The WestWords Podcast

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy alumni interview their favourite creatives. In this episode, Academy alumni Elizabeth speaks to Michelle Hamadache in depth about her written works, and together they share strategies and ways to continue one's own creative writing journey while maintaining a busy career and home life. Michelle talks about how her role as course dire...

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy alumni interview their favourite creatives. In this episode, Academy alumni Sheryl speaks to Sonam Mahatme about her identity as Queer South Asian person living in Australia, and her experiences navigating family, community and culture. Together they discuss what role a creative practitioner, whether they are a writer, composer or ar...

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy alumni interview their favourite creatives. In this episode, Academy alumni Zohra speaks to Hayley Scrivenor about Hayley's experience writing her award-winning novel Dirt Town as a part of her creative writing PHD. Together they discuss knowing when your novel is finished, working out your writing routine, and tackling the editing p...

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy alumni interview their favourite creatives. In this episode, Academy alumni Elizabeth speaks to Trish Bolton about the release of her debut novel Whenever You're Ready . Trish details her journey to publication, how to build a CV as an emerging writer, upending ageist stereotypes, and together they discuss the changing attitudes towa...

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy alumni interview their favourite creatives. In this episode, Paul and Marc speak to musician and songwriter Bryan Estepa about the emotions that inspire them to write, how words, lyrics and music allow us to distort meaning, imposter syndrome, and writing for yourself first. Bryan Estepa is an Australian singer-songwriter who has bee...

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy members, and Alumni, interview their favourite creatives. Susan Templeman MP is an Australian politician. She is the member for  Macquarie  in the  Australian House of Representatives  and is Australia's Special Envoy for the Arts.  Michael Campbell is the Executive Director of WestWords. With over 35 years o...

Welcome to a special series of episodes, where WestWords Academy members, and Alumni, interview their favourite creatives. Maria Tran is a Vietnamese-Australian actor, filmmaker, and martial artist who has won multiple awards for her work in film, TV, stage, and performance. She also specializes in fight action choreography and is the founder of Phoenix Eye Films, a female-led production company b...

Victoria Brookman is an activist, author and academic from the Blue Mountains. In this interview with James Roy she describes how her own perceived inability to push through writer's block, along with a catastrophic natural disaster, led her to write her debut novel , Burnt Out (Harper Collins), a funny and angry look at climate change, activism and political influence. Note: Opinions and views ex...

Peter Hollo is a professional cellist and founding member of FourPlay String Quartet, a musical ensemble who recently collaborated to record a second spoken word/music album with writer and creative powerhouse Neil Gaiman. The title of the latest album is Signs of Life , and in the second half of this interview with James Roy and Paris Rosemont, Peter talks about the origins, challenges and reward...

Peter Hollo is a professional cellist and founding member of FourPlay String Quartet, a musical ensemble who recently collaborated to record a second spoken word/music album with writer and creative powerhouse Neil Gaiman. The title of the latest album is Signs of Life , and in the first half of this interview with James Roy and Paris Rosemont, Peter talks about the origins, challenges and rewards...

George Ivanoff is a Melbourne writer who has written over 130 books for young people, including a series of tense and thrilling interactive adventure books. Listen to this podcast to find out how he does it, especially if for you (like the host, James) plot is harder to do than character. georgeivanoff.com.au NOTE: Opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of the WestWords organ...

Pete Shmigel is a freelance writer and journalist who has just returned from his second visit to Ukraine in 2023, where he began to write the stories of the people on the frontline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this interview he talks about what compelled him to voluntarily enter a war zone, and what he took from the experience, both as a person, and as a writer. NOTE: Opinions expressed...

Catherine Jinks is a multi-award winning author of books for all ages, with over fifty books published in a 35 year career. In this conversation with James Roy, Catherine talks about trends in publishing and where writing might be heading as a profession, gives her theories on why royalties are shrinking despite books still being massively popular, what elements are influencing how we write, and p...

Fiona Murphy is a journalist, memoirist and non-fiction writer. As a Deaf writer, she is very interested in the rise of Own Voices as an important consideration for any artist working in a diverse space, be that around race, language, culture, sex/gender identity, disability or any other of the many diverse stories that can be told. In this interview, Fiona talks about Own Voices as an approach th...

Augusta Supple is a playwright, theatre critic, one-time arts administrator, short story writer, screenwriter and amateur flautist. In this conversation with James Roy, Augusta talks about creative experimentation, artform diversity, the optimism and positivity of the arts, and the important lessons that COVID taught us as practitioners.

The latest guests of the Mini-Masterclass podcast are Mary Rachel Brown and Jamie Oxenbould. Mary and Jamie operate in different spaces within the theatre scene: Mary writes for theatre, and Jamie is an actor. They were recently residents at Daffodil Cottage, and sat down with James at a cafe in Katoomba to talk about their current project,  titled Chicken In A Biscuit , which is a comic...

Today we welcome Michele Freeman, a former WestWords Fellow and emerging writer from Western Sydney. Michele was recently at Daffodil Cottage for a week-long residency, and she and James had a wide-ranging conversation about working towards long-range artistic goals, what drives her as an artist, feeling like an imposter, and her approach to the stories of Western Sydney. Thank you to the Adès Fam...

Margaret Hamilton AM (1941-2022) was a publisher, advocate, writer, educator, curator and passionate supporter of children's literature, particularly picture books. She passed away late in 2022, so we felt it timely to go back to an earlier interview with James Roy, in June 2020 at Pinerolo in Blackheath, in which she talks about what makes a good picture book, how publishers, writers and illustra...

Welcome back to the WestWords Mini-Masterclass podcast, a fortnightly series of conversations with creatives. To kick off 2023 we welcome Hilary Bell, who is a highly respected and multi-awarded playwright, writer, librettist and children’s book author. Hilary was one of our WestWords/Daffodil Cottage residents in 2022, where she was working on her new play  The Book of Harold , as well as pu...

Ally Burnham (WestWords creative producer) chats with writer and usual host of this podcast, James Roy, about his research methods for his current project, and how working on location creates surprising results. ** Note: Views and opinions expressed in the podcast are not necessarily those of the WestWords organisation.

Ally Burnham (WestWords' own Creative Producer) recently won an AWGIE award for her animated short film Metropius . In this conversation she chats with James Roy about some of the differences between writing for animated and writing for live action.

Today's conversation is with Bundjalung illustrator Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, who speaks with James Roy about the expectations, limitations and obligations of being a First Nations artist, and where the lines between artist and activist are clear, and where they are blurred. NOTE: Opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily shared by the WestWords organisation.

In this Mini-Masterclass, James sits down with the 2022 WestWords-Varuna Writers in Residence: J. Marahuyo, Paris Rosemont, Harvey Liu and Finn O'Branagain; the winner of the inaugural Ultimo Prize, Zeynab Gamieldien; and poet and program mentor ali whitelock. They are discussing an amazing week at Varuna, the National Writers' House (varuna.com.au). Views expressed in this podcast are not necessa...

Today (2nd September 2022) marks a century since the passing of beloved Australian (and Blue Mountains) poet and writer, Henry Lawson. In this conversation, James speaks with biographer and historian Lowell Tarling about the man, the myth, the tragic legend that was Henry Lawson. Please note that opinions and views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of WestWords.

Caren Florance (a.k.a. Ampersand Duck) is a letterpress artist who is currently residing in the house formerly owned by the late Mike Hudson and Jadwiga Jarvis, who were the duo behind the famed Wayzgoose Press, a letterpress publisher in Katoomba. In this conversation with James Roy, Caren talks about letterpress art (a form of printmaking), materiality, zines, and her research into collaborative...