Historian Ann McGrath won the NSW Premier’s History Prize for her book Illicit Love, on interracial sex and marriage,and she speaks about how important these stories of ‘romance’ regulated and controlled are for understanding contact across cultures and time. Also, the latest collections of best Australian short stories and poetry, with Charlotte Wood and poet Sarah Holland Batt; and what it means to think about ‘classics’ of Australian writing with publisher Michael Hayward and poet John Kinsella