The Kill Your Darlings Podcast is back with a few strange tales from the Melbourne Writers Festival and beyond. In this edition we speak to one of our KYD First Book Club authors, Madelaine Dickie, about her novel Troppo and the experiences in Indonesia that informed it. We also have Julie Koh reading part of ‘Cream Reaper’, from her brilliantly bizarre collection Portable Curiosities. Finally, I restrain my inner fangirl (who is also my outer fangirl) while asking Lev Grossman about his series The Magicians, magical protagonists, and what it’s like seeing Brakebills brought to life.

Further reading:

Read an extract from Madelaine Dickie’s Troppo, KYD’s First Book Club pick for September

You can stream the podcast above or on Soundcloud, or subscribe on iTunes or your favourite podcasting app.

Lev Grossman: …Reality just doesn’t act like that. It doesn’t act like books, it’s not as satisfying. It’s not as well organised…

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. I’m Meaghan and I’ll be your host for the next half hour or so, as we delve into stories that are a little unusual. During the Melbourne Writers Festival, we spoke to Lev Grossman about The Magicians, so that interview’s coming up, and so is Julie Koh’s reading part of her short story ‘Cream Reaper’. But first up we have an interview with Madelaine Dickie. Her debut novel Troppo is the September KYD First Book Club pick, and is out now with Fremantle Press, official sponsors of this third of the podcast. I asked her about her first experiences in Indonesia, where the novel is set.

Madelaine Dickie: I first went to Indonesia on a study trip as a 16-year-old, so I studied Indonesian throughout high school, and had a ten-day sort of study tour in Denpasar, so I went to school in Indonesia, and in Bali, and yeah, just brushed up on the language skills. It was really different, actually, speaking Indonesian in the country as compared to learning Indonesian in the classroom. I thought I was pretty well, but as soon as I