Alice Pung is an award-winning Melbourne writer who found a few minutes to speak to us during Melbourne's latest lockdown. Alice was at home with her newborn child, and you can hear them in the background of this short bonus interview.
Alice is the bestselling author of the memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson. Her first novel, Laurinda, won the Ethel Turner Prize at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. One Hundred Days is her most recent novel. 
Alice previously appeared at a live event on The Garret, alongside Hannah Kent and Clementine Ford.
About The Garret
Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.
Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep 180: At home with Alice Pung

The Garret is a podcast for lovers of books and storytelling.
Always about Australian writers and their craft, in 2023 The Garret expanded focus and also interviews industry figures about what gets published (and why).
The Garret is educational in outlook. A defining feature of The Garret is our transcripts. Each interview is published with a complete transcript (so you don’t have to write anything down while you listen).
The Garret is a labour of love on behalf of all emerging writers. It does not operate for revenue or profit. If you would like to support The Garret, simply subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and join the conversation on Instagram or Twitter.
You can also follow our host Astrid Edwards at astridedwards.com.

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Books

James Bradley is a writer and critic. He has returned to non-fiction with his latest work, Deep Water: The world in the ocean. His previous books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist, Clade and Ghost Species, a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. 
His essays and articles have appeared in The Monthly, The Guardian, Sydney Review of Books, Griffith Review and Meanjin. In 2012 he won the Pascall Prize for Australia’s Critic of the Year, and he has been shortlisted twice for the Bragg Prize for Science Writing and nominated for a Walkley Award. 
James has previously appeared on The Garret discussing his works of climate fiction.
About The Garret
Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.
Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep 270: James Bradley on the colonisation of the oceans

Amanda Lohrey writes fiction and non-fiction. Her latest novel, The Conversion, was released in 2023. Her previous novel, The Labyrinth (2021), won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, a Prime Minister’s Literary Award, a Tasmanian Literary Award and the Voss Literary Prize.
Amanda is also regular contributor to the Monthly magazine and a former senior fellow of the Australia Council’s Literature Board. 
About The Garret
Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.
Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep 269: Amanda Lohrey on investigating meaning via fiction

Nam Le is one of Australia's foremost poets. His short story collection The Boat has been republished as a modern classic and is widely translated, anthologised, and taught. 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem is his first poetry collection.
Nam has received major awards in America, Europe, and Australia, including the PEN/Malamud Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award, and the Melbourne Prize for Literature.
About The Garret
Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.
Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep 268: Nam Lee on 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem

Catriona Menzies-Pike is a writer and editor based in Vancouver, Canada. Between 2015 and 2023 she was the editor of the online journal of criticism, the Sydney Review of Books. In this period she also edited four anthologies of Australian critical writing, most recently Critic Swallows Book.
Her newsletter on literature and the internet, Infra Dig.
About The Garret
Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.
Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep 267: Catriona Menzies-Pike on the art of literary criticism

Sara Saleh is a writer/poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants. In 2023 she published her first novel, 'Songs for the Dead and the Living', as well as her first poetry collection 'The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat'.
Sara is the first and only poet to win both the 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the 2020 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Her poems, essays and short stories have been published widely and she is co-editor of the ground-breaking 2019 anthology 'Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity'.
In this interview Sara speaks about 'The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat' and reads 'The Gaza Suite'. Sara recently spoke on The Garret about Songs for the Dead and the Living.
About The Garret
Follow The Garret: Writing and Publishing and our host Astrid Edwards on Instagram.
Explore our back catalogue (and transcripts) at thegarretpodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep 180: At home with Alice Pung

Download our free app to listen on your phone