Published...Or Not

Pip Williams returns to Oxford after ‘The Dictionary of Lost Words’. It is 1914 and through the eyes of Peggy Jones we see the impact of WW1, war refugees and the Spanish Flu in class and gender, town and gown and on her own ambitions and desires or restrictions in ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’.

We meet Lisa Moule, the new co-presenter on Published or not. Big banks, big bucks, big business and big problems are written about in a satirical way by Robert Verlander in ‘Dazzled by Dollars’ David talks about the upcoming Sisters-in-Crime event, 'A Life of Crime'.We all talk about the sessions we would enjoy at the Melbourne Writers festival.

What could be so important in a family that one member would be ostracised.  Zoya Patel has the mother and sisters explain their reasons, but will it be possible for the family to reengage in ‘Once a Stranger’.                                                                                                                                       Anthony Hill has us travelling with Matthew Flinders ci...

‘Seven Sisters’, a psychological thriller by Katherine Kovacic, takes domestic violence to a new level when women exact revenge for their lost sisters who were all killed by their respective partners. Seven murders are surprisingly easy to accomplish when everyone provides alibis for each other. Lenny wants to ignore her past and continue teaching through the day and at night playing scrabble with...

The malevolent side of the internet and social media confronts us in 'Dark Mode' by Ashley Kalagian Blunt when the psycopathy of a marginalized few is unleashed. What are the flow on effects on classmates when a Year 10 student is abducted and how are the stresses dealt with by family and especially the girls who question their role in society? ‘The Gaps’ is winner of the Prime Ministers Literary...

Gregory Day’s, ‘The Bell of the World’, resonates with the interconnectedness of life’s elements; music, literature and nature. 

The consequence of doing ‘The Favour’ turns mild-mannered Doctor Jude’s life upside down. Nicci French has written a crime novel where the reader is concerned for Doctor Jude’s own safety, in this murder investigation.   Ronnie Scott’s novel, 'Shirley', toys with the assumptions surrounding social conventions and how individuals shape identity but it also plays with the reader’s expectations by pl...

The climax of The Death of John Lacey happens in a church. Through the book, Ben Hobson has us question the ethics, justice and prejudices in early Victorian gold rush times with the settlers and aboriginal communities.         Paul Ashford Harris takes us on a journey through the lives of Gertrude Bell, William D’Arcy and Sea Lord Jacky Fisher in ‘Love, Oil and the Fortunes of War’. Each altered...

Graeme Simsion counterpoints the formulaic with the organic in ‘Creative Differences’ when the practical Scotty provides writing advice to his partner, Emily, who is more creative. Will their relationship survive different approaches to generating a novel? Grief and love and the wonderful little details that make up a life are at the heart of Paul Dalgarno’s book ‘ A Country of Eternal Light’

When there is a murder in a hospital, the police think they have an open and shut case, but a psychiatrist who was a patient in the hospital and knows everyone involved, including the police, believes the wrong person has been convicted in ‘Locked Ward’ by Anne Buist. Catherine Johns’ novel, ‘Maggie’, delves into the ramifications of an illicit relationship between a convent school girl and a youn...

Lyn Drummond  has lived and worked in many places around the world. She has written about the people, historical and contemporary who live there too, in ‘Painters, philosophers and poets sustain a seven-year cycle’ .      The formative stages of Ned's life as an adolescent in Tasmania hunting rabbits to his adulthood accounting for a changed world and the benefit of hindsight make for Robbie Arnot...

Women sing for friendship, fun and fury in ‘The Angry Women’s Choir’ by Meg Bicknell and readers laugh and learn about activism for women’s rights and how to be a positive role model. Chris Flynn, once again, is at his anthropomorphic best in the short story collection, ‘Here Be Leviathans’, where even objects and not just animals have voices, feelings and opinions.

'Left/Write/Hook' is an anthology of works generated in Donna Lyon's writing workshop which is giving voice to victims of abuse. This year Fin J Ross won the highly prized trophy from the Sisters in Crime. Her short story ‘Tuesday Jocks’ is one of the winning stories in ‘Scarlet Stiletto: The Fourteenth Cut’.

In "Day's End", Garry Disher, once again, develops the case load of Paul Hirschhausen in the rural South Australian town of Tiverton where isolation masks a myriad of social ills; a disappearance, a body in a suitcase, drugs, cybercrime, nationalism and the public reation to Covid.

This is the third year that this fine collection of short stories has been handsomely published. Three of the authors Cate Kennedy, Lisa Moule and Scott Limbrick talk about their entries in ‘The Furphy Anthology 2022’  

We are floating along in the universe between the horizon and the stars after an epic inundation in Allen C. Jones' novel, 'Her Death Was Also Water'.'The Stranger' is what every closed patriarchal community needs and Katherine Hore has written a whip-cracking, smart feminist Western.

When a feisty Palestinian girl befriends a Zionist the consequences are dire in The Olive Tree by Miariam El Houli.(Dean Publishing)The centrality of cricket to the well being of not just individuals but society in general is at the heart of Inga Simpson's novel, 'Willowman'. (Hachette)

Alex Miller explores those inner voices that sustain us in his latest novel, 'A Brief Affair' where Fran learns of the person who previously occupied her office when it was an asylum cell. A lost notebook speaks of a life nearly lost but brought to life again.‘Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here’ is deeply personal collection filled with reflections on love, death, creativity, and healing, dealing with...

Sean Wilson’s novel, ‘Gemini Falls’, is set in the Great Depression era of the 1930’s where a murder has been committed. Thirteen year old Morris and his friends investigate going behind the scenes where his detective father cannot go, discovering parts of the family history as well as who perpetrated the crime. Brooke has many anxieties about her own abilities and over thinks other people‘s actio...

Philip Salom challenges us to re-evaluate notions of identity in an age where algorithms predominate in his latest work, ‘Sweeney and the Bicycles’.Three sisters are aware of their frailties, addictions and bossiness, but will they reconnect if they could control or even value these characteristics in each other, in Peggy Frew’s ‘Wildflowers’.

Craig Silvey takes us on a delightful journey of identity and friendship as Annie and her stray dog take on the world in 'Runt'. Petronella McGovern has linked many issues such as teenage activism, toxic masculinity, female ambition and whales into ‘The Liars’, part crime novel part history book but all round very good read.

A novelist is thinking about environmental damage, but in researching and writing about Leonard and Virginia Woolf, she sees the parallels between their lives with wars, pandemics and politics getting more right wing and what is happening now. ‘This Devastating Fever’ is the book the novelist wants to write, Sophie Cunningham did.                  When Josh disappears, Mila and Kyle have their own...

Else Fitzgerald has written over 20 connected short stories through the grief of drought, fire and floods and into the uncertain future where humans have become genetically adapted to cope, but what about their own desires and hopes in ‘Everything Feels Like the End of the World’.         ‘The Settlement’ is Jock Serong’s fictional account of true historical events when George Augustus Robinson at...

Sexual assault can happen anywhere, but in a small town how hard is it to prove and to get justice. Vikki Petraitis won the Allen and Unwin Crime fiction Prize with her book ‘The Unbelieved’. ‘Decadence’ demonstrates Thuy On’s delight in playing with language, words and even grammar in poems that are both playful and, at times, evocative.

Geraldine Brooks provides a sweeping account of America’s past by following the horse, Lexington, in a book simply titled, ‘Horse’. What is revealed are links to slavery, the art world and how history is preserved today but there are also echoes of the past in the current day attitudes of its citizens. Three generations are looking for inspiration and guidance to find out how to love and live. Fro...