Final Draft - Great Conversations

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

Today's episode features Michael Mohammed Ahmad discussing the anthology After Australia.

After Australia offers a selection of twelve incredible Indigenous Writers and Writers of Colour including Ambellin Kwaymullina, Karen Wyld, Omar Sakr, Future D Fidel and Zoya Patel. Together they imagine Australia for 2050 and beyond.

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the author of The Tribe and The Lebs, as well as the founding Director of Sweatshop. He has edited the collection.

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

Today's episode features Robbie Arnott discussing his new novel The Rain Heron.

In the forest near a small town Ren has driven herself to a life of solitude after her world was torn apart by the violence of a military coup that has overtaken the country. Ren lives by her wits; hunting and bartering with a local man for the bare necessities of life.

When the military arrive, lead by the brutally resourceful Harker, Ren believes she can outlast them. But the military have set their sigs on an impossibility. The mythical Rain Heron is the stuff of legend, but Harker has been tasked with finding it and bringing it back and she believes Ren knows where it is…

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

Today's episode features Kate Grenville discussing her new novel A Room Made of Leaves.

Elizabeth Macarthur arrived in New South Wales aboard the convict ship Scarborough in 1790. The twenty four year gentlewoman had arrived with her husband, an officer in the New South Wales Corps. She would live in New South Wales until her death in 1850, playing a key role in establishing the wool industry that would occupy so much of early Australia.

Much of what we know of Elizabeth Macarthur comes from her letters to family in England. But what if there was more…

Kate Grenville’s A Room Made of Leaves opens up the possibility that Elizabeth Macarthur wrote a frank and potentially scandalous memoir of her life. Freed by death, distance and time this Elizabeth is able to reflect on her life and the folly and cruelties of the English invasion of what would come to be known as Australia.

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

Today's episode features Sulari Gentill discussing her new novel A Testament of Character.

Rowland’s adventures have kept him away from Australia and before returning home he must divert his path again, this time to America. Rowland is summoned to take on the sad duty of executor of his old friend Daniel Cartwright’s estate.

Cartwright has been murdered and Rowland arrives in Boston to a family tempest as the Cartwright’s fight to see Daniel’s fortune settled on them. When the Will bequeaths the estate to a mysterious stranger named Otis Norcross it soon becomes clear that Rowland is going to have a job of keeping both himself and Daniel’s intentions in one piece.

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

Today's episode features Christine Bell discussing his debut novel No Small Shame.

1909 - In the mining town of Bothwellhaugh, Scotland, Mary O’Donnell and Liam Merilees promise each other that they will make something more of their lives than the tiny town has to offer.

Four years later and the families have emigrated to Australia and the equally small town of Wonthagee. When Mary arrives Liam is changed. No longer the carefree friend of their youth. So what remains of their dreams and what can they make of the promise Australia offered?

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

Today's episode features Mike McLeish discussing his new novel with Fiona Harris The Drop Off.

Every morning at Baytree Primary Lizzie, Megan and Sam convene over coffee as their kids trundle off to class. They’re a self contained trio; Lizzie a midwife, Megan a former model turned designer and Sam an ex-chef. Enthusiastic parents in activewear need not apply, these three have their morning friendship and that’s enough for them.

But then tragedy strikes the school as the beloved lollipop man dies. And somehow Megan has been roped into producing the end of year play?!

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

Today's episode features Kay Kerr discussing her debut novel Please Don't Hug Me.

High school is tough for everyone, but Erin has to wonder if someone is trying to make it especially difficult. She’s been fired from her job for dropping truth bombs and her clique of friends are the sort you’re sometimes better off without.

Erin’s trying to complete high school and schoolies is the unofficial/official finishing line. Erin is on the autism spectrum but only a few people know. Her best friend Dee is always ready with doughnuts to fix a bad day, and her new friend Aggie just knows the right thing to say. But Erin still has to figure out her world and where she fits in it. She has a one of a kind brain and what she really wants is to talk with her big brother Rudy about how he survived high school.

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

Today's episode features Madeleine Watts discussing her debut novel The Inland Sea.

The unnamed narrator of The Inland Sea, has recently left the comfort of university with barely a vague plan for what comes next in her life. She falls into a job as an emergency call centre operator. There she listens day in and day out as disasters befall callers around the country. As she jots down these moments in her notepad she becomes fascinated with the kinds of tragedies that fill her world, little realising the impending climate cataclysm awaiting us all.

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

Today's episode features Chris Flynn discussing his new novel Mammoth.

In an auction house in New York a Mammoth and a Tyrannosaurus Bataar while away the hours before their sale by recounting tales of their past. Joined by a prehistoric penguin, the pharaoh Hatshepsut and a pterodactyl the group take us on a journey into our modern world by way of the destruction us bipeds have caused to create it...

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

Today's episode features Suzanne Leal discussing her new novel The Deceptions.

The Deceptions is a story that emerges out of the second world war. On the order of the occupying Nazi invaders, Jewish residents of Prague are interred in the fortress town of Terezin, in what would be known as the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Hanah is one of those imprisoned in Theresienstadt; watching and waiting as residents slowly leave on unknowable transports. When a local gendarme begins to show Hanah attention she realises this might be a chance for survival, but at what cost?

Out of these terrible times emerge stories and secrets that continue to reverberate through to our modern day...