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 Miles Franklin award winning author Evie Wyld discussing her new novel The Bass Rock.

The Bass Rock weaves together three narratives across the centuries exploring the pervasive violence that women must live with daily. The novel opens on a scene of a child and her mother walking on the beach, about to make a gruesome discovery. We then meet Vivian arriving in town late at night to catalogue the estate of her grandmother Ruth. In post war Scotland Ruth arrives at her new home unsure of her place and her role in the lives of her adopted children. And some centuries earlier Sarah must flee her village after she is charged with witchcraft and faces brutality at the hands of the townsfolk and burning at the stake.

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

Today's episode features Luke Arnold discussing his debut novel The Last Smile in Sunder City.

In Sunder City Fetch Phillips is a man for hire, but he doesn’t work for humans and sobriety is extra. Sunder City is a melting pot of magical folk from fae to werewolves and demons. Since the Coda though there’s no magic. Fetch is a gumshoe with pretty manky old shoes. He needs a case and his latest client needs him to find a vampire.

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

Today's episode features Alison Evans discussing their new novel Euphoria Kids.

Euphoria Kids is the story of Iris and Babs. They go to the same school but don’t know each other. Ever since a witch cursed her as a child Babs periodically becomes invisible. It makes it hard to find friends until one day Iris sees her on the bus. Iris grew from a seed in the garden and has always had more kinship with the fairies and dryads that live in the bush. Together they find each other and something of their place in the world until rumblings among the fae reveal that the witch who cursed Babs has returned to the forest...

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

Today's episode features Laura McPhee-Browne discussing her debut novel Cherry Beach.

Cherry Beach is the story of a friendship; Hetty and Ness have been friends since childhood and now they are in Toronto discovering something of life and themselves. It's a story of great beauty, love and loss.

Final Draft's Great Conversations is returning for 2020!

Bringing you latest releases and classic Australian literature.

Join Andrew every week as he sits down with Australian writers and together they get to the heart of their work.

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

Today's episode features Fleur McDonald discussing her new outback thriller Starting From Now.

Zara Ellison is a reporter with the Farming Telegraph, just finishing up a big story of a protest gone wrong resulting in a man’s death, when she gets the call from home. Her brother’s cancer has progressed and he has maybe a few months left. Packing up her Adelaide apartment, Zara returns to Barker, a town that has always felt too small and a life that she left as a teenager off to boarding school with dreams of the world.

One of my goals at Final Draft is to present Australian writing and Australian writers in a way that might intrigue and captivate, perhaps challenge but never judge. Having the extraordinary opportunity to meet and discuss with so many literary minds I’d prefer if they hold the stage so that you, the listener can get more of the books you love.

I don’t always love every book that I read, but I also understand that many of these books will have readers that love them. I also understand that these books are not written exclusively for my personal edification and so I try to approach them with an open heart.

It’s quite difficult then for me to collate a list of the best or select from a certain period books that are more worthy than others. I have huge respect for those who can and I eagerly devour awards list and wrap ups, but I guess I’ve always been a little reluctant. I mean, I read a lot, but nothing close to every single Australian release in a given period so I won’t even pretend to in the entire scope of Aussie writing.

This then is a list of books that have personally impacted me this year. They’re all 2019 releases and all Australian; which meant a few books from writers working in Australia missed out because I wanted the list to reflect stories being told about Australia. I’ve also left off some hugely entertaining books because they didn’t move me in the same way as these works have

It’s a highly unsatisfactory process and I thank you for sticking with me this far! I guess if I could tell you what to read I would say read these works from 2019. They all have something important to say about our world, our country, our lives and our future. They have challenged me and given me tears and troubled sleep, but have also left me with the feeling that reading and being part of a literary community is a very fine thing to be!

Alison Whittaker’s Blakwork

Blakwork is a collection of Alison Whittaker’s poetry and essay covering personal and social biography, satire and critique. It explores Alison’s life as a First Nations woman, and her experiences as a poet and a lawyer.

Alison’s collection and my time speaking with her for Final Draft helped crystallise for me threads of thoughts about the ways in which I read and the impact of that reading. At the beginning of the year I undertook to review the ways Final Draft represented voices in our community. It was important to me that voices of First Nations people as well as queer and other non-white, non-dominant culture writing was featured on the show.

In Blakwork and through Alison’s writing I discovered that just having that representation is only a first step. That we read writers from a variety of cultural or otherwise perspectives means nothing if we fail to challenge the dominant colonial lens through which we read. Now maybe what I’m saying doesn’t resonate with you, maybe it makes you feel uncomfortable, maybe you feel like being told how to read is a betrayal of why you engage with literary discussion.

For me, I discovered a challenge to decolonise my reading and approach the literature I consume in new ways.

Alice Bishop’s A Constant Hum

A Constant Hum presents a collection of stories exploring the aftermath of bushfire. Across nearly fifty stories the collection looks at the many ways we try to understand and move forward when catastrophic events occur.

At the time of A Constant Hum’s release I spoke with Alice and reviewed A Constant Hum I wrote that “The stories are visceral and sensory, opening up a world that the average reader may never experience…” Now mere months later and across the country Australian’s are getting a first hand understanding of fire and its seemingly new place in our summer life.

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

Today's episode features Maria Lewis discussing her new supernatural thriller The Wailing Woman.

Sadie Burke is from an ancient family of Banshees. Banshees were exiled from Ireland to Australia in the 19th century and are considered to be amongst the least of all supernatural beings.

At nineteen years old Sadie works in the family business as a forensic cleaner and tries to cope with the visions of those about to die. Then one day a face from her past returns to Sydney heralding changes that will shatter Sadie’s supernatural world!

To celebrate the end of the year Andrew is joined by Flex & Herds from Death of the Reader.

Together the three bring you three murderous Xmas favourites and attempt to get to the bottom of why a Xmas murder mystery is just so comforting at this time of year!

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

Today's episode features Darug woman Jasmine Seymour discussing her new book for children Cooee Mittigar.

Cooee Mittigar takes the reader on a journey through Darug Nura - the reader is taken through country and seasons and introduced to words and concepts in Darug and English.

It’s a fabulous chance to learn language and share culture especially with younger readers who can then take it out and explore their world.