Outspoken Maleny

Malachy Tallack is from the Shetland Isles, as far north in Scotland as you can go. He attracted a lot of attention with his first book, 60 Degrees North, an account of his journey around the world along the line of the 60th latitude. It was a book that Robert MacFarlane described as brave and beautiful, chosen by BBC Radio 4 as Book of the Week. He was in Australia to promote his new work, The Un...

Richard Fidler is best known these days for his Conversations with Richard Fidler on ABC radio. Conversations is the most podcast program on the ABC, with 1.8m podcasts downloaded a month, which, by any standards, is a lot of podcasts. But Richard had an earlier career, before he morphed into Australia’s best interviewer. He started out in the trio the Doug Anthony All Stars in the 80s, playing gu...

Kári Gíslason was born in Iceland. He’s the author of four books, two non-fiction and two novels. The Promise of Iceland tells the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, while Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world, co-written with Richard Fidler, is an account of visits they made together to the places where the Icelandic sagas actually took place. It won the Ind...

The World Without Us, Mireille's third novel, is set somewhere in the Hinterland of NSW's north coast, and concerns the Muller family, Stefan, Evangeline and their two daughters. Stefan, a beekeeper, is originally from Germany, while Evangeline grew up on a commune in the hills behind where they live. The story is woven around the absence of a third daughter, Pip, and the way they each deal with t...

Tallking about her book Wasted, Text 2016 In 2009 Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother, Alexander, finished his last university exam and went out with some mates on the town. Later that night he wandered to the Story Bridge. He put his phone, wallet, T-shirt and thongs on the walkway, climbed over the railing, and jumped thirty metres into the Brisbane River below. Three days passed before police diver...

Paul Williams is Program Coordinator in Creative Writing at Sunshine Coast University and the author of several short stories and novels. His most recent book is Cokcraco, an exhilarating, playful and witty novel about writing, identity and literary KritiKs. Some comments from reviews: 'Ever since Don Quixote, novelists have been taking the piss. In Cokcraco Paul Williams does exactly that, turnin...

Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s most beloved performers, most famous for her role in Kath and Kim as Sharon Strzelecki, but also for her work in the comedy sketch programs Fast Forward, the D-Generation, and, of course, as Esme Hoggett in the film Babe. In this new and extraordinary memoir, Reckoning, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood haunted by the demo...

Kate Holden is the author of the memoirs In My Skin and The Romantic, Italian Nights and Days. In My Skin was nominated for many awards and was published in twelve countries. Her stories and columns have appeared regularly in The Age as well as The Monthly, Cleo, New Woman and the Weekend Australian. The biography on her website begins with the tantalising entry: I was born in Melbourne in 1972 an...

Professor Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading writers on climate change. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he was named Australian of the Year in 2007. He has held various academic positions including Professor at the University of Adelaide, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum and Visi...

Olivera Simic is the author of Surviving Peace, a Political Memoir, a heartfelt account of life before, during and after the Bosnian War and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Simić provides a greater understanding of the Balkan Wars while ensuring we don’t forget the horrors and enduring impact of any war. Combining an academic sensibility with personal experience she describes how she found the...

Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most popular and best-known writers. Her novel The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was short-listed for the Man Booker, the Miles Franklin and the IMPAC Awards. Her earlier novel, The Idea of Perfection, won The Orange Prize in 2001. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes...

Andrew’s journalism has been published in, amongst other places, Rolling Stone, Good Weekend, Wired, The Guardian, The Monthly, The Australian, Qweekend, GQ Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, Backchannel and, The Saturday Paper.

John Birmingham is the author of the cult classic He Died With a Falafel in His Hand; the award-winning history Leviathan; the Axis of Time series and the Disappearance trilogy. He contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Brisbane Times and The Monthly on topics as diverse as the future of coal (and media) as well as national security. He beg...

Henry Reynolds is Australia’s pre-eminent historian. In the early eighties he single-handedly changed the way Australian history was conducted when he shone a light on the way the country had been settled with his book The Other Side of the Frontier. His work prompted a flowering of study about Aboriginal-White relations throughout the two hundred years since white settlement. Reynolds himself wen...

A conversation with last year’s David Unaipon Award winning author Ellen van Neerven about her debut novel Heat and Light. Ellen’s writing has appeared widely in publications such as McSweeney’s and the Review of Australian Fiction. She works at the State Library of Queensland as part of the ‘black&write’ Indigenous writing and editing project. She’s the editor of the digital collection Writing Bl...

Sally's novel Grace's Table  is a 'wise and tender novel about food, friendship and marriage...'  It's a delightful slow burn of a book, which places the kitchen at the centre of the home, the room in which nourishment is given and received and, in the end, everything is revealed.  ‘the women in this novel don’t heed the rules for ageing quietly… they pull us into their past and pre...

Australian author Graeme Simsion’s first novel, The Rosie Project , was an international publishing phenomenon, selling over a million copies in more than forty countries. The novel's hero is, according to The Guardian, one of those rare fictional characters – like Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones – destined to take up residence in the popular consciousness. In the highly anticipated sequel, The Rosie...

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and four collections of short stories. She's the winner of several major awards, including two Nebulas and the PEN/Faulkner, this last for We Are All completely Beside Ourselves, the novel she was primarily discussing on her tour of Australia. At the time of the interview the book had been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Two days later it was bump...