Final Draft - Great Conversations

Flock brings together twenty First Nations writers, poets and authors in a collection that features some of the best writing in this country. The collection is edited and features a story from Ellen Van Neerven. The stories promise to roam the landscape of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, bringing together voices from across the generations.

This episode of book club features words from Wiradjuri poet Jeanine Leane as she describes how "First Nations writing is always important because First Nations writing does the job that national history fails to do."

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Mykaela Saunders, Jeanine Leane & Jane Harrison discussing the anthology Flock.

Flock introduces itself as First Nations Stories Then and Now. The stories promise to roam the landscape of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, bringing together voices from across the generations. The collection is edited and features a story from Ellen Van Neerven. It features contributions from the likes of Tara June Winch, Tony Birch and Melissa Lucashenko as well as our guests today Mykaela Saunders, Jeanine Leane and Jane Harrison.

I’ve been thinking about Genre lately. Genre in its simplest form is the style or the type of books you like to read; crime, fantasy, romance. Genre has other uses in linguistic theory but I’ve mostly been thinking about literary genres.

Often in conversation genre fans will clash with so-called literary fans. There’s a slippery slope of which is which but often it seems if something can be defined as genre it is by default not literary.

I don’t agree with this. It’s why I brought it up because I would hate for anyone to hear us discuss a book and dismiss it offhand because it didn’t fit their idea of Genre.

There’s a great article in the Guardian this week. Mary Anne Sieghart writes Why Do So Few Men Read Books by women? Sieghart is looking at how we are able to understand each other’s experiences of the world and how this relates to a range of pervasive gaps in gendered experience of the world.

But I wondered about genre.

Do perceptions about genre and which genres are read by which group play into the books we read?

For instance if I introduced you to a book called Love, in Theory what would your reaction be?

I think some people might hear ‘Love’ and automatically start classifying the type of book this might be.

Well Love, in Theory by Elodie Cheesman is the book I’ve got for our book club today.

It’s the story of a twenty something Sydneysider; dedicated to their career and adopting a novel approach to social life outside work.

In a lot of ways this book is the perfect exploration of living in a world where boomer thinking dominates a world where millennials are shut out from many of the tropes of growing up their parents have told them to expect.

Romy is a graduate lawyer. Her work sees her taking a deep dive into the relationships corporations have with their employees and she’s finding that many of these look more like romantic partnerships than anything she’s got on her personal calendar. Meanwhile her parents have challenged her with the theory of then optimal stopping point; a way of calculating the best time to make a decision when the choices seem to go on endlessly.

Romy has to apply ruthless legal logic to the relationships in her work, why not try a little algorithmic thinking to her non-existent dating life.

Love, in Theory flips between the arching narrative of Romy’s personal life and vignettes from her legal world of wrongful terminations turned sour. It’s an expose of how none of us are really equipped to work on our relationships because we rarely stop and think whether relationships are things that need work.

As Romy grapples between trusting chemistry and doing the work she finds almost everyone subscribes to a varying notion of love and relationships. It’s amazing we ever get together for anything.

See, from a genre perspective this might look like a romance novel, and romance smashes it in terms of looking at how we live our lives, but if you only saw that you might miss the savvy eye to critical thinking it applies to everyday relationships.

Love in Theory wants us to think about things that we usually believe should be felt. It’s trying to upend our social positioning and show us a new perspective and that’s always worth having a look at...

Andrew Pople is the host of Final Draft on 2ser and the Great Conversations podcast.

Here he is celebrating three years of the podcast on air on Sydney radio 2ser 107.3

Join us in celebrating three years of the Final Draft podcast!

We've come a long way and today we're looking back to the beginning.

Bram Presser is the author of the award winning The Book of Dirt. He is also the first guest to grace our little podcast way back when it began. Listen back to a remastered version of that first interview along with exclusive audio of Andrew and Bram discussing the incredible success of The Book of Dirt winning the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features Michelle Wright discussing her debut novel Small Acts of Defiance

Today on the show...

In January 1940 Lucie and her mother Yvonne must leave Australia for France, following the death of Lucie’s father. They are taken in by Gerard, Yvonne’s brother and their only surviving relative.

Despite feeling she might never fit in as a Parisian, Lucie endeavours to settle in to the fabled city of lights, sketching postcards for sale at a nearby art supply store.

But Lucie’s arrival coincides with the invasion of France by Germany. As the Germans exert more and more control, Lucie must decide whether to shelter in her relative safety or make a show of resistance.

Join me as we discover Michelle Wright’s Small Acts of Defiance...

Today's episode is a shout out to To Be Read piles everywhere.

As we face down the Sydney Lockdown it can be easy to pressure ourselves to try to do all the things.

Instead we should be kind to our mind and approach our TBR with love and curiosity.

Today's selection offers books to challenge, make you think and just relax into as your mind travels wide while your body stays put.

Titles mentioned...

Evelyn Araluen's Drop Bear

Elodie Cheesman's Love in Theory

Racism (collection) from Sweatshop Literacy Movement ed. Winnie Dunn

Vanessa Berry's Gentle & Fierce

and unnamed mystery that will be coming up on 2ser's Death of the Reader

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features RWR McDonald discussing his new novel Nancy Business

Today on the show...

Nancy Business returns to Riverstone. Tippy’s been getting on with life after solving the murder of her teacher. Pike and Devon have bought the murder house and are trying to decorate it without murdering each other.

So far so normal when the town is rocked by an explosion at the Town Hall. Three people are killed and it looks like the bomber might be a local.

The bombing happens on the anniversary of Tippy’s father’s death and this brings back so much for her. Tippy is now constantly in fear of more violence and of losing more people close to her. The only thing to do is reform the Nancys and solve the mystery of the lone bomber.

In January 1940 Lucie and her mother Yvonne leave Australia for France, following the death of Lucie’s father. Taken in by Gerard, their only surviving relative, Lucie must settle into the fabled city of lights on the eve of invasion from Germany.

Small Acts of Defiance chronicles Lucie’s coming of age in Paris and a world that is forever teetering on chaos as the Germans exert more and more control.

Lucie begins inexperienced and self consciously out of her depth in a city she worries will never embrace her. Wright approaches crafting Lucie’s point of view with all the naivety and innocence of a young person on their first trip away from Australia. This allows us as readers to experience and marvel at discovering Paris even as the city lights are dimming with the ongoing war.

Lucie’s perspectives vacillate between her love of the sun and surf of her Australian upbringing now tainted by the loss of her father and the enchanting but dangerous lure of occupied Paris.

Lucie’s talent as an artist draws her into circles that soon see her challenged in her role as a either resisting of acquiescing to the German rule. Her best friend Aline is a young Jewish student whose world is steadily circumscribed by antisemtic laws.

Small Acts of Defiance unfolds miles from the battlefields, so familiar in novels of war and takes us onto the streets where everyday people must still make decisions with life or death consequences. We watch along with Lucie, as small encroachments on liberty accumulate to people being taken from the streets and those not directly impacted desperately tell themselves stories to justify their complicity.

Lucie’s story is compelling whether viewed in its historical place or through our modern lens. As a foreigner, as a child, as a woman she feels that she is singularly denied any space to voice her true self. And so she creates small works of art that she hides around the city.

But Lucie is relatively fortunate as she comes to learn when Aline’s grandfather is taken and the family are ostracised from society just for being Jewish. Lucie comes to be haunted by something her father told her of his experience of war… “Doing nothing is still a choice. A choice to stand aside and let it happen.”

Lucie commits to her small acts of defiance and is drawn further into her friends resistance of the occupation. All the while challenged by her own small role and the potentially outsized risk it places on her mother and uncle.

This is a deeply affecting story of a time and a place that cannot fail but to have claim on our modern consciousness. With both sides of any argument seemingly drawing on the spectre of Nazism to fling at their enemies it serves us well to gain a deeper understanding and empathy.

Small Acts of Defiance is also a tonic against despair and complacency. I don’t know about you but I’ve fallen prey to feelings that my efforts amount to little. Small Acts of Defiance reminds us that we are a part of the world we live in, the communities that we interact with and that gives us responsibilities. No matter the ways authorities may pit us against each other giving up or never trying is a choice and that our actions are an important part of living.

Great Conversations features interviews with authors and writers, exploring books, writing and literary culture from Australia and the world.

Today's episode features part two of Jessie Stephens discussing her new book Heartsick

Today on the show...

Heartsick weaves together three stories of love and loss.

Claire has returned from London, only to realise something is wrong with her partner Maggie.

Patrick is a lonely uni student, until he meets Caitlin - but does she feel as connected as he does?

Ana is happily married with three children. Then, one night, she falls in love with someone else.

Today’s conversation is presented by 2ser producer Briannah Devlin

Join me as we discover Jessie Stephens’ Heartsick...