From the Lighthouse

Join Michelle as she talks with prize-winning author, Intan Paramaditha, to discuss her novel, The Wandering. Intan Paramaditha was nominated for the Stella Prize in Australia and awarded the Tempo Best Literary Fiction in Indonesia, English PEN Translates Award, and PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America. She is the author of the short story collection Apple and Knife and the editor of...

Join Michelle Hamadache as she talks to Randa Abdel-Fattah, award winning writer and activist, about her very first novel, Does My Head Look Big in This? Randa will be appearing at this year's Sydney Writer's Festival:  https://www.swf.org.au/writers/randa-abdel-fattah/

This week Michelle is joined by Jimmy and special guest, Khoa Tran, to discuss Kaneto Shindo's Kuroneko. Join us as we discuss revenge, class, mythology, identity and whether or not Khoa can make his hair swish like a cat's tail.

This week Michelle is joined by Jimmy and special guest, Khoa Tran, to discuss Antonioni's L'Avventura. Join us as we discuss gender, class, boredom, weird sex scenes, and fight over whether this is a subversive masterpiece, or a tedious exploration of ennui. 

In this week's episode of From the Lighthouse, join Michelle as she talks with Page Richards, director of Hong Kong University's MFA program and prize-winning poet and vaudeville artist. They discuss the changing states and stakes of literary fiction in contemporary times.

Join Associate Professor Jane Messer and Michelle as they discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's speculative short story "Sur" about the group of women explorers who arrived at the Antarctic's South Pole, well before Shackleton. 

Associate Professor Jane Messer joins Michelle to discuss a short horror story by Graham Greene, 'A Little Place Off the Edgware Road' and another short story by Australian writer, Paddy O'Reilly, 'Baggage Claim'. If you'd like to read O'Reilly's short story before listening, her story was published in Overland and the link is provided below. https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-231/ficti...

Michelle and Jimmy are joined in this episode by Media Arts teacher and film fanatic, Khoa Tran, to discuss, Autumn Sonata, Ingmar Bergman's late masterpiece about the difficult and, at times, destructive relationship between mothers and daughters.

In this episode of From the Lighthouse, Jimmy and Michelle talk about Michael Haneke's 2005 intriguing and enigmatic film Caché.  The film, starring Juliet Binoche and Daniel Auteil, explores the absence of remorse and the relentlessness of memory in the life of French intellectual Georges, charting Georges response as the family start receiving anonymous video cassettes and crayon drawings remind...

Get Over It is a 2001 teen adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This week, Stephanie and Kirstin discuss Kirsten Dunst, teen romance, and overexcited dogs.

The 1999 film She's All That is an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion...or is it? This week, Stephanie, Kirstin and Jimmy discuss glasses,  the class system, and disappointment. 

Easy A (2001) is a loose adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. This week, Stephanie, Kirstin and Jimmy discuss sexual double-standards, intertextual references, and the world's coolest parents. Check out Kirstin's cool new blog on this series:  http://www.kirstinmills.com/blog/teen-movie-adaptations-classic-literature-podcast/

Clueless brings Jane Austen's Emma into the world of a privileged LA teen, and it works perfectly. This week, Stephanie, Kirstin and Jimmy discuss Austen, Heckerling, and routine liposuction.

She's The Man transforms Shakespeare's Twelfth Night into a teen drama about soccer and debutante balls. This week, Stephanie, Jimmy and Kirstin discuss the film, gender, and why they don't necessarily think it all works...

We love old books when they're teen movies. This week, Stephanie, Jimmy and Kirstin kick off a new mini-series of podcasts on teen movie adaptations of classic texts with Ten Things I Hate About You.

Shakespeare's Macbeth is so good that we can't stop thinking about it, or talking about it. This week, Stephanie, Jimmy and Kirstin discuss the appeal of the Scottish play, as well as the best and worst adaptations.

The world is in a very strange place right now, and we're in need of serious distraction. Jimmy, Kirstin and Stephanie take you through their favourite comfort books, television shows, movies and podcasts.

Double Indemnity is THE film noir: the film noir that most people think about when they picture the genre. This week, Stephanie and Jimmy discuss twisted relationships, murder, and Barbara Stanwyck's fringe.

Stephanie is still too busy and doesn't have time to act as referee as Michelle and Jimmy lock horns over Kafka's The Metamorphosis (or, as Steph calls it, "the bug episode"). Join Michelle and Jimmy as they politely discuss the enduring appeal, complexities and ambiguities of Kafka's seminal text, before descending into an inexplicably long debate about the source of artistry in music. 

Stephanie is too busy and does not want to discuss Jimmy's idea for this week's podcast (aka the puppet episode), so in the spirit of resistance, Jimmy has taken control of the mic and invited the Queen of Fantasy (aka Dr Kirstin Mills) to discuss the new Netflix series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Join them as they discuss duality, puppetry, world-building, and Podling rights. 

In a proud From the Lighthouse tradition, Stephanie and Michelle give their verdict on the best books of 2019.

The new Netflix adaptation has divided audiences: some love it, some hate it. This week, Stephanie and Kirstin give their verdict (spoiler: they neither loved nor hated it!)

The first in a new series on film noir, Stephanie and Jimmy discuss Otto Preminger's 1944 film Laura. Laura is both an excellent novel by Vera Caspary and a true classic of film noir. We discuss Gene Tierney's gorgeousness, boring detectives, and whether you should receive guests sitting in the bath. 

Stephanie and Jimmy continue their long-standing and creepy obsession with true crime by chatting about the podcasts Detective Trapp, Hunting Warhead, Noble Blood and Hitman.

Travel writing—being paid to travel to and write about destinations all over the world sounds like a dream to many.  In this episode of From the Lighthouse, Michelle Hamadache interviews Diana Plater, travel writer and journalist with more than twenty years experience, to hear how to get started in the industry, tips on travel writing, and how the industry has changed with globalisation and the di...