Slow Reader

Melanie Saward has a new book out! Love Unleashed is a romantic comedy with modern representation of First Nations people. In the 2010’s humour would often revolve around queerphobia, fatphobia and othering in general. Mel’s done a PhD about romantic comedy writing and I could have listened to her talk all the live long day about this juicy area of expertise. Here's Mel's BookTok. We had a...

Eleanor Elliott Thomas published her debut novel The Opposite of Success in 2023. We had a chat during the summer school holidays about crowbarring writing into a legal career, the Faber Academy course that helped shape this work and Thomas' expertise, fat characters who are not the sidekick, people who like their husbands in literary settings and how unsettling that can be for weird reasons,...

Joining me for a belated upload for this episode are two marvellous folks. Ailsa Wild and Emily Hart. Em is up first, giving us the skinny, the 411 on what goes on in publishing. Emily was award the 2022 Rising Star award at the ABIA awards. At the time of recording (October 2022) Emily was working at Hardie Grant, and has since left the company to go on adventures. We discussed this interview bet...

We're back! Joining me for episode 11 is Catherine Deveny. Writer, comedian, public speaker, writing coach, Brunswick loving cafe fiend. We speak about her memoir True North, and this conversation happened fricken ages ago but I got stuck with the editing because it's hard and I didn't want to. Thanks to Aisha for giving me a hand. Ripper. Ok, we're back. http://www.catherinedeveny...

Joining me for episode 10 is Eloise Grills, author of the astonishing and brilliant illustrated memoir big beautiful female theory (all lower case on purpose). We talk about writing the body, the self, awards, shaking off that self conscious buzzing to get in the zone, and a bunch more.  If you're seeing this in time, Eloise will be in conversation at Words in Winter in August 27th. Eloise's...

Joining me for episode 9 is Olivia A Muscat, a writer and reader who loves audiobooks. We talk about the absolute bullshit that is ableist gatekeeping, the changes over time in technology for blind and vision impaired readers and the love we share for teenage fiction.  You can keep up with Olivia's writing via her Twitter @Olivia_A_Muscat Next time will either be Eloise Grills or Ailsa Wild,...

Sarah Krasnostein does a deep dive like nobody else - author of The Trauma Cleaner and The Believer, she joins me to chat about finding her subjects, the nature of a full life as a creative parent, and that perhaps the secret might be doing the transcripts straight away, instead of leaving them to languish for months? Who knew. 

The Hungry Air is a collection of poetry that explore a life, a body, a family and the pain of disconnection and severing of ties. I speak with Rachael Wenona Guy about this exquisite collection. 

What does the future of health look like? How do you write poetry about a disabled body, about your disabled body? Andy Jackson's book Human Looking is an exquisite collection of poems exploring personal and historical accounts of the body. The institutionalising of difference, the fellowship we find after a swim when we stand dripping and exposed, the rage born of injustice when treated badly bec...

Nothing But My Body is such a beautiful read, and after many years of beholding the wondrous words and actions of Tilly Lawless through her tender and honest Instagram presence it was fantastic to purchase her book. We caught up in the sky as pixels and soundwaves late in 2021 to discuss her writing process, future plans, philosophies on life and all sorts of things.  I'm not great at digital...

What a shining star of a human Jazz Money is. A great pleasure to chat with her about her book of poetry "how to make a basket". We talk about lower case letters, fonts, formatting, and creative practices. Felt pleased as punch to have two excellent readings in this chat as well! Enjoy and make sure you order your copy of the book, the layout is a piece of art in itself. 

RN host, all round lovely person and author Jacinta Parsons and I chat twice in the space of forty minutes (well, really over six months) about her excellent book Unseen, as well as her chapter in the collection of essays by disabled parents We've Got This (edited by Eliza Hull) which will be out March 2022. Jacinta shares her picks for best read of the year as well as what she's currently reading...

Launchtime9000! Jenny Valentish is launching her absolute cracker of a book Everything Harder Than Everyone Else at the Port Melbourne Bowls Club on Tuesday 30th of November, 2021. Get along if you can. Thanks to Monique Boggia for the tunes, you're the best. Next time - Jacinta Parsons and her book Unseen.  Find me on Twitter and Istagram @JasperPeachSays

Welcome to the first full episode of Slow Reader. I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr Kaya Wilson not once, but twice. His memoir As Beautiful As Any Other (Picador) was the book that got me back in the saddle of reading after a long hiatus.  My sincere thanks to Main FM and Sherene Clow, host of Queer and Now for allowing me to use the audio produced for the program as part of this episode....

Hi I'm Jasper Peach, and I'm a slow reader. I'll be sharing interviews with writers, readers and other literary folks when I can.  I love audiobooks, because I can process auditory information much more easily than the visual. If the author has read their own work, even better. Recorded on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country, which should rightfully belong to the Jaara people.