Lit Up

Exhausted by writing, Mira Jacob used illustration to explore themes of family, love and race in her graphic memoir Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations. She joins host Angela Ledgerwood to discuss her parents’ love story, teaching herself to draw and the idea that love is the opposite of racism. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...

It took 18 years for Kate Elizabeth Russell to write her debut novel, My Dark Vanessa, about a student who falls in love with her teacher. She joins host Angela Ledgerwood to discuss power dynamics within relationships, consent and how the Me-Too Movement influenced her writing.   Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An 18-month break from dating forced UK journalist Dolly Alderton to learn to become comfortable being alone. Dolly discusses her debut book, Everything I Know About Love, with host Angela Ledgerwood, the intensity of female friendships and why her Australian therapist compared her to Donald Trump. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

Losing her job at Vogue forced Lauren Mechling to create a new identity for herself outside of work. Lauren joins host Angela Ledgerwood to discuss her latest novel ‘How Could She’, the impact working in magazines had on her writing and why she has an Instagram dedicated to clogs. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A lonely whale named 52 Blue is a key character in Leslie Jamison’s new essay collection Make It Scream, Make It Burn. Leslie speaks with host Angela Ledgerwood about the different things the whale represented to her readers, the three themes she structured her essay collection around and where she gets her inspiration from. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See...

Moving to New Orleans gave Jami Attenberg a new perspective on her characters. Her latest novel, All This Could Be Yours, follows one dysfunctional family in New Orleans who are coming to terms with their secrets. Jami joins host Angela Ledgerwood to discuss finding ideas in unexpected places, calling out the male gaze and how all readers see themselves in her different characters. Advertising Inq...

All families are nuts, according Vicki Laveau-Harvie and there was no better place to explore her family's eccentricities than her Stella Award winning debut memoir The Erratics. Vicki talks with host Angela Ledgerwood about her experience growing up with, and escaping, a narcissistic mother and creating a new life for herself in France & Australia with her chosen family. Advertising Inqui...

The perfect life is different for everyone and what we all dream of but sometimes it isn’t everything we think it is. Elaine Welteroth lifts the veil on the perfect social media life in her new book More Than Enough: Claiming Space For Who You Are and talks about finding those little clues in your earlier life full of enthusiasm to help you on your journey to doing what you love. Advertising Inqui...

Addiction to technology is hard to get away from, but author Courtney Maum is taking a break from the internet and returns to talk about the preservation of art in her new book Costalegre with Host Angela Ledgerwood. Courtney talks about deep diving into an idea rather moving quickly from one to the next. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy fo...

Self reflection is one of the hardest things we can do to ourselves and Jia Tolentino covers this in her new book of essays Trick Mirror: Reflections of self delusion. Host Angela Ledgerwood talks with Jia on what inspires her essays and how we can learn to sit within the knowledge of things we've done in the past without changing ourselves. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands...

There were a lot of events that shaped America in the 1960’s – the Vietnam war, the first moon landing. Host Angela Ledgerwood talks with Kathleen on how she researched these events and the consequences of our actions for her new multi-generational novel – America was hard to find. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our past is made up of relationships, both good and bad, and these relationships shape who we are. Lisa Taddeo reveals to host Angela Ledgerwood the real-life experiences that inspired the three main characters of her new book, Three Women, and what she has learned about desire. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ocean Vuong explores race, class and masculinity within his storytelling. Better known for his honest and beautiful poetry, Ocean speaks to host Angela Ledgerwood about his debut novel: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and the power of breaking the silence for those less fortunate. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eat. Pray. Love’s portrayal of the inner-struggles we deal with and the raw emotions that come with these struggles is part of what made her book hugely successful. Elizabeth shares with host Angela Ledgerwood how taking a deep dive into your own emotions and your own character and its’ flaws can help you form these relatable characters in books. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands...

Getting a publisher to agree to print a book about the world of acapella singing groups was not an easy task for Author Mickey Rapkin, but he stuck with it and this risk let to the hugely successful trilogy of Pitch Perfect films. Host Angela Ledgerwood speaks to Mickey about where he got the idea from, how slow the process is when transitioning a book to a film and why he has chosen children'...

What does the relationships look like between an artist and their patron and what is expected of one from the other? Ceridwen Dovey speaks to host Angela Ledgerwood about the power, privilege and vulnerability of being a young, talented woman, how she found her voice as a writer and why she is exploring new voices. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...

How does a country's history weigh on its' people? Journalist Stan Grant exiled himself from Australia in order to seek to understand Australia, what it means to be Australian and his own struggle for belonging and identity as an indigenous Australian man. Stan speaks to host Angela Ledgerwood about his book 'Australia Day,' the moment in his childhood that changed his outlook on t...

A 30,000km trip around Australia was the journey Monica Tan took to discover who she was in relation to the country she lived in, Australia. From the role Chinese Australians played in colonisation to segregation in Australia in the 70s and how Australia history is taught now, Monica's novel Strange Country explores all facets of Monica's identity as a Australian Born Chinese person and sh...

Presenting an avatar of virtuousness online instead of presenting your real self is a danger to exploring the nuances of life and how people think, and that's what Bret Easton Ellis calls out in his first non-fiction book White. Bret explores the fame that he gained from American Psycho with host Angela Ledgerwood and how it informed his understanding of people as well as the narrative media b...

In the novel Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid wanted to build a female character who was not conditioned to be pleasing and likeable and would react and say things that Taylor could never say herself. Taylor chats to host Angela Ledgerwood about how important female friendships build the frameworks for relationships and how some people enjoy the feeling of shame and self-sabotage. Ad...

In a world of click bait and jarring headlines journalist Hermione Hoby believes that the key to empathy and connection is in reading novels and getting the entire character of a person in order to understand their actions. Hermione speaks to host Angela Ledgerwood about her debut novel Neon in Daylight, the boundaries to searching for someone's humanity and the strange world of dialling up yo...

Finding meaning in sadness, defining the different types of love and looking at the complexities of masculinity, are the overarching themes in Trent Dalton's novel, Boy Swallows Universe. Trent shares with host Angela Ledgerwood how he used this book to put a positive spin on some of the sadness of his past and how he used his character, Eli, to explore what a do-over on his life would have lo...

Through her book 'Welcome to the Slipstream' Natalka explores how sickness can complicate family dynamics. She discusses with host Angela Ledgerwood the freedom she found in placing her characters in the Nevada dessert, why she co-founded her feminist fundraising reading series The Freya Project and how the advice of her grandmother set her up for who she is today. Advertising Inquiries: h...

Is it desire, duty or expectation that leads someone to become a mother? This is the question Sheila Heti explores in her book Motherhood. Sheila discusses the ties between the female identity and motherhood with host Angela Ledgerwood, as well as her theory as to why female artists seem to get a pass for being child-less when women in other professions don’t. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcir...

Art historian Mary Gabriel has re-written history to include the incredible women who changed modern art in her book ‘9th street women.’ Mary tells host Angela Ledgerwood how the idea for the book arose out of a conversation she had with painter Grace Hartigan 30 years ago. Mary dispels a lot of the misconceptions around the rivalry of female artists during the male-dominated world of twentieth-ce...