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.

George Kemp is an award winning writer of fiction, plays and television.

In 2024, George was accepted into The Faber Academy, during which he wrote his first novel SOFT SERVE.

In a small town McDonald’s four reluctant individuals gather to remember Taz. Pat is still mourning the son she lost too young. Fern, Jacob and Ethan miss their friend and struggle with how their lives have become stuck since his death.

This is no simple anniversary though. As fires circle the town, bearing down on the Maccas, the four must confront how they are trapped not just by natural disaster but by their choices since Taz died.

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.

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.

Rhett Davis is the author of Hovering. Today we’ve got his new novel Arborescence

Arborescence is the state of having the root and branch like structures of a tree. Importantly it’s a noun, but Rhett Davis asks us to imagine if it were a verb…

Caelyn is at a loss. She’s bouncing between jobs that she quickly loses, like when she gets fired from a nursery for taking home the dying plants (they considered it stealing!). She hates that we’re destroying the world but feels powerless to stop it.

When she hears about a group trying to become trees, she and her partner Bren go to investigate. What she finds are people standing still in a field, with a support network of others caring for them as they attempt to Arboresce. It’s a mad dream, but what if it could be true?

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.

Summer time in the Final Draft household brings lots of new release and pre-release titles and the corresponding challenge of knowing where to start. When the titles started rolling in though it was very easy to pick up Kay Kerr’s new novel, her first aimed at adult readers because I’ve enjoyed her Young Adult writing, as well as her strong autistic characters and her approach to neurodiversity. 

Kay is an author and journalist based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. She’s the author of Please Don’t Hug Me, Social Queue, and Love & Autism. Kay’s latest novel, Might Cry Later, is our book club title for today.

Nora is home for Xmas, Actually she’s been home a little longer than that and will probably be staying a bit after. 

At twenty-one and living in Melbourne Nora found her life imploding. What came next, well Nora’s not quite ready to face yet, but she came home with a brand new Autism diagnosis that no one in her family wants to talk about.

Holidays are hard enough, but as Nora watches all the people in her life gather round she questions whether her neurodiverse brain can regulate through all this stimulation.

Might Cry Later is the story of Nora and her journey through late-diagnosis of Autism. For context, and acknowledging differences in reporting, average ages for diagnosis are typically reported within childhood and females are generally diagnosed later than males.

Nora’s story of declining mental health before a diagnosis represents so many women’s experience of having their neurodiversity misunderstood or misdiagnosed on the pathway to diagnosis.

That’s the stats but what Kay Kerr gives us is the heartfelt and raw story of what that means in the real world and confronts us with the challenge that getting a diagnosis is just the beginning.

When we meet Nora at her parent’s home in the Gold Coast Hinterland it seems like she’s in paradise. Nora acknowledges how the peace and natural environment are good for her and helps her regulate a sensory system she’s learning reacts differently to other people’s. Nora’s also having to deal with how her family, and particularly her family at Xmas care little for sensory regulation if it does not fit in with a rigorous regime of decorating and social engagements.

The story weaves between Nora’s Xmas struggles and her memories of her younger, undiagnosed self and all the struggles that now make so much sense to her. These memories force her to face the ways she wasn’t supported as she needed, but also how her behaviours also hurt those closest to her, particularly her best friend Fran.

Might Cry Later flirts with a range of classic text structures including rom-com, bildungsroman and quest, whilst ultimately carving its own path through an inevitably messy world. Nora is both endearing and unlikable to the reader, as she is to herself and it’s a strength of the storytelling that we go on this journey of uncertainty with such confidence.

I found myself rooting for Nora in her everyday work to figure out her life. Her story is a wonderful look into the autistic experience, and part of a growing body of writing exploring the neurodiverse world.

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.

William J Byrne’s debut novel is The Warrumbar.

Robbie’s not so different from the other boys in his class. He loves cricket, school not so much. His Mum is Aboriginal and his Dad is white. They live on the outskirts of town and don’t have much. 

When Robbie meets Moses his world is opened up. He learns about The Mission where his Mum grew up, about the world that Moses has seen after enlisting in the army. Moses tells him about life; the mistakes he’s made and how he’s worked to overcome them.

Robbie’s Dad thinks Moses is trouble. They have history and Robbie’s Dad warns him off seeing him. Of course Robbie doesn’t listen, which draws him down to the Dam one fateful day.

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.

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.

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher. She is co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Evelyn’s first collection Dropbear won the Stella Prize in 2022 and she is joining us today with her new collection The Rot.

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.

Xmas time is here and as sure we’ll be reaching for mince pies, gravy and white wine in the sun, we’ll also be turning our attention to festive tales that make us feel warm and full of cheer. Because festive cheer is what makes a Xmas story Xmassy right?

I saw the other day that this year marks the 35th anniversary of Home Alone.

Feeling old yet?

This iconic Xmas movie is full of all the festive staples like child neglect, break and enter, and attempted murder (are we going to need a content warning Andrew?). And Macaulay Culkin has a job for life, trotting out every five years or so and acknowledging his place alongside Mariah Carey in the modern Xmas pantheon. 

On the occasion of Home Alone’s 35th Culkin decided to indulge another great Xmas tradition; weighing in on whether or not Die Hard is a Xmas movie. About now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with books. This is book club after all. 

Well Die Hard was a book; Nothing Lasts Forever, a 1979 action thriller novel by American author Roderick Thorp. Home Alone was novelised after the fact, so do with that what you will. What I’m interested in though is the fascination with danger and in particular our predilection for mayhem and murder alongside our carefully hung stockings.

Agatha Christie knew all about this. The phrase ‘A Christie for Xmas’ was synonymous with the reading public's love of a cosy crime around the holiday season. The Golden Age great wrote several books and short stories with Xmas at the centre of the narrative. The larger motif of festive murder was celebrated more through the release of a new novel around Xmas time each year. The tradition continues long after the author’s death through the release of adaptations of the novels around the festive season.  Cynics may wonder if this is simply a commercial imperative. Cashing in on a public with time on their hands, but of all the types of diversion I wonder why murder is so popular a choice.

It’s not just Agatha Christie. 

I’m waiting to read Benjamin Stevenson’s 2024 installment of his Ernest Cunningham series, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret. I gifted it to my wife, so I guess I have to wait for her to finish it first.

Horror is also a big part of the Xmas cannon. From the thorough exploitation of Krampus, through to Gremlins and with many straight up slashers in between, we love some violent Xmas storytelling.

It’s beginning to look a lot like whether it’s Kevin McCalister, John McClaine, or just Joe from How to Make Gravy, everyone is looking to survive their Xmas and praying that there’s no one in her who wants to fight.

So if you’re hanging out for a tightly plotted, or wildly bloody Xmas story this year, don’t fight it. You’re in good company, whether we acknowledge it or not.

The why may be harder to decipher, but I’ve got my elves working on it and I think I may have something for you for our next (and last) book club for the year!  

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.

Today Felix Shannon joins us in conversation with Benjamin Stevenson

Benjamin Stevenson is an award-winning stand-up comedian and author of the globally popular ‘Ernest Cunningham Mysteries’, including Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone.

Ten suspects. Ten heists. A puzzle only Ernest Cunningham can solve.

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.

Today's Book Club is a reading from Evelyn Araluen's new poetry collection The Rot.

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher. She is co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Evelyn’s first collection Dropbear won the Stella Prize in 2022 and she is joining us today with her new collection The Rot.

Originally aired on 2ser 107.3

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.

Dr Katharine Pollock (PhD) is the author of Her Fidelity. Her new novel is Starry Eyed.

To say that Scarlett Fever is the centre of Addilyn’s universe would be to imply that there is only a finite number of universes and that Scarlett hasn’t traversed them all in her majestic ship Lynx. Ever since childhood, Addilyn has loved Scarlett Fever and the opportunity it’s given her to travel the cosmos in her mind.

Scarlett’s certainly offered her more than the real world seems willing to, and so when Addilyn is given the chance to interview Scarlett Fever’s Wunderkind director, Josh Jolly Courtney (now sexily salt & pepper at the temples) she doesn’t hesitate to jet off to New York.

Is this her hero's journey, or does another story await her?

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.

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.

Sally’s novel The Family Next Door has recently been adapted for television.

Sally joins us today with her new novel Mad Mabel. 

Elsie just wants a quiet life. She’s been more than thirty years in her quiet little Melbourne lane and she’d happily stay thirty more if she thought she had that much time left.

Unfortunately for Elsie her elderly neighbour Ishaan has to go and die. Nothing suspicious of course and poor Elsie is the one to find the body.

Nothing suspicious, but it only takes one curious person, one probing question and a short search and Elsie’s past is there to discover. And try as she might Elsie can’t seem to escape Mad Mabel.

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.