Omar Sakr is a poet and writer who brings the personal and political to life. In this interview, he discusses his writing craft, his foray into speculative fiction and the difference between what he publishes and what he writes for himself.

Omar is the author of These Wild Houses, a collection of poetry shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, as well as The Lost Arabs, which was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards, the John Bray Poetry Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2020, Omar contributed to the anthology After Australia with the short story 'White Flu'.

Elsewhere, Omar's articles and essays are published in The Saturday Paper, The Guardian,The Sydney Morning Herald, Archer, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Going Down Swinging, SBS Online, SBS Life, SBS Comedy, The Wheeler Centre, and Junkee.

If you enjoy this interview, you may also be interested in this interview with Michael Mohammed Ahmad, the editor of After Australia.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview soon at thegarretpodcast.com. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Mildenhall tackles the big questions. In this interview she considers how to write about our rapidly changing world (including about climate change and online surveillance), the role of writers in this time of crisis, and whether or not there could be a sequel to her dystopian literary thriller. 

Kate is a writer, teacher, and the mind behind the novels Skylarking and the utterly brilliant The Mother Fault. 

Kate mentions her mentor Charlotte Wood and her phenomenal work The Natural Way of Things. You can listen to Charlotte unpick the craft behind that work with Astrid here.

* And apologies for the quality of Astrid's audio. Astrid set her recording settings wrong, and will have to live with this embarrassing podcaster tech failure for quite some time to come. Kate, on the other hand, who is co-host of The First Time Podcast, set her's correctly and sounds perfect. 

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Fidler, host of ABC's Conversations, discusses his love of history and what drives him to write about it, the role of literature in this most tumultuous of years and what we can learn from the history that has gone before.

Richard is a writer of historical travel non-fiction and his works include The Golden Maze, Saga Land and Ghost Empire.

Richard and Astrid have previously spoken about historical fiction, and you can listen to their discussion recorded at the Ubud Writers and Readers festival in 2019 here.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our host Astrid Edwards is part of Anonymous Was A Woman with Jamila Rizvi.

In a recent special episode of Anonymous Was A Woman, Astrid conducted a reading audit of the 89 books she read between 1 January and 30 June 2020. The goal is accountability - how can Astrid recommend books and interview authors without being transparent about her reading and interview choices?

And don't worry, The Garret: Writers on Writing will be back with new episodes on Thursday 3 September 2020.

Anonymous Was A Woman is brought to you by Future Women. Like The Garret: Writers on Writing, the podcast is produced by Bad Producer Productions.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bruce Pascoe, a Yuin, Bunarong and Tasmanian writer, has turned his craft to picture books. Found, illustrated by Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, is the story of a lost calf finding his family. It is also an allegory for the Stolen Generations.

In this interview, Bruce introduces the stunning illustrator Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, explores the real life impetus behind Found, reflects on Dark Emu and looks forward to his forthcoming novel, Imperial Harvest.

Note, this interview was recorded via Zoom and in parts you can hear Bruce's dog in the room with him.

You can read Astrid's previous interview with Bruce Pascoe about Imperial Harvest here.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral Country is in South Coast Western Australia. This interview is an exploration of her debut novel and speculative fiction masterpiece, Terra Nullius: A Novel.

Claire wrote her black&write! fellowship-winning manuscript Terra Nullius while travelling around Australia in a caravan. The novel went on to win the Norma K Hemming Award, and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize and Best Sci-Fi Novel in the Aurealis Awards. The work was also Highly Commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.

Claire and Astrid have previously spoken about speculative fiction, and you can listen to their panel (including Krissy Kneen, Pitchaya Sudbanthad and Michelle Tanmizi)) recorded at the Ubud Writers and Readers festival in 2019 here.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com soon. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A. J. Betts' novel Zac and Mia won the 2012 Text Prize and the 2014 Ethel Turner Prize for Young Adults at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. Not only is the novel published in 14 countries, it was adapted for American television and will soon be available globally.

Her other novels include Hive, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Awards and 2019 ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children, and its sequel Rogue. And believe it or not, she has a PhD on the topic of wonder in life and in reading.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tara June Winch was awarded the Miles Franklin Literary award today for The Yield. In honour of that historic win, we are revisiting our interview with Tara on her masterpiece.

Tara is a Wiradjuri writer based in France. Her first novel, Swallow the Air, was critically acclaimed and saw Tara named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. Her second book, the collection After the Carnage, was longlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for fiction, shortlisted for the 2017 NSW Premier’s Christina Stead prize for Fiction and the Queensland Literary Award for a collection. Her third novel, The Yield, was released in 2019 and is simply stunning.

Tara's Indigenous dance documentary, Carriberrie, screened at the 71st Cannes Film Festival. Tara was previously mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

About The Garret

You can read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

Jane Harrison, a descendant of the Muruwari people of NSW, is a playwright, novelist, and the Festival Director of Blak & Bright, the First Nations Literary Festival based in Melbourne.

Her novel Becoming Kirrali Lewis won the 2014 Black&Write! Prize, and was shortlisted for the Prime Minster’s Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Awards.

In terms of her works for the stage, Stolen, her first play, was the co-winner of the Kate Challis RAKA Award and has been performed throughout Australia as well as the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Japan. She has also written The Visitors, Rainbow’s End, On A Park Bench and Blakvelvet.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com soon. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is both a writer and editor. He received the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist Award for his debut novel The Tribe, and the sequel, The Lebs, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

In 2020 he is the editor behind After Australia, a collection of short stories about Australia's potential futures, and it is this work that the interview focuses on. The anthology includes works from Ambelin Kwaymullina, Claire G. Coleman, Omar Sakr, Future D. Fidel, Karen Wyld, Khalid Warsame, Kaya Ortiz, Roanna Gonsalves, Sarah Ross, Zoya Patel, Michelle Law and Hannah Donnelly.

Mohammed is also the founder and director of Sweatshop Literary Movement in Western Sydney. 

If you enjoy this interview, you may also be interested in this subsequent interview with Omar Sakr, a contributor to After Australia.

About The Garret

Read the transcript of this interview at thegarretpodcast.com soon. The interview was recorded by Zoom, and we can't wait to start recording in person again soon.

You can also follow The Garret on Twitter and Facebook, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.