Amy & Book Club

Welcome to week two of Zine Month! Today Amy, Justina, and Payton are joined by friends of the pod Gemma Neall and Shona Edwards. These wonderful guests are zine experts AND classicists — just about the coolest cross-section of interests a person could possibly have. So in this episode we make a journey from ancient poetry to Shakespeare and then all the way to Ronald Reagan, Spockanalia, an...

New month, new us! This July we’ll be drawing, writing, cutting, pasting, photocopying, folding and talking all things zines and zine-making. To kick off the month, we dove into Justina’s personal zine collection to find the answers to all our burning zine questions. What is a zine? Where do you find them and how do you make them? How do you archive something so varied and ephemeral? A...

As we wrap up queer sci-fi month (😔🫶🏼) we get together to chat about our incredible book club pick, IDA by Alison Evans. This book follows Ida, who believes that she can time travel and uses her ability to amend errors in her life. From avoiding car crashes to rewinding conversational hiccups, who wouldn't want to travel through time? But when Ida's doppelganger sits down beside her at the trai...

This episode Amy, Justina & Abby are joined by Alison Evans, author of our June BOTM Ida , as well as a whole host of other queer YA and middle grade speculative fiction, sci-fi and fantasy. Join us as we discuss all things reading and writing queer spec fic, imagining hopeful futures in YA, zine making for horse girls (gender neutral) – plus some (mostly) spoiler-free Ida chats ahead of...

For the second week of Pride Month we're tackling fanfiction, all the way back to the Kirk/Spock community that started it all. There's something for everyone this episode: the history and fundamentals of fanfic, the community and passion of the craft, the social implactions of ladies reading slash, and even how AI could effect the way we approach fanfic (clue: we don't like it!). Harry tells us a...

Hi Gay, Happy Pride Month! Today we're kicking off the month of June with a festive introduction to Queer Sci-Fi. There are some big Sci-Fi heads in Amy &, so get ready for a journey through all of our favourite books, authors, and films in the beloved genre. We consider if and why Sci-Fi is on the rise lately (it's existential doom again, isn't it?) and discuss the inclusion and exclusion of...

We’re sad to say goodbye to dragon month, but happy to send it off with a book club chat about Moniquill Blackgoose’s incredible first installment of the Nampeshiweisit series, To Shape a Dragon's Breath . This book follows the journey of Anequs, who bonds with a dragon hatchling and becomes the first Nampeshiweisit of her people in generations. However, the laws of the Anglish colonis...

Join us for our hilarious interview with USA Today, Indie, and Sunday Times bestselling author Rebecca Thorne. Rebecca talks us through her life-long love of dragons, retrospective worldbuilding, the phenomenon of cozy fantasy, and the joy of writing established lesbian couples. We had an absolute blast talking to Rebecca, so we know you'll enjoy this interview: described by participants as "cozy,...

This week, Justina & Payton have diligently done their homework on dragon mythology to share with us the history of dragons across time and culture. This includes their connections to colonialism, Christianity, creation, harvest, life, nature and more . . . and then Amy asks us what we would hoard if we were dragons (no books allowed!), and the conversation hatches into something else entirely...

It's dragon month, which means we're talking fire, scales, and flying. To kick off the month, we dive headfirst into all the dragon lore we know and try to figure out what we consider True Dragon Lore (hint: none, it's all valid). We talk about what we'd like to shoot from our mouths, whether our wings are our arms, and just how small a dragon can get before it's too small. Most importantly, we an...

It's our first After Dark of the season, and we're revisiting a childhood classic, Dragonheart, as a bridge between April's YA month and our upcoming theme for May: dragons! We reflect on the movie, discuss the lore behind the original script, lament at the lost potential for a romance between Dennis Quaid and Draco, and then deep dive into the fantasy films that we feel nostalgic for (they're jus...

Eggshell is a young adult novella set in 2000s Adelaide that tells the story of Kira, a sarcastic, cynical teenager living in a council house with her Cantonese grandmother (Apoh) and her rebellious older cousin, Jake. As Kira navigates her experience of Year 12, the novella grapples with themes of identity, racism, romance, sexuality and adolescence. Join Amy, Payton & Abby as we deep dive in...

Join us in conversation with New York Times bestselling author, Amie Kaufman, as we continue Young Adult month! We discuss the novels that shaped Amie as a young adult herself, the YA genre as a literature of transformation, what it's like to write in conversation with teenagers, how to find the quiet moments when writing with pace, how Amie got a tour of NASA, and we take a peek into Amie's soon-...

Can you remember what it was like to be a teenager? This week, author Olivia De Zilva joins us again to recall the feelings and stories that shaped us when we were young. As an ex-teenager and current writer for teens/young adults, Olivia has much wisdom to share about the whimsy and grittiness that characterise those formative years. Over the past few decades, what’s changed and what’...

Welcome to YA month! We're starting off the month talking about the fundamentals of the genre: what is it, why   is it, and is it even a real genre? We get into the politics of ratings for books, letting kids pick their own reads, the YA author's obligation to hopefulness, and we name more books than ever, maybe. This month we’re reading Eggshell by Olivia De Zilva. Grab your copy...

It's our first LIVE BOOK CLUB of 2026 !! Join the Amy & team (minus Payton, who was missed) to catch up on recent events before we dive into our BoTM, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson. Would you survive being locked in a night club by a serial killer? Would you be caught dead on a speed date? How do you feel about dual narrated audiobooks? All important questions that we answ...

This week, we interviewed the author of our latest favourite, and Book Club book of the month, 'How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates.' We chat all about the witty new slasher romance, the anxieties it feeds off, how to plot a book that spans over only a few hours, and the horniness of horror. What would you do if you were stuck with a serial killer, and they'd killed your blind date during a blackout op...

Continuing a banger month of unconventional romance (Bad ra-ra ah-ah-ah), this week we're digging into the phenomenon of Sentient Object Romance. What initially seems like a silly, goofy genre is revealed to have hidden depths as we get into the topics of women's pleasure, consent, being seen, and the kindness of these stories. Don't worry, we also play games! We learn things about ourselves with...

Oh it is good to be back for Season 2! This month’s theme is Bad (ra-ra, ah-ah-ah) Romance and today we’re kicking the year off with a discussion of serial killer Romance Fiction. The episode begins with a very reasonable conversation about the ethics of True Crime entertainment and then … well. But within the proceeding chaos — games, Harry’s “incontinence&rdq...

We powered through technical difficulties and wifi troubles to bring you a wrap up of 2025 and the finale of our first season of the pod! Thank you to everyone who read along, listened to or watched each episode, followed us on socials, or joined us for one of our live book clubs. We appreciate all your support and hope to see you again next year for season two!  Also, apologies for how terri...

We're celebrating Christmas early with this month's book club pick: Three Holidays and A Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin & Marissa Stapley, as recommended to us by our local Christmas Romance expert (the only tick of approval we need!). Join us as we discuss the holiday season and share everything about this small-town novel that made us fall back in love with festivities, family and friendship. &n...

Holiday season is upon us! Today, Amy, Abby, and Harry are joined by returning special guest Kathleen Stanley a.k.a The Christmas Expert. Observe as Kathleen works her magic on the Grinches of the group by breaking down what Christmas fiction means to people and what, at its core, this holiday should really be about. Anybody else have a list of new Christmas Romance movies to binge, or is it just...

This week we’re throwing back to September when we headed over to the Flinders University Library for a live chat about all things reading and writing romance. Does dark romance need content ratings or trigger warnings? Why do straight women love to read and write gay male romance? What can romance novels teach us about love? Are horror romance and paranormal romance the same thing? Do peopl...

Kickstartin' November with a bang, we catch up on a Book Club we were all plague-ridden for and had to miss! Introducing...An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister! Our rocky August was nothing in comparison to Sadie and Jodi's marriage of convenience in this fun rom-com, packed with some lighthearted truths about the academic world. LINKS 🦜 Buy An Academic Affair:  https://www.simonandschuster....

For the final week of October, we're putting our books aside to discuss horror movies: our favourite (and not so favourite) horror films, the return of campy monster horror, future horror movie trends, potentially controversial opinions about the movies Weapons , and more!   LINKS: Follow Mik & Onj on IG: @mikandonj Watch the full episode on YouTube: @AmyAndBookclub Follow the Amy & P...