The Garret LIVE at the Library

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

Christos Tsiolkas was our first guest. He launched the series on World Book Day (23 April 2018) and spoke to our audience about the politics of writing. He also gave the first public reading of his latest work in progress, ‘Damascus’.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Christos' interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/christos-tsiolkas-live.

Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She is the first person to have won both the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize.

Alexis’ fiction includes:

Tracker (2017), awarded the Stella Prize

The Swan Book (2013)

Carpentaria (2006), awarded the Miles Franklin Literary Award

Plains of Primise (1997).

Wright is a Distinguished Research Fellow at Western Sydney University. She has published the non-fiction works Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council, and Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory. She is a member of the Australian Research Council research project ‘Other Worlds: Forms of World Literature’, where she is focusing on forms of Aboriginal oral storytelling.

Related episodes:

Other interviews with winners of the Miles Franklin Literary Award include Alec Patric, Sofie Laguna, and Alex Miller.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Alexis’ interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/alexis-wright.

Bonus episode #7

Kate Torney is the CEO of the State Library of Victoria. The Library is Australia’s oldest public library, with more 1.8 million visitors each year. In this interview, she discusses the role of libraries in the 21st century and how libraries (and librarians) can help writers to write.

Before moving to the State Library, Kate was the Director of ABC News. Kate had a variety of roles at the ABC over her twenty year career there, including reporter, producer, bureau chief, executive producer and editor.

Related episodes:

Kate mentions writers who have written their published works in the State Library of Victoria, including Morris Gleitzman, Kaz Cooke and Gideon Haigh.

In addition to our interviews with writers, we publish a series of bonus interviews with leading figures in the literary, publishing and media worlds. Recent interviews include Jason Stegar and Peter Rose (on book reviews), Terri-ann White and Morry Schwartz (on  publishing in Australia), and Michael Webster (on book sales in Australia).

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Kate’s interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/kate-torney.

Peter Rose is the Editor of the Australian Book Review. Prior to taking on this role in 2001, he worked as a publisher at Oxford University Press from 1986 until 2000.

Peter’s published works include:

The House of Vitriol (1990)

The Catullan Rag (1993), shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year

Donatello in Wangaratta (1998), shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry and The Age Book of the Year 

Rose Boys (2001), awarded the National Biography Award and shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award 

Rattus Rattus: New and Selected Poems (2005)

A Case of Knives (2005), longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award

Roddy Parr (2010)

Crimson Crop (2012), awarded the Queensland Literary Award and shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award

The Subject of Feeling (2015), awarded the Victorian Premier’s Poetry Award

Drama the Dam (2016).

Peter is a previous board member of Melbourne Writers Festival, Meanjin, Oxford University Press and the Robert Rose Foundation.

Related episodes:

Alicia Sometimes and Omar Musa are other Australian poets who have spoke to The Garret about poetry and the power of the spoken word.

Michael Heyward is one of the great Australian publishers mentioned by Peter.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Peter’s interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/peter-rose.

Omar Musa is a Malaysian-Australian novelist, poet, rapper and screenwriter.

His debut novel Here Come the Dogs (2014) was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the International Dublin Literary Award. In 2015, Omar was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year.

Omar has released solo and hip hop records, as well as collaborations with international duo MoneyKat. He has also published several poetry collections, including The Clocks, Parang and Millefiori. He won both the Australian Poetry Slam in 2008 and the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam.

In 2017 Omar wrote the screenplay for Episode 4 of the Australian miniseries Romper Stomper.

Related episodes:

Alicia Sometimes, another Australian poet and performance artist, spoke to The Garret about her poetry and the power of the spoken word.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Omar’s interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/omar-musa.

Melanie Cheng is a writer and general practitioner of Chinese-Australian heritage.

Melanie was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2016 for the manuscript that would become Australia Day. Australia Day, a collection of short stories, was published by Text Publishing and was awarded the the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2018.

Her writing has also appeared in The Age, Meanjin, Overland, Griffith Review, Visible Ink, Peril, The Victorian Writer and Seizure.

Related episodes:

Melanie is published by Text Publishing, and mentions Michael Heyward, her editor.

Melanie also mentions the impact The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas has had on her writing.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Melanie’s interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/melanie-cheng.

Graeme Base is a legendary British-Australian writer and illustrator. Generations of children have grown up enthralled by his creations, including Animalia (awarded the Children Book Council’s Picture Book of the Year Honour Book in 1987) and The Eleventh Hour (awarded the same prize in 1989).

His other works include Grandma Lived in Gooligulch (1983), The Sign of the Seahorse (1992), The Discovery of Dragons (1996), The Waterhole (2001), Truck Dogs (2003), Jungle Drums (2004), Uno's Garden (2006), The Discovery of Dragons: New Research Revealed (2007), Enigma (2008), The Legend of the Golden Snail (2010), The Jewel Fish of Karnak (2011), Little Elephants (2012), The Last King of Angkor Wat (2014) Eye to Eye (2015) and Amazing monster Detectorscope (2017).

Graeme also illustrated Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky (1987) and Jabberwocky: A Book of Brillig Dioramas (1996).

Related episodes

Alison Lester and Leigh Hobbs are also writers and illustrators of children’s books.

Kaz Cooke is a cartoonist and illustrator.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Graeme’s interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/grame-base.

Bonus episode #6

Terri-Ann White is Director of UWA Publishing, the publisher responsible for the 2017 Miles Franklin Award winning novel Extinctions by Josephine Wilson.

Terri-Ann is also a writer herself. She has published the short story collection Day and Night, and the novel Finding Theodore and Brina.

She lectured in the University of Western Australia Department of English from 1996 until she was seconded in 1999 to establish the Institute of Advanced Studies at University of Western Australia.

Related episodes:

We interviewed Josephine Wilson after she was shortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin Award.

Lousie Adler and Phillipa McGuinness are two leading Australian publishers. They spoke to The Garret about publishing and the state of the book industry in Australia today.

We have also interviewed publishers Morry Schwartz and Michael Heyward, as well as book seller Mark Rubbo.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript of Terri-Ann ’s interview is available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/terri-ann-white.

George Megalogenis is a journalist, writer and political commentator with three decades of experience in the Australian media.

Balancing Act: Australia Between Recession and Renewal (Quarterly Essay 61) (2017)

Australia’s Second Chance: What Our History Tells Us About Our Future (2017)

The Australian Moment (2012), awarded the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2012 Walkley Award for Non-fiction

Trivial Pursuit: Leadership and the End of the Reform Era (Quarterly Essay 40) (2010)

The Longest Decade (2006)

Faultlines: Race, Work and the Politics of a Changing Australia (2003).

George is a regular panellist on the ABC’s Insiders program and has appeared on Melbourne community radio RRR’s Breakfasters program.

Related episodes:

Morry Schwartz, the founder of Schwartz Media, publishes Quarterly Essay and The Saturday Paper.

Benjamin Law and Don Watson are journalists who have published in Quarterly Essay, and Erik Jensen is the founding editor of the paper.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript and interactive show notes of George’s interview are available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/george-megalogenis.

Ursula Dubosarsky is the author of more than fifty books for children and young adults. 

Her awarded books include (and are by no means limited to):

The Blue Cat, shortlisted for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2018

Violet Vanishes, shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award in 2014

The Golden Day, shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award in 2012 and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award in 2011

The Word Spy, awarded the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award in 2009

The Red Shoe, awarded the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award in 2007 and the Queensland Premier's Literary Award in 2006

Theodora’s Gift, awarded the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 2006

Abyssinia, awarded the Adelaide Festival Award for Literature in 2004 and shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award in 2003

The Game of the Goose, shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award in 2001

The First Book of Samuel, awarded New South Wales Premier's Literary Award in 1995

The White Guinea Pig, awarded New South Wales Premier's Literary Award in 1994.

Alongside her fiction for older children, Ursula has also written picture books including The Terrible Plop (shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards in 2010) and Too Many Elephants in This House (Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Honour Book in 2013), which have both been adapted for the stage.

Related episode:

Ursula Dubosarsky is another children’s writer well known for dealing with adult topics, including The Holocaust, in his books for children and teenagers.

About The Garret

The Garret is committed to accessibility and education. The transcript and interactive show notes of Ursula’s interview are available at www.thegarretpodcast.com/ursula-dubosarsky.