is a writer who crosses forms. His memoir,  The Promise of Iceland,  told the story of his return to his birthplace, Iceland. He co-wrote Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world , which won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction, with Richard Fidler. He also writes fiction, including  The Ash Burner and  The Sorrow Stone.  Kári lectures in Creative Writing at QUT. In...

Mirandi Riwoe is the author of  Stone Sky Gold Mountain , which won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 2022 she has released The Burnished Sun , a collection of novellas and short stories. Mirandi's work has also appeared in...

Jane Caro is a Walkley Award-winning columnist, novelist, broadcaster and social commentator. She has published twelve books, including a young adult trilogy about the life of Elizabeth Tudor, her memoir Plain Speaking Jane , and The Mother (her first novel for adults). She created and edited  Unbreakable, which featured stories women writers had never told before and was published just before the...

Jess Hill and Sarah Krasnostein are the two most recent authors of Quarterly Essays. Jess released The Reckoning: How #MeToo Is Changing Australia in late 2021, and Sarah released Not Waving, Drowning: Mental illness and Vulnerability in Australia in early 2022. Quarterly Essays are prestigious, but they are notoriously difficult and always come with intense time pressure. In this interview, Jess...

Josh Kemp writes Australian gothic fiction. Banjawarn, joint winner of the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, is his stunning debut novel. His short stories have been published by Kill Your Darlings ,  Overland ,  Seizure ,  Tincture  and  Breach . He’s previously been shortlisted for the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award and longlisted for the Fogarty Literary...

Yumna Kassab's debut collection of short stories, The House of Youssef , was listed for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the Queensland Literary Award, the NSW Premier's Literary Award and The Stella Prize. Australiana , published in 2022, is her first novel. About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram. Explore our back catalogue (and...

Eliza Hull is a musical artist, writer, journalist and disability advocate. In 2022 she is the editor behind We've Got This: Stories By Disabled Parents. Her podcast series by the same name, We've Got This , was one of Radio National’s and ABC Life’s most successful series of all time. Eliza was also a contributor to Growing Up Disabled in Australia .  About The Garret Follow The Garret: Writing a...