The Kill Your Darlings Podcast is back for 2019 and so are our First Book Club events. We know you can’t always get to our events in person, but if you’ve read our February book club pick, or you’re planning to, you’ll enjoy First Book Club Coordinator Ellen Cregan’s chat with J.P. Pomare.

His debut title, Call Me Evie (Hachette), is a taut psychological suspense novel centred on a teenage girl held captive in a remote town in New Zealand. Meanwhile, now’s a great time to pick up a copy of our March book, Sam George-Allen’s Witches: What Women Do Together, ahead of our March event at Bargoonga Nganjin, North Fitzroy Library on 27 March.

Our new theme song is Broke for Free’s ‘Something Elated’.

Further reading:

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of Call Me Evie in our February Books Roundup.

Read J.P. Pomare’s reflection on the nuances and difficulties of writing the town of Maketu.

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The last Kill Your Darlings Podcast of 2018 is all about summer reading, so sit back and listen to our top picks to take with you on your break. We have books we discovered in 2018, books we wished we’d gotten around to reading and books we think you’d enjoy while sitting by a pool or on the beach (unless you’re Alan). We also take a look at Black Inc’s Best Summer Stories, edited by Aviva Tuffield, and some of our KYD Members share their summer reads. Enjoy your summer, whatever you read, and we’ll see you in 2019!

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Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

Our reads and recs (of this summer and others):

Best Summer Stories – Aviva Tuffield

Meaghan Dew:

Alan Vaarwerk:

Ellen Cregan:

Alice Cottrell:

Our KYD Members will be reading:

Thanks to Melbourne Library Service – Kathleen Syme Library and Community Centre for studio space.

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Journalist Rachael Brown’s book Trace: Who Killed Maria James? is our last First Book Club book for the year, and it’s a fascinating way to end 2018. Trace is Rachael Brown’s first book, but it’s not just her story. First and foremost it’s the story of Maria James, murdered in her Thornbury bookshop in 1980, and the closure her two sons, Adam and Mark, are still hoping for. Over 16 months Brown developed the ABC Trace podcast in an attempt to prompt people’s memories, bring forward new information and give Adam and Mark a better understanding of just what happened to their mother. This book tracks that journey, and Brown discussed it with our First Book Club Coordinator, Ellen Cregan, recorded live at Hill of Content Bookstore on 21 November 2018.

Trace: Who Killed Maria James? is out now with Scribe Publications, and you can listen to the Trace podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

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In this episode we speak to two writers we love about memoir, family, the Own Voices movement and the many facets of Australian identity. Zoya Patel, founder and editor of Feminartsy, tells us about her book No Country Woman: A Memoir of Not Belonging(Hachette), while Ambelin Kwaymullina speaks about co-editing Meet Me At The Intersection (Fremantle Press) and co-writing her latest YA title, Catching Teller Crow (Allen & Unwin).

Further reading:

Read Ambelin Kwaymullina’s 2014 reflection on what it means to be an Indigenous speculative fiction writer.

Read two extracts from Meet Me at the Intersection: Olivia Muscat on learning to live with blindness and Omar Sakr on grief and talking to a brother you’ve never met. 

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Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

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Jay Martin was excited at the thought of spending three years as a diplomat’s wife in Poland. A break from her job as a social policy advisor and a first posting for her husband’s new career? Who wouldn’t be keen! Thrown into the drama of adapting to a new culture and language, building connections from scratch and losing the feeling of relevance her work gave her, Jay soon learns even enviable situations are more complex than they appear from afar. In Jay’s memoir Vodka & Apple Juice (Fremantle Press), she unpacks the trials and tribulations of an undiplomatic wife.

In our September First Book Club chat, she joined us to discuss writing about Poland from afar, creating engaging narrative from personal experience, and what she learned about Australians from her time abroad.

Further reading:

Read an extract from Vodka & Apple Juice.

Read Jay Martin on writing the book and condensing her experiences into a single story.

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

Transcript coming soon

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Drew Rooke’s One Last Spin: The Power and Peril of the Pokies (Scribe Publications) is not just a searing take on problem gambling in Australia, it’s also our KYD First Book Club book for August. Last month Rooke appeared at Sydney’s Better Read Than Dead with writer, director and producer Jane Manning, to discuss his research and the resulting book.

Drew Rooke is a freelance journalist and author. His work focuses on contemporary Australian society and has appeared in publications such as The Saturday Paper, Neighbourhood, Meanjin, Good Weekend, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Drew was a finalist in the 2015 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers, and One Last Spin is his first book.

Jane Manning is a writer, director and producer for film and TV. Her short drama films have won many awards including the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival; Best Australian Film, Most Popular Film, and Best Direction at Flickerfest; two High Commendations at the Berlin Film Festival; and First Place at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. She directed and wrote Ka-Ching! Pokie Nation (ABC), the groundbreaking documentary that helped ignite a new era of activism against poker machines and won Highly Commended at the 2016 Director’s Guild Awards, the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s Award, was longlisted for the Walkleys, and was a double finalist at the 2015 ATOM Awards.

Thanks to Scribe and Better Read than Dead.

Further reading:

Read an extract from One Last Spin.

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of the novel.

Our September First Book Club title is Jay Martin’s Vodka & Apple Juice (Fremantle Press).

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

Transcript coming soon!

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On this episode we’re happily upstaged by podcaster extraordinaire Helen Zaltzman, host and creator of The Allusionist. Officially, it’s Britain’s smartest podcast – unofficially, it’s also witty and very entertaining, just like Helen herself. After we chat about Australian sound, the barriers of podcast entry and what editing your own show tells you about storytelling it’s time for writer Allee Richards to read her short story ‘The Passengers‘. Come along for the ride!

Thanks to Audiocraft for their help in making this episode happen!

Further reading:

Jane Howard on how language podcasts like The Allusionist help us develop new ways of talking about the podcast form.

Allee Richards’ 2017 short story ‘Perry Feral’.

If you love the art of podcasting, check out the excellent Audiocraft Podcast.

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Hello and welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. I’m Meaghan Dew and today I’m bringing you as usual a couple of very good storytellers. You’ll hear from short fiction writer and playwright Allee Richards as she reads her story ‘The Passengers’, one of the new fiction releases on Kill Your Darlings.

Before that we’ll speak to the inimitable Helen Zaltzman, who was in the country for the Audiocraft conference earlier this year. You might recognise Helen’s voice from her linguistics podcast The Allusionist, or from Answer Me This, where she and her collaborator Olly Mann have been answering questions from their listeners for more than a decade. Since then she’s acquired a boatload of experience shaping stories, editing audio and drawing in her listeners. But since we’re word nerds here, we thought we’d start by asking her to explain the podcast voted Smartest in the 2018 British Podcast Awards.

Helen Zaltzman: I am so bad at doing this, I don’t even have the elevator pitch for my own show that I’ve been doing for three and a half years. So if I was talking about it to a friend I’d say, Oh it’s a podcast, you don’t have to listen to it. It’s fine. And if I really had to, I’d say it’s kind of an entertainment show but has a focus on language and how people use it and why we use it the way we use it.

KYD: That is pretty much how I’d describe it, except I would also use the word ‘funny’ a lot! Because if you describe it purely by the content you must often get some people like ‘oh, isn’t that a little bit dry?’ It’s like ,no, it’s really interesting! 

HZ: That is a problem. People assume that if you make a show about language it’s just saying ‘you’re using commas incorrectly, ra ra ra.’ It’s yeah, so dull. So I’m operating against people’s assumptions that this thing is dull, and who am I to say to them it’s not dull? 

KYD: You seem to be doing it quite effectively. But this is not your first foray into podcasting a

It’s hibernation time, perfect for curling up under the doona with a story. But if you do have to get up and go about your business why not take the stories with you? In this episode of the Kill Your Darlings Podcast you’ll hear Abigail Fisher read her short story, Vermont, as well as First Book Club author Robbie Arnott discussing his novel, Flames. Enjoy – then get back under the covers as soon as you can. Happy listening!

Further reading:

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of the novel.

Read Abigail Fisher’s short story, Vermont.

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

Transcript coming soon!

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Mira Robertson began writing The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean in the 90s, but at the time, she couldn’t make it work. The award-winning screenwriter, who worked on Only the Brave and Head On, has now returned to this story of a girl banished to the country during her mother’s illness, while World War Two rages half a world away.

Hear Mira speak with Ellen Cregan at Hill of Content about screenwriting, novels, research and Australian slang in this fantastic First Book Club Event.

Further reading:

Read an extract from The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean.

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of the novel.

Read Mira Robertson’s reflection on the process of writing the novel.

Our July First Book Club title is Robbie Arnott’s Flames (Text Publishing).

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

Transcript coming soon!

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Last month The Wheeler Centre hosted a spectacular array of international authors, so we sat down with two of the guests we were most excited about. Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties) and Jenny Zhang (Sour Heart) are both young writers whose short story collections have made a distinct impression on the literary landscape – but that’s where the similarities end. Through unexpected receptions, ‘bad’ language, inspirational peers, urban legends, the Great American Dream, altered reality and, of course, Law & Order: SVU, we found both these authors as intriguing as their collections. Happy listening!

Note: This episode contains strong language.

Further reading:

Read Nathania Gilson’s 2017 conversation with Jenny Zhang.

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app. Let us know what you think by rating and reviewing in your app of choice!

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