Literati Glitterati

Alina Grabowski dials in to talk all about her latest book, Women and Children First, set in a fictional town in Massachusetts. It’s a burnt-out coastal town where the residents are confronted by the death of a young woman at a house party, and the novel is told through the voices of women in the community as they work through their grief and try to get to the bottom of what happened.

Poet Andy Jackson joins Mel to talk about his collaborative project Raging Grace: Australian Writers Speak Out on Disability. Featuring work from over 20 disabled contributors, the anthology contains poems, essays and artworks which question and divulge the experience of being deemed troublesome.

And there's still time to read this month's novel, Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, for next week's Literati Glitterati Salon.

Mel's first guest is Emily Maguire, discussing her recently-released book Rapture. In the second half of the show, Mel explores Australian Gospel: A Family Saga with author Lech Blain.

Special guest host Jess Zanoni fills in for Mel this week.

Jess is joined by Jessica Friedmann author of Twenty-Two Impressions: notes from the Major Arcana to peek behind the curtain of the history and culture surrounding Tarot.

Plus Joe Rubbo, Managing Director of Readings, stops by the studio to talk about 'A Day in Carlton' - a brand new literary festival being put on by the book retailer.

Mel Fulton speaks with internet darling Lucinda “Froomes” Price about her debut novel All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot.

Froomes is known for outrageous comedic bits, celebrity obsessions and as a beacon for early naughties nostalgia. All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot is a memoir/manifesto that dives deep into her psyche, an honest and vulnerable account of Froomes' experiences with restrictive eating, cosmetic surgery and societal expectations, all backed by science, anecdotes and pop culture references.

Mel and Froomes acknowledge that a lot of us want to be hot, but the lengths we go to can be detrimental. Together, they drill into some of the experiences in their own lives that made them stop and think about why they were doing what they were doing to their bodies, and work through decades worth of internalised commentary on their external appearance.

If this conversation brings up unwelcome feelings regarding disordered eating, try talking to a loved one or call the Butterfly Foundation hotline on 1800 33 4673.

Mel chats with Katerina Gibson on her new book 'The Temperature', a collection of short stories about climate change in contemporary Australia. Then, Samah Sabawi discusses her novel 'Cactus Pear For My Beloved', a family story from Gaza.

In collaboration with the Emerging Writers' Festival, Mel chats with three authors, William Huang, Katy Chan, and Elizabeth Bourke, and premieres three unique audio pieces exploring ideas from AI, memory and creativity and being terminally online for the Digital Surrealisms event.

The monthly Literati Glitterati Salon returns to discuss 'Enter Ghost' by Isabella Hammad, a novel about a Palestinian production of Hamlet.

Mel Fulton speaks to novalist Nevo Zisin, illustrator Sofia Sabbagh, and editor Tess Cullity on how the book portrays the power of Palestinian theatre, and the complexity of a book released just months before last October when Palestine was changed drastically by increasing violent conflict and opression from Israeli settlers and IDF forces.

Mel speaks to the author of 'Woo Woo', a feminist thriller about making art, online performance, and voyeurism.

Mel chats with Evie Wyld on her new book The Echoes, a love story from the perspective of a ghost.

The monthly Lit Glit salon returns with A Manual For Cleaning Women, a pulverising selection of short stories from the previously unsung queen of story, Lucia Berlin.

Berlin wrote in binges, brilliantly, throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s until her death in 2004. Ten years later, with the release of this book, she became a New York Times Bestseller and the kind of writer that Mel says "I’d start a fight with my then boyfriend about".

You think Bukowski lived a life? Maaaate. If there can only be one true cataloguer of the ugly-beautiful, the itinerant, the mundane-transcendent, the gurgling bottle, to imbue the city dump with the majesty of a field of wildflowers, then Lit Glit decrees: it is she.

Listen back as writer Grace Yee and painter Kirsty Budge have a belter of a conversation about the woman who could be described as the godmother of autofiction. As Berlin herself said – “The story is the thing.”