Published...Or Not

Two middle aged men, Perry and Ivan, find love and respect having experienced loss, betrayal and the need to meet the assumptions and expectations of their respective cultural backgrounds and social groups in 'The In-Between', the latest novel by Christos Tsiolkas. Charli blames herself for her mother’s death and the township blames her for a bush fire and now she has made a gruesome discovery in...

Tara Calaby has set her historical fiction novel ‘House of Longing’ in the Kew mental asylum.                             A street corner gives a location point and can become a meeting place. In Robyn Annear’s book we read about some of the remarkable happenings and people in Melbourne’s early history linked to ‘Corners of Melbourne’. 

'Big Weird Lonely Hearts' is an anthology of delightfully absurd short stories where Allen C Jones challenges readers to challenge perceptions and expectations. Tim Loveday is a writer and he chats about his writing life with Lisa.

Kate Grenville speaks about Restless Dolly Mauder. A compelling novel about her grandmother.

At the heart of many of Justine Sless’s short stories is connection, but little real contact between people.  In ‘Measured, Silk and other stories’ there is keen observation by characters but it is the loneliness that people feel and their inability to voice it that gives these stories a potency. Dias Novita Wuri’s, “Birth Canal” addresses the inherited intergenerational legacy of suffering and gu...

Colin Batrouney has creatively crafted six books and authors for a literary prize ‘The Bannerman Shortlist’, as well as a mystery involving an enduring friendship of very different characters.  A beautifully produced book by Clouds of Magellan. J P Pomare, once again, explores the darker side of people's psychology in 'Home Before Night' where the aftermath of an abduction decades earlier and a mo...

 Tom Valente and Geoff Rolls talk about their written and artistic contributions to 'Synergy' - an anthology of works produced by the Bayside University of the Third Age. Natasha Lester’s historical fiction is of the male dominated fashion industry and the difficulties of three women over three generations wanting acknowledgment of their creativity while also wanting to be a better mother than the...

 Short stories are like a bag of mixed lollies there’s going to be something that sparks interest. Laura Jean McKay has given us just that with ‘Gunflower’, especially as they are grouped into Birth, Life and Death.  Darren Mort takes us into the challenging world of child custody when parents separate in his novel, ‘Isla’s Song’. 

Emily Spurr has researched brains, parasites, chat bots, psychological health and perimenopause and given us this humorous fictional relationship in ‘Beatrix and Fred’.The lives or three servicemen who died in World War One are cast against a backdrop of their heritage and their potential in Ross McMullin's latest historical biography, 'Life So Full of Promise'. Their loss is set against the exper...

Detectives with a difference, especially as one has a particularly good sense of smell, and that’s Monty the golden retriever in Louisa Bennett’s crime novel ‘The Nosy Detectives’. Murder and Melbourne seem to go hand in hand in Hugh McGinlay’s, ‘Silks’, where a circus aerialist is throttled at the end of a silk performance rope. Can milliner and part-time detective, Catherine Klint, establish if...

Willa watches the dramatization of Shakespeare’s Much To Do About Nothing and wants the same stirring in her heart and loins. She finds zing in the romance e-books she publishes but not in her real life.  Jessica Dettman has written a comedy of modern love in ‘Without Further Ado’.Living up to the expectation of your parents along with years of racism and sexism influence the health, the writing a...

Anna Kate Blair writes insightfully and amusingly while exploring the issues of social conformity, desire, sexuality and a career in art through her debut novel,  ‘The Modern’.The scarred and psychologically damaged platoon of the graves retrieval unit attempt to form a New Eureka in France after World War One but the utopia they strive for is soon compromised in Scott Bennett’s debut novel, ‘Nigh...

Allee Richards has written ‘A Light in the Dark’, a story of ambition, envy, and disappointment. The title can refer to the theatre world or hopefully the way forward from secrets and grief. The migrant experience and its impact echoes through Australia. Eva Collins has captured some of that sensibility in her poetry collection, ‘Ask No Questions’

Our lives, influenced as they are by our upbringing and past relationships, are both comic and even tragic. Such is the case in Rachel Matthews' novel, Never Look Desperate, as the central characters look for understanding as well as intimacy.

'The Heart is a Star' by Megan Rogers is a lyrical story about how we can uncover our true selves when we are forced to face the myths that make us.'Serengotti' sees not just characters but the very reader dislocated as we question the values and narratives we create. Eugen Bacon's narrative style is energetic and intriguing as her displaced characters face the challenge of survival.

‘The Hummingbird Effect’ by Kate Mildenhall. A kaleidoscopic story of four women connected across time and place by an invisible thread. Was Vincent van Gogh a good Samaritan or self centred artist? In ‘Vincent and Sien’ Silvia Kwon has written about a prostitute who became his model and lover during the time of his own artistic development.        

Another thought provoking crime novel by Amy Suiter Clarke. Instead of podcasts concentrating on cold case murders in ‘Girl, 11’ this time she has a cult-like church being exposed in ‘Lay Your Body Down’.A billycart race, a brother in jail and mum’s on again – off again friend all make life hard for Jimmy as he tries to make sense of the world while waiting for the Southern Aurora train to pass th...

 ‘Death in the Sauna’ by Dennis Altman is a murder mystery with an array of interesting characters who may all be suspects in this enjoyable story of politics, sexuality and secret lives. ‘Thaw’ is Dennis Glover’s account of Scott’s expedition to the Antarctic and the modern day consequences. More is trapped in the ice than we realize. 

‘Born For You’ by Magdalena McGuire has written a luminous short story collection about the intensity of women’s lives and reveals the myriad of ways that women are compelled to reinvent themselves and to confront who they were, with who they become. Politics, money and power are usually behind terrorism, but what connection does this have with young refugee woman? ‘The Tears of Hope’ is the first...

‘Monster Island’, the latest children’s book by George Ivanoff, is populated by strange and unusual creatures that could well be real. Bernie and Ivy must prevent poachers from stealing these curious mythical and prehistoric animals.  (Puffin)Is the purpose of life making the right choices when it comes to friends, family, relationships and especially your career. What if that career involves want...

Nine Year old Ruby and her father Mitch, had an itinerant lifestyle in Gina Perry’s debut novel ‘My Father the Whale’. Sixteen years later we see the repercussions of those lifestyle choices. In The Rush, Michelle Prak has the weather and her characters morph from friendly to violent in this tense and twisted thriller 65 

From boarding houses to share houses to tough accommodation on the streets, Libby Angel has written about a young women encountering like minded artists and activist in 1990’s Melbourne. ‘Where I slept’ has short colourful descriptions of these people and places.'Cursed Bunny' by Bora Chung was shortlisted for the Booker prize. Lisa speaks with her about her short story writing secrets and and wha...

Primrose has problems. It’s not just her obsessiveness but her marriage, her journalistic career, her first love living over the road and her entitled brother-in-law coming to stay. Nina Wan writes humorously about golf perhaps not being the answer in ‘The Albatross’.Truth and reality are blurred in Michelle Jager’s, Bird Bones, as Vera’s narrative of her childhood, her marriage and affair are dis...

Lisa Moule talks with author, literary agent and creative writing teacher, Danielle Binks on our Radiothon program. 

'The Heart is a Star' by Megan Rogers delves into a mother-daughter relationship against a backdrop of the untmed wilds of Tasmania's west coast. Three generations of women face the challenges of social, political and economic change in Armando Correa's novel, 'The Night Travellers'.