Irma and Craig talk about writing groups and getting quality feedback on your work.

Then Irma talks with Sofie Laguna, on finding the essence of your characters, the fraught space of awards, how kids have made her writing practice better, the cruel world of publishing, how she struggles with success, navigating good and bad reviews, why writing a screenplay can sharpen the book edit, and how reading is like having an author's dreams in your hands.

About Sofie
Sofie Laguna is the author of 21 books for children and adults. Her books for young people have been named Honour Books and Notable Books in the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards and have been shortlisted in the Queensland Premier's Awards. Her first novel for adults, ‘One Foot Wrong’, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. And her second novel, ‘The Eye of the Sheep’, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and won the Miles Franklin Award. Her third novel The Choke won the 2018 Indie Awards and was shortlisted for a number of others. Her fourth and latest novel for adults is Infinite Splendours.

Craig and Irma talk about the fraught experience of getting book endorsements.

Then Craig chats with Eugen Bacon about issues around black writing, the joys and difficulties of life that trigger inspiration, the complexities of defining genre, the art of the short story, and why reading Toni Morrison is like eating the richest truffles.

About Eugen
Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections. She’s a British Fantasy Award winner, a Foreword Book of the Year silver award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the British Science Fiction Association, Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadow Awards. 

Craig and Irma talk about writing guides, in particular the new book by Georgia Richter and Deborah Hunn, How to be an Author.

Then Craig chats with Valerie Parv about how she went from an advertising copywriter to sales of over 34 million books, whether genre elitism and genre prejudice exist, the crazy debacle that was dubbed Parvgate, the impact of COVID on reading and publishing, moving from romance into science fiction, and a funny make-up mix up in the green room with her husband.

About Valerie
Valerie Parv was the bestselling author of over 70 romance novels, with more than 34 million sales. She published with Mills & Boon from 1982. She passed away on 25 April 2021, shortly after recording this interview.

Craig and Irma talk all things book launches.

Then Irma chats with her publicist Brendan Fredericks about how to best work with your publicist,  his friendship with Liz Gilbert and getting drunk with Germaine Greer, what not to do as an author on social media, his faux pas with Richard Ford, and his green room adventures with dogs.

About Brendan
Brendan Fredericks has worked in the book industry for nearly 20 years. He started as a bookseller and events manager with Angus & Robertson, working with authors like Steve Waugh, Warrick Capper and Jane Fonda. Then as an in-house book publicist and publicity manager with Hachette and Bloomsbury, he promoted and toured luminaries like Elizabeth Gilbert, Germaine Greer and Richard Ford. Since 2015, he’s been Director of his own company, BFredericksPR, managing author campaigns and tours.

Craig and Irma talk about rejection and how to cope with it.

Then Craig talks to James Bradley about his path to becoming an award-winning author, how to write about important and urgent issues without becoming preachy, his love/hate relationship with social media and how to protect yourself as an author in the public arena, why genre shouldn’t define a book but can usefully shape it, hanging out with Julian Barnes in the green room.

About James
James Bradley is a novelist and critic. His novels include Ghost Species, Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist and Clade, the first two books of The Change Trilogy for young adults. He has also published a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus,  as well as short fiction and comics. His first book of non-fiction, Deep Water: The World in the Ocean, will be published in 2024.

Irma and Craig talk about the challenges of public speaking and how to be Wonder Woman on stage.

Then they chat with Karen Viggers about the painful process of editing her latest novel and trying to find its heart, how escaping a party of screaming girls led to discovering she was a bestseller in France, the reality behind the ‘glamorous’ whirlwind of an international publicity tour, the complexity and confusion around the foreign rights process, how Instagram culture is compromising book reviewing and the feels of bad reviews on Goodreads, and the blunt nitty gritty of how much money her bestselling books have made.

About Karen
Karen Viggers is the author of four novels: The Stranding, The Lightkeeper’s Wife, The Grass Castle and The Orchardist’s Daughter. Karen’s books have been translated into many languages and French books commentator Gérard Collard has called her ‘one of the most important writers of the beginning of this century’.

Craig and Irma talk about the ins and outs of writing gigs on cruise ships.

Then they both chat with Chris Hammer about the unexpected international success of his debut crime novel, Scrublands, how the publisher you are with effects sales (and it’s not just big versus small), the value of awards (those that sell books and those that launch careers), forgetting your own character’s name during publicity, faux pas on meeting a super famous author, and what a walk-on part in his own movie might look like.

About Chris
Chris Hammer is a leading Australian crime fiction novelist, author of the internationally bestselling Martin Scarsden series: Scrublands, Silver and Trust. Scrublands was an instant bestseller upon publication in 2018, and was shortlisted for major writing awards in Australia, the UK and the United States. In the UK it was named the Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Year 2019 and won the prestigious UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award. Chris was a journalist for more than thirty years, and has also written two non-fiction books The River and The Coast.

Irma and Craig chat about the manuscripts that never make it to publication.

Then Holden Sheppard chats with Irma about writing failures and the drive to succeed, the publicity whirlwind and inevitable comedown, self-doubt and second-novel syndrome, being snubbed by literary big shots in the green room and world domination goals!

About Holden
Holden Sheppard’s debut novel, Invisible Boys, won the Hungerford Award which led to publication and more awards, including the West Australian Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer. His novella, Poster Boy, won Griffith Review’s Novella Project competition in 2018. Holden graduated with Honours from Edith Cowan University’s writing program, and he currently serves as Deputy Chair of WritingWA.

Craig and Irma chat about why they’ve launched the podcast, the history of the green room and their own green room experiences.

Then Anna Spargo-Ryan chats with Irma about how she grew up with her own publishing house (sort of!), the manuscripts that never made it to publication, how she accidentally pitched a book on Twitter that led to a heated auction, what said heated auction involved (hint: a lot of emotional paralysis on the couch), the worst rejection of her writing life and a whole lot more.

About Anna
Anna Spargo-Ryan is the author of two novels, The Paper House and The Gulf. She is currently working on a nonfiction book which is based on her Horne Prize-winning essay called ‘The Suicide Gene’. Her short work has been widely published in places like the Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Age, Meanjin, and many others. She is a PhD candidate at Deakin University and is the Nonfiction Editor at Island magazine.