Markus Zusak is the author of six novels, including The Book Thief (2005), which spent more than a decade on the New York Times bestseller list. His other novels are The Underdog (1999), Fighting Ruben Wolfe (2000), When Dogs Cry (2001), The Messenger (2002) and BridgeofClay (2018). In 2014 Markus was awarded the American Library Association's Margaret Edwards Award for his body of work.

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Markus at thegarretpodcast.com.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

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Jane Harper published three international bestsellers - The Dry (2016), Force of Nature (2017), and The Lost Man (2018) - in three years.  

The Dry was awarded the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year, the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, and the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year (among other awards). Film rights for The Dry are held by Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea.

Prior to her literary career, Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Jane at thegarretpodcast.com.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

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Jessica Townsend's first book, Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (2017) was the biggest-selling Australian children's debut since records began. The sequel, Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow was published in 2018.

Nevermoor won the 2018 ABIA for Book of the Year, Book of the Year for Younger Readers and Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year; the 2018 Indie Book Awards Book of the Year and Children's Category; the 2017 Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fiction; and was named a CBCA notable book.

Nevermoor has been compared to Harry Potter, and is the first of a planned nine-book series for middle-grade readers.

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Jessica at thegarretpodcast.com.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic.

Her first poetry collection, Knuckled, won the 2012 Dame Mary Gilmore Award.

Her book of essays Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays on Hunger won the 2016 Nita B. Kibble Award and the Queensland Literary Award for non-fiction, and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize and the NSW Premier’s Douglas Stewart Award.

Her second poetry collection, DomesticInteriors, was shortlisted for the 2018 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Poetry.

She also published a second collection of essays, TheWorldWasWhole, in late 2018. This was longlisted for The Stella Prize in 2019.

She has a PhD at Western Sydney University’s Writing and Society Research Centre. Her poems and essays have been published in the Australian, Meanjin, Island, Overland, The Lifted Brow, Seizure and HEAT.

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Fiona at thegarretpodcast.com. If you are interested in writing memoir or the link between writing and chronic illness, listen to our previous episode with Sam Twyford-Moore.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sam Twyford-Moore is a writer and critic. His writing - often about the connection between mental health and creative work - has appeared throughout Australia, including in Meanjin, The Monthly, The Lifted Brow and The Guardian. In 2018, he published The Rapids: Ways of Looking at Mania, an exploration of his own experience with Bipolar Disorder.

Sam was the CEO of the Emerging Writers Festival from 2012 until 2015, and established the Digital Writers Festival during the same period. He was also the founding host of The Rereaders, a literature and cultural podcast.

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Sam at thegarretpodcast.com. If you are interested in writing memoir or the link between writing and chronic illness, stay tuned for our next episode with Fiona Wright.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Laura Tingle is the chief political correspondent for the ABC’s 7.30, and was previously the political editor for the Australian Financial Review.

She has authored three Quarterly Essays, Great Expectations (2012), Political Amnesia (2015) and Follow the Leader (2018), as well as Chasing the Future: Recession, Recovery and the New Politics in Australia (1994).

Laura has received two Walkley Awards, in 2005 and 2011. She was awarded the Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in Press Gallery Journalism in 2004 and was shortlisted for the John Button Prize for Political Writing in 2010. 

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Laura at thegarretpodcast.com.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most respected journalists. She has anchored the ABC’s current affairs program 7.30 since 2011 and previously hosted Lateline.

She has received two Walkley Awards, Australia's highest journalism honour. The first was for Best Radio Current Affairs reporting on Guantanamo Bay in 2005, and the second was for Broadcasting and Online Interviewing (for interviews with Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Christine Milne) in 2012.

Leigh has also published three books, Any Ordinary Day (2018), On Doubt (2009), and Detainee 002 (2007). Detainee 002 received the George Munster Award for Independent Journalism in 2007.

Read the complete transcript of our interview with Leigh at thegarretpodcast.com.

About The Garret

Follow The Garret on Twitter or Facebook, and follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram. The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Clementine Ford is a writer, broadcaster and feminist thinker speaker.

She has been writing freelance for more than a decade, including a weekly columns for Fairfax’s Daily Life. She is also a regular contributor to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Clementine has published two best-selling non-fiction works, Fight Like A Girl (2016) and Boys Will Be Boys (2018).

About The Garret

The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. The Garret is hosted by Astrid Edwards, who you can follow on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scott Pape broke every non-fiction publishing record in Australia with his first book, The Barefoot Investor. First published in 2016, it has sold more than 1.3 million copies and been updated three times. With an initial print run of 300,000 copies, Scott’s second book, The Barefoot Investor for Families, is likely to have the same impact in 2018.

In addition to writing two books, Scott has been writing to his audience via email for more than a decade. He also writes a weekly syndicated column for News Ltd and appears on radio on Triple M and television on Channel 7. In 2018, Scott consults to the Australian Government about financial eduction in schools.

About The Garret

The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. The Garret is hosted by Astrid Edwards, who you can follow on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

The Garret LIVE at the Library

In partnership with the State Library of Victoria, The Garret hosted a series of live events with leading Australian writers in 2018.

Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff spoke at our third event. They are the co-authors of the acclaimed Illuminae Files, a YA sci-fi space opera trilogy. All three books in the series debuted on the New York Times, and the first two, Iluminae and Gemina, were awarded the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2016 and 2017. The third, Obsidio, is in the running for the same award 2018. Jay and Amie are also in the process of writing their second trilogy, the Aurora Cycle.

In this interview, they spoke to our host Astrid Edwards about the art and craft of co-authoring.

About The Garret

The Garret is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and partners with the State Library of Victoria. The Garret is hosted by Astrid Edwards, who you can follow on Twitter or Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.