The Getting Lit Podcast

Send us a text Jack Norman is the author of the new short story collection Sleep Capricorn, coming in October from Bonfire Books. Like Fresta and Sini, he also grew up in North Queensland. This episode features three northerners yarning about Jack's fiction, as well as fatherhood, Australian fiction in general, The Honourable Member for Kennedy Bob Katter, craft discussions on narration, and...

Send a text We talk about The Independent article about men "performatively reading", as well as Fresta's realisation that he is "Unc" now after a night out. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/performative-male-trends-books-matcha-pilates-attention-b2811124.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1756101761 Music: To Die Among Strangers - Rome Can'...

Send us a text This episode, we are joined by the best book YouTuber around, Mr Cliff Sargent. Cliff hosts the popular channel "Better Than Food," where he reviews everything from classics to difficult postmodern tomes and sci fi. Truly a great discussion from one of the best in the game right now. We talk about how he makes his book content, developing a reading practice, filmmaking, as...

Send us a text This week Fresta talks to Will Samson about Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Bend Sinister and the Fall record of the same name. As Fresta and Will are both avant-garde music-spazz’s the conversation ends up in a discussion about other artists such as The Country Teasers, Lana Del Rey, Kanye, Pere Ubu, The Melvins, Townes Van Zandt, Oasis, Throbbing Gristle, Roky Erickson and The Kinks. Not...

Send us a text Bigmac McCarthy joins Fresta (who is hosting solo this ep) to talk about Haruki Murakami’s surrealistic tome The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as well as some music nerd talk at the end. Mac’s Twitter: https://x.com/bigmac_mccarthy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor   Mac’s music, Heavy Body: https://heavybody.bandcamp.com/ Country Teasers episode with Fresta on Mac&apo...

Send us a text Zach Langley Chi Chi joins us once again to talk about William Shakespeare's final play, The Tempest, as well as Julie Taymor's 2010 film adaptation starring Helen Mirren as a gender-swapped Prospero.  Subscribe to Zach's wonderful podcast, I'm So Popular: https://www.patreon.com/imsopopular And for a special episode of Back Matter where a lot of tea is spilled,...

Send us a text Our guest this week is David Mamet, Pulitzer Prize Winner and America's foremost playwright, known for such plays as American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, and movies such as Oleanna, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and The Untouchables. He joins us to talk about his masterful new novel, Some Recollections of St. Ives, which poses as a memoir of a teacher at an idyllic private...

Send us a text This is a snippet from the Patreon-exclusive aftershow, Back Matter, where our guest this week, Emmalea Russo, reads Sini's astrological chart. Later, we discuss the 2024 film, The Uninvited, directed by Nadia Conners and starring Walton Goggins, Elizabeth Reaser, Pedro Pascal. To listen to full episodes of Back Matter, get access to the full archive and other special episodes,...

Send a text This is part two of a collaboration with Book Club From Hell, another great Australian book podcast. Head over to their feed for part one where we discuss the classic Australian psychological thriller novel, Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook (1961). And on this episode we will be discussing the almost lost forever film version from 1971, starring Donald Pleasance and Chips Rafferty. This...

Send a text On this special episode of Back Matter, Psi from Rare Candy podcast and Cody LaDuke join Sini and Fresta to discuss George Lucas' Revenge of the Sith, and nerd out on all things Star Wars. This is a preview. To get the full episode, and more details about Sini's visit to the set of Attack of the Clones, subscribe to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/GettingLit Subscribe...

Send a text This week, Sini is joined by his friend Lucas out at a bar one Saturday night to discuss Camille Paglia's book on art history and visual culture, Glittering Images. Follow Lucas on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifetothose.shadows/ And over on paid feed, we have a special episode of Back Matter featuring Cody LaDuke and Psi from Rare Candy podcast who join Sini and Fresta t...

Send a text Returning guest Alex speaks with us about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: what makes it so narratively compelling and different to other shows in this franchise, as well as the character dynamics, novelistic elements, soap influences, and much more. We also talk about the unique charm of the strivers on this show. Meanwhile, over on the Patreon, we talk about the state of sex in...

Send us a text Melbourne writer Tobe Ellen joins us to talk about his upcoming podcast, The Barrow, where he documents his process of co-writing a memoir with his mother. We talk about podcasting as a writer, memoir writing, the importance of implication in narrative, political correctness, sensitivity readers and much more. Follow The Barrow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebarrowpod/ S...

Send us a text This week, we're talking to New York playwright and novelist Matthew Gasda about his new novel, The Sleepers, one of the best treatments of millennial generational malaise. We talk about the Dimes Square New York scene, the internet and culture, ideology vs art, masculinity and femininity, defiantly staging theatre during the lockdowns, and much more. Buy The Sleepers here: htt...

Send us a text This week we're joined by the "Ern Malley of the 21st Century," Jasper Ceylon, who has pranked multiple poetry journals by posing as vogueish identities while submitting terrible poems. Jasper successfully published poems that were intentionally bad to woke journals more interested in an author's pronouns, sexuality and racial characteristics than talent. This sa...

Send us a text Reading isn't dead - our attention spans have just been hijacked by phones and social media. Inspired by an essay Fresta wrote on how to read last year, we discuss practical strategies to reclaim your reading habit and rediscover the joy of getting lost in a good book. Check out Fresta's essay on Rare Candy's substack with more detailed reading tips and strategies: ht...

Send us a text J David Osborne joins us once more, this time to talk about his new psychedelic cyberpunk epic novel, Gods Fare No Better.  We talked about spirituality, cyberpunk, science fiction, and the impact of various media on JDO's work, as well as book marketing strategies, industry challenges, and the importance of creativity and playfulness in literature and art. Buy Gods Fare No Bet...

Send us a text This week, we chat about an ancient classic, Medea by the Athenian tragedian Euripides.  We also discuss Lars Von Trier's 1988 TV movie adaptation of the play, written by Carl Theodor Dreyer. Sini also published a well-received essay on men reading books on podcasts at Unherd, which you can read here:  https://unherd.com/2025/04/the-literary-man-isnt-dead/ Support the show This...

Send us a text This week, a triple crosspost collaboration with Agitator and Bistro Californium, where we discuss the remasters of the Legacy of Kain videogame series. We talk about the game's mechanics, story progression, incredible voice acting and sound design, character development, themes of free will, spiritualism, and the liminal space between analog and digital technology and much mor...

Send us a text For full episode, go to https://www.patreon.com/c/GettingLit This week, we have compiled all four episodes of our Book of the New Sun series we did in 2023 into one massive 8.5 hour journey. Join Sini, J David Osborne and Kelby Losack as they unpack Gene Wolfe's masterwork of science fiction. Support the show This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other su...

Send us a text We're celebrating 100 episodes of the Getting Lit Podcast by talking about a few Jorge Luis Borges stories: The Library of Babel, Three Versions of Judas, The House of Asterion, and Borges And I. We talk about infinity, intellectualism, mythology. We also touched on the challenges of creating a public persona as a writer, a few movie opinions, and the podcast's 100 episode m...

Send us a text This week, it's a bit of a buffet! We chat about two Aleister Crowley short stories: The Drug, and The Stratagem. Before he was a famous occultist, Crowley wrote some fiction, so we thought we'd try it out. To get a much more extensive dive into Crowley, check out Art of Darkness' episode on his life: https://artofdarkpod.com/aleister-crowley-the-sewer-of-creation/ We...

Send us a text On this episode, we chat with Masha about the Soviet science fiction novel Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Russian nihilism and existentialism, Soviet censorship, the unique flavour of Soviet-era science fiction, how to say slurs in Russian and more. Follow Masha on X: https://x.com/3l3ktr4k0mpl3ks And Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/t3lk4/ Support the show Th...

Send us a text This episode we talk about Julio Cortazar's short story, The Southern Thruway, about a traffic jam that turns into a community. We chat about the concept of the "fantastic" in literature, our experiences driving in Italy and Vietnam, and gave our expert opinion on the complexities of Russian politics and the portrayal of Putin. Support the show This is a public episod...

Send us a text Fresta and Sini talk about what they've been reading, watching, playing lately. Also talk about how some internet "personalities" get on podcasts with voice disguisers because "The Feds" are after them. This episode is paywalled. Go to https://www.patreon.com/c/GettingLit to get the full version. Support the show This is a public episode. If you'd like to di...