Final Draft - Great Conversations

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and writer, former Wallaby and a member of the order of Australia. Peter is celebrated for his history and biography writing and today he's joining us with his new book The Legend of Albert Jacka.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

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Esther Campion hails from Cork, but has made the North West of Tasmania her home. She is the author of Leaving Ocean Road and The House of Second Chances. Esther’s new novel is called The Writing Class.

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We’d all like to believe we’re the authors of our own story, but when Vivian’s husband Dave abandons her, she learns the hard way there are some twists she wouldn’t have plotted for herself.

Back home in Tasmania, Vivian is at a loss for what to do with herself until a chance encounter sees her teaching a writing class. Amidst the diverse students Vivian discovers that everyone has their own battles to fight…

Marilyn always dreamed of more but when she got married to an older man it quickly became kids and looking after her pensioned husband. Marilyn always knew her husband was mean but as she comes to know the members of her writing group she discovers he’s also a racist and is holding her back with his insular ideas.

Oscar has always been ashamed of his difficulty with reading and writing. It’s held him back from visiting his son in Japan and may have even cost him his marriage. He’d always believed literacy just wasn’t a skill he’d learn but soon Oscar learns there’s lots he can achieve with the right support.

Sienna was barely out of high school when Cole whisked her off her feet and down to Tasmania. Now with a new baby, Sienna must face up to the fact that Cole is not the man she thought her was. He’s gaslit her into thinking she’s worthless but with the help of The Writing Class she might finally be able to pursue her dreams and escape Cole’s clutches.

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The Writing Class is simultaneously feelgood and very much the emotional rollercoaster. The ensemble cast are brought together to lift each other up but we are also privy to their lives and the obstacles they must overcome.

The Writing Class doesn’t shy away from dealing with issues and I’d acknowledge that this novel explores a range of heavy topics including sexuality, abuse and coercive control. Each of these stories moves the characters towards realising their true selves even as they fight back against the forces that have worked to keep tied to their old sense of self.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Writing Class as both a page turner that gave me the strong character arcs I expected but also for its ability to surprise and challenge me with hard left twists. 

At its heart is the notion that we can realise our dreams but that this is not some fantasy but involves real work. Through each of the characters we see that what has taken them from their path is that someone else has tried to tell their story and only when they take back control of the narrative, only when they start to write their own stories can they truly live.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Emily is a lawyer and writer of Greek heritage based in Western Australia. Her writing has been published in Westerly, Griffith Review and Science Write Now. Emily is joining us with her debut novel Matia.  

When Sia emigrates from her village in Greece to Perth in the aftermath of the Second World War she is looking for a new beginning. Sia brings with her four Matia and four prophesies that will shape the lives of the women in her family.

Across four generations Matia weaves the stories of Sia, Koula, Athena, and Clara as they seek to forge their own lives and stay true to their culture in an ever changing world.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Emma Grey is a writer, novelist and photographer. Her novel the Last Love Note was a global bestseller. Her new novel is Pictures of You.

At sixteen years old Evie Hudson feels too young to be married, let alone a widow. And that’s the problem, Evie’s not sixteen but the accident that killed her husband Oliver also stole her memory.

Now she believes she’s a teenager. Thrown back to a time when she felt safe.

But safe from what? 

Evie’s lost her memory, which throws up more than a few problems. The last thing she remembers is her parents cautioning her against getting into cars with strangers and talking to people on the internet. Now she somehow has to figure out Uber?!

A week after awakening in a hospital a stranger to herself, Evie is freaking out that none of her so-called family seem to like her and her real parents haven’t tried to contact her.

Evie flees her husband’s funeral and jumps straight into Uber waiting outside.

Only problem, that’s no Uber and this guy seems to know a lot about Evie’s past.

Pictures of You is a pacy and thought provoking thriller that races the reader to discover how Evie wound up so isolated in her own life.

I’m going to give you the spoiler free review here but that means I’m only really touching on the opening chapters of the novel. 

Suffice to say though that when you buy your ticket you can expect an edgy mix of drama, social commentary and a mystery to solve just for good measure.

The narrative alternates between Evie’s contemporary battle to remember who she is and flashes back to her life at sixteen. The life she thinks she has returned to. 

We meet an idealistic and driven young woman who knows exactly where she’s going in life. The contrast couldn’t be more stark between adolescent Evie and the isolated, desperate woman struggling to understand what’s happening to her.

Pictures of You asks important questions about love and how far it’s meant to go whilst still remaining healthy. Evie believes in a Romantic vision of love but the book challenges the idea that our romantic notions should be trusted.

Eagle eyed listeners might have noticed that this is one of a few novels we’ve discussed this year that involve a character with memory loss. This device thrusts the reader into the protagonist's shoes as the act of reading mirrors the slow unraveling of a story that could very well mean life or death. 

Evie’s story hits the beats of hope and loss in satisfying ways that keep us going till the bitter end. Will we like the Evie who emerges when her memory returns? 

That’s the joy of storytelling. By taking the ride with her, whoever emerges by the end we will hopefully have greater understanding and compassion for her journey.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Mike Barry is an award winning writer and artist. His Action Tank series has won the Comic Arts Award of Australia and has been shortlisted for a slew of awards including the NSW Premiers Literary Award and the Aurealis.

Mike’s joining us today because Action Tank 3, the conclusion of the series, is out now!

A young boy wakes up on the other side of the solar system, with little more than his brains, courage and an incredibly powerful piece of space technology to rely on. 

Strap in, it’s going to be a wild ride home for his mum’s spaghetti carbonara.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Emily Maguire is the author of seven novels and has been shortlisted for the Stella, the Miles Franklin and many more awards. 

In Emily Maguire’s new novel Rapture, the life of a young woman in ninth century Europe is fraught at best.

Under her father’s roof Agnes is indulged in her reading and stands out for her intelligence and wit. But this is no life for a girl, let alone a woman and Agnes must soon face the prospect that she will be married off.

Rejecting this fate Agnes implores her father’s friend to hide her. Obscuring her sex, Agnes enters a Benedictine monastery where she must forever be on guard against discovery.

The story of Agnes is based on the history or perhaps legend of Pope Joan/Ioannes Anglicus, an officially unofficial female Pope. The story has long fascinated and perturbed the sorts of people who gatekeep these sorts of male spaces and you can see how the possibility of a learned woman who rose to the top of the Catholic Church might ruffle a few feathers.

In Maguire’s hands Agnes’ story moves between the worldly and the divine. 

At an early age Agnes is gored by a hog. This brutal action both convinces her she is not fit for marriage and also foreshadows the brief but also visceral encounters she will have with men in her future.

Agnes must negotiate a life wholly embodied; she is never able to forget her sex despite it going unnoticed by the myriad men around her. This life of the flesh convinces her to try and transcend it through her studies where she excels at academics beyond her male monkish peers.

Her excellence is taken for granted, because I guess they couldn’t possibly imagine a woman might be this clever, and Agnes rises through the clergy. Her talents put her on a course for Rome where she is destined to be seen as a paragon of learning.

It is perhaps because of her efforts to efface her womanhood that Agnes comes to be desired by so many around her. The tension and enjoyment of Rapture comes in the characterisation of Agnes’ struggle and the inner torment she suffers as she tries to find the place she has always craved in the world.

Maguire is a tremendous writer of character and through Agnes’ story we see both a history of submission challenged and a paralleling with women’s experience of success and the quest to live a public life today.

Rapture is  far from the narratives of Australian life that have occupied earlier novels like An Isolated Incident and Love Objects. What the reader can expect though is the same concern with power structures and who gets to tell the story that occupies all her novels. 

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Ann Liang is a New York Times bestselling author of YA novels This Time It’s Real, If You Could See the Sun, and I Hope This Doesn't Find You.

She’s joining us today with her new novel A Song to Drown Rivers.

In the fractured kingdom of Yue, Xishi is regarded as a peerless beauty.

In another time her beauty might see her make a good marriage and support her family, but when she is sought out by the advisor to her defeated king she sees a larger destiny on her horizon.

Thrust deep into the heart of the enemy Wu kingdom, Xishi must use all skills not only to survive but to bring justice for her people.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Tigest Girma is an Ethiopian writer based in Melbourne. Her debut novel is Immortal Dark.

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Kidan Adane has been living a half life since the disappearance of her sister. 

Ever since Kidan and her sister June were rescued as children they have lived in fear that they will be discovered by the dranaics, immortal creatures who live on the blood of humans. The dranaics power has been tempered somewhat by their bond to specific human bloodlines. Unfortunately Kidan’s family is one such bloodline.

Kidan has crossed lines to try and recover her sister and has all but given up when she is summoned by the Dean of Uxlay University. The University's long relationship with the dranaics is threatened by the ambition of one Susenyos Sagad. Susenyos is bonded to house Adane and now Kidan must return and take up her birthright, or risk an imbalance that threatens her whole world.

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Immortal Drak is a fresh and compelling reinvention of vampire lore that dives deep on the parasitic relationship between the immortal bloodsuckers and the humans they prey on.

As Kidan returns to Uxlay University and enrolls in the courses that will allow her to come into her inheritance, we are taken on a history tour of the world of Immortal Dark. A world where vampires and humans are bound to each other. It limits the blood loss but ramps up the intimate tension to eleven.

Kidan presents as a loner, but she’s no Bella Swan or even Buffy Summers. For starters Immortal Dark’s mythos traces its origins to Africa and this feeds into the history and character of the families of Uxlay. 

Kidan is also neither a clear slayer, nor consort of the sexy vampire/dranaic. Rather there is a lot of brooding and even more on and off screen violence.

The journey into the world of Uxlay University works hard to balance world building and driving narrative. We are privy to this strange outpost of humans and vampires through Kidan’s eyes and so it is appropriately strange. The novel doesn’t seem to want the reader to get too comfortable and so be prepared for blood and angst in equal measure.

Immortal Dark, Kidan and Uxlay defy any stereotype about supernatural schooling you might bring to your reading of the novel. There are obvious parallels to be drawn here with other franchises both magical and bitey, but that’s only going to thwart the reader. It’s not until you take Immortal dark on its own terms that the narrative of legacy, disenfranchisement and attraction can work their own magic on you.

I’ll confess, I think this is my first foray into the genre known as Romantasy (a portmanteau of Romance and Fantasy) and I was pleasantly surprised. The angst is heavy, but no heavier than I’m sure I was when I was an angsty, university aged person. The lore and the worldbuilding offer a hook that lets you discover and rediscover what you thought you knew about undead bloodsuckers. As for the narrative, it provides mystery and suspense in a pacy way that invites page turning.

Immortal Dark is a must for lovers of genre but should also be on the TBR of readers who like to challenge their preconceptions. You know what they say about vampires; into every generation a new take on the undead is born. Maybe Immortal Dark is the latest to take us by storm.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Lauren Keegan is a psychologist and writer. Her debut novel is All the Bees in the Hollows.

With the death of her husband, Martye must take care of the family’s hollows. She is not alone, although her daughter Austeja has always fiercely resisted her families vocation as beekeepers. There is more loss to come though when the Hollow Watcher is found dead beneath an abandoned hollow. With suspicion turning onto the community Martye and Austeja must learn to rely on each other, and they must trust to the bees. Bees don’t sting good people.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Blue Mountains Writers Festival brings together incredible minds and exciting new talent set against the stunning backdrop of the Blue Mountains.