The Kill Your Darlings Podcast

Our April First Book Club title is brought to us by Margaret River Press. You Belong Here is the first novel from Laurie Steed, which follows the Slater family through marriage, divorce and its aftermath in Perth – three decades of one family coming together and pushing each other away. On a recent trip to Melbourne we cornered him to ask a few questions about writing Perth’s suburbs, characters with debatable taste in music, and returning home.

Further reading:

Read an extract from You Belong Here.

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of the novel.

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: Welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. If you’ve been following along with the First Book Club, you’ll know our April title is Laurie Steed’s You Belong Here, out now from Margaret River Press. You Belong Here follows the Slater family through marriage, divorce and its aftermath – three decades of coming together and pushing apart. He’s not based in Melbourne, but on a recent trip down we cornered him to ask a few questions about the book, starting with the role the suburbs play in Australian literature and in You Belong Here in particular.

Laurie Steed: I think it’s an interesting situation in that suburban life has been a common thing within Australian novels, but there’s also been that regional discourse that’s gone on in Australian literature. And I know, growing up, I used to read a lot of novels that were set in regional or coastal settings and I’d often think, ‘These books are not talking about my people or my places.’ So for me, growing up in suburbia, I really wanted to write a suburban book, but not necessarily one that was incredibly gritty or harsh. I wanted to write one that illuminated the streets in which I grew up, where I was almost making love to the suburb I’d called home as a child. And I hoped I did that in some small way. But it was a real – it was a bit of a head trip to go back into that suburban space. And I think it’s a common topic because your childhood is so formative. So to go back into that space and think about things from a new perspective is often quite illuminating, because as a child you’ll see the suburb in one way, but then when you look back as an adult you see things that you missed the first time around.

KYD: So that specificity can be a really fantastic thing. Reading it, I don’t know Perth myself, but I could tell you had a lot of affection for the place. But did you worry that that very specificity would mean it didn’t resonate with people who weren’t familiar with that city and with those suburban spaces?

LS: My hope, I guess,

Our First Book Club pick for March, Robert Lukins‘ The Everlasting Sunday, is a haunting novel about the winter seventeen-year-old Radford is sent to Goodwin Manor, a home for boys who have been ‘found by trouble’. Lukins spoke with Ellen Cregan at Readings Carlton on 29 March about writing and revising his novel – and the dozens of practice novels that came before it.

Further reading:

Read an extract from The Everlasting Sunday.

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of the novel.

Our April First Book Club title is Laurie Steed’s You Belong Here.

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: Welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings podcast. Today we have a recording of our second First Book Club event for the year. If you’ve been reading along, you’ll know our March title was Robert Lukins’ The Everlasting Sunday. We recorded Robert in conversation with our book club coordinator Ellen Cregan at Readings on Thursday March 29.

Ellen Cregan: So welcome, Robert. And we’re here today to launch and discuss and have a book club of sorts to do with your debut novel, The Everlasting Sunday, which is right here. I’m actually going to start by asking Robert to read from the book, which I think is always a good way to give sort of a taster of what it’s like and I know a lot of you probably haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, because it is relatively new. So I’ll pass over to you, Robert.

Robert Lukins: Thank you. Thanks everyone for being here. I’ll read a bit.

The boys stood in wonder, for above them the sky was breaking apart. It seemed to Radford exactly how a mirage might present itself. The starlings had lifted from their roost and swarmed into a molten object which oscillated above the horizon, making impossible shapes. They were a snake, a heart, a firework. The flock breathed with a lone purpose and it was this unity that struck him. That all these beaks and breakable wings could come so close to disaster, yet make a song so sweet. It made it’s way into his pulse, rising and falling as the colony moved closer or away.

‘Seen this before?’ he said as the formation turned into a long arrowhead and named itself at the setting sun.

There were a few shaking heads.

‘Mad.’

‘Mad.’

‘I’ve seen it,’ West said. His voice had softened. ‘Years ago with my parents in Devon. My father used to take us with his caravan to Slapton Ley and we’d go for these awful walks.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s called a murmuration.’

They stood as silhouettes in the silver distance and the birds continued unaware.

KYD: Thank you that was really beautiful. So, the first thing I’d like to ask you about with this book is the setting. So it’s quite a specific setting. It’s set in the midst

We’ve been speaking to writers from interstate this March, as they drop in to the KYD Podcast to tell us about places we haven’t been. With Dyschronia, Jennifer Mills shows us a near future we’d prefer to avoid, and a story we’ll stay in a bit longer if it’s all the same to you. Meanwhile Michael Mohammed Ahmad walks us through writing, rewriting, publishing and promoting his second novel, The Lebs.

Don’t forget to join us for our next KYD First Book Club event on 29 March at Readings Carlton.

Further reading:

Read an extract from The Lebs.

Read Justine Hyde’s review of Dyschronia.

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: Welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. We’ve been catching up with interstate guests this episode, so you can enjoy the fruits of their labour and ours from the comfort of your own, well, wherever you happen to be. I asked Michael Mohammed Ahmad a few questions about his new book The Lebs. Meanwhile, our jet-setting editor, Alan, heard Jennifer Mills read from her novel Dyschronia, out now from Piccador. 

Jennifer Mills: It’s a hot morning, strange for the season. There’s a smell in the air we don’t recognise, and it wakes us in our beds.

Initially it’s almost pleasant, ammoniac and slightly sweet, a bit like a hospital after the cleaner’s been. We get up and peer out windows, merely intrigued. But when we open those windows and inhale the full force of it, we know something’s not right. Under the bleach there’s another, deeper smell, seething like an infection. We pull on our clothes, sniffing the fabric; we check the kitchen, look in on pets, gaze down at our own suspect bodies. It’s not us. It’s coming from outside.

We get in our cars and go down to the water. We don’t know why we go that way, only that everybody else has made the same dreamy decision. We drive slowly, looking from car to car and into mirrors at each other, smiling odd still-waking smiles, trying to keep a calm camaraderie, but soon enough we have to wind up the windows and concentrate. Our children in the backseat still half asleep; the dog’s snout pressed urgently against the window we won’t open. The land spreads out on either side, flat and sandy and unaltered. The dull hills watchful in the rear-view mirror.

When we get down to the shore, to the car park on it’s just of rock, we pull our hand brakes, open our doors and cover our mouths with our sleeves. Someone retches. We blink against a burning in our eyes. Some of us are briefly blinded. We close car doors, we stand at the edge, we try to look out over the beach. We all hear how quiet it is, but some of the think the quiet is weird and some of us don’t think anything at all.

We squint at the sand, expecting the usual shallows, seagulls, weeds. There’s a strange, painterly quality in the light. There are birds down there, but they aren’t right

Settle in and listen to Heather Morris and Ellen Cregan, in conversation at Readings Carlton for our very first First Book Club event of the year. When Lale Sokolov wanted to tell his story, Heather Morris had no idea what she’d uncovered. Today the story of his survival, and his love for his wife, makes up our February Book Club Title The Tattooist of Auschwitz. You can read an extract from the book, which is out now from Echo Publishing, right here.

Our March First Book Club title is Robert Lukin’s The Everlasting Sunday.

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 too!

Meaghan Dew: Welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. We’ve had a break over the summer but, as much as we hate to admit it, autumn is here and so are we. Our First Book Club series will be running throughout the year and, where we can, we’ll release recordings of these events between our regularly scheduled programming. Our February book club title was The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. She was recorded in conversation with Ellen Cregan this week.

Ellen Cregan: Welcome to Kill Your Darlings’ First Book Club. So, before we begin, I’d just like to acknowledge that we’re meeting here today on the land of the Wurundjeri people and we pay our respect to elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to any elders from any other communities who may be here today.

So today we’re here with Heather Morris, who’s written this fantastic book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which some of you may have already read, others are about to read. So, welcome Heather and thank you very much for coming. So, this is the story of Lale Sokolov – and I’ve said that correctly haven’t I?

Heather Morris: Yes, you have.

KYD: The real life tattooist assigned to Auschwitz-Birkenau. So, we’re actually going to start with a little reading from the text, so you can all get a taste of the writing if you haven’t already read the book.

HM: Thank you.

Lale runs from the building to the women’s camp. The door to block twenty-nine was shut. No one stands guard outside. Entering, Lale finds the women huddled together at the back. Even Cilka is there. They gather around, frightened and full of questions.

‘All I can tell you is that the SS appear to be destroying records,’ Lale says. ‘One of them told me the Russians are nearby.’ He withholds the news that the camp is going to be emptied out the next day, because he doesnR

Happy Holidays from the team at Kill Your Darlings! In this, our last podcast for 2017, we bring you our recommendations for the holiday season. If your loved ones won’t like any of them (are you sure you want to spend time with them?) you could always give them Hera Lindsay Bird reading ‘Monica’, or Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman talking about Witch, Please. Whatever you’ve read/played/listened to/watched or consumed this year, we hope you’ve had a culturally great one. All the best till 2018! xox

Note: This episode contains some strong language.

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 too!

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Hello and welcome back to the last Kill Your Darlings Podcast of 2017. It’s been a year you may be glad to see the back of, but we hope you came across something interesting this year: a book you loved, a TV show that made you stay up all night, a podcast that made you look forward to your commute, or a film that had you transfixed. Whatever it was, now is the time to celebrate it.

We’re starting out with the last of our recordings from the Melbourne Writers Festival. I am drawing a bit of a long bow here, but I can say that all our guests today have used cultural touchstones to kick off their own work, whether critical or creative. We’ll talk to Hannah and Marcelle from Witch, Please and chat to the KYD crew about their highlights from the year that was.

But before that, here’s Hera Lindsay Bird reading her poem ‘Monica’.

Hera Lindsay Bird: Monica / Monica / Monica / Monica / Monica Geller off popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S / Is one of the worst characters in the history of television / She makes me want to wash my hands with hand sanitizer / She makes me want to stand in an abandoned Ukrainian parking lot / And scream her name at a bunch of dead crows / Nobody liked her, except for Chandler / He married her, and that brings me to my second point / What kind of a name for a show was F.R.I.E.N.D.S / When two of them were related / And the rest of them just fucked for ten seasons? / Maybe their fucking was secondary to their friendship / Or they all had enough emotional equilibrium / To be able to maintain a constant state of mutual-respect / Despite the fucking / Or conspicuous nonfucking / That was occurring in their lives / But I have to say / It just doesn’t seem emotionally realistic / Especially considering that / They were not the most self-aware of people / And to be able to maintain a friendship / Through the various complications of heterosexual monogamy / Is enormously difficult / Especially when you take into consideration / What cunts they all were

I fell in love with a friend once / And we liked to congratulate each other what good friends we were / And how it was great that we could be such good friends, and still fuck / Until we stopped fucking / And then we weren’t such good friends anymore

I had a dream the other night / About this friend, and how we were walking / Through sunlight, many years ago / Dragged up from the vaults, like / Old military propaganda / You know the kind; young women leaving a factory / Arm in arm, while their fiancées / Are being handsomely shot to death in Prague / And even though this friend doesn’t love me anymore

November’s the end of the KYD First Book Club for 2017, so for this episode we take a look at the last two titles till 2018. On Halloween, Lois Murphy let us in on the places that inspired Soon, her tale of an almost deserted town in the middle of nowhere. The people might be gone but something’s still trying to get in.

Further down south (and two hundred years earlier), an escaped convict named Bridget Crack fell in with a bad crowd. We asked Rachel Leary about research, Ned Kelly and prickly protagonists.

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 too!

Read an extract from Soon here, and read Lois Murphy on the writing of the novel here.

Read an extract from Bridget Crack here, and read Ellen Cregan’s review of the novel here.

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Hello and welcome back to the penultimate Kill Your Darlings Podcast for 2017. I’m Meaghan Dew and I’m sorry to break it to you but it is November – that’s right, it’s not long now until the end of the year. But if you’re torn between ‘Oh, a break will be nice!’ and ‘I have too much to do before then!’ I feel you, don’t worry, because your book club reading duties do not apply in December. That’s right November is our last book club month for the year. So before you get stuck into your holiday reads, it seems like the perfect opportunity to highlight Bridget Crack and Soon, which, if you’ve been following along, were the book club titles for October and November.

So we’re going in chronological order in more ways than one by starting with Bridget Crack. We spoke with Rachel Leary, but it was via Skype so do please excuse any blips in the sound quality. 

Rachel Leary: The book is about Bridget Crack, an English convict woman – well, young woman – who gets sent to Van Diemen’s Land and ends up lost in the bush.

KYD: It’s interesting you say young woman, because for the first part of the book I thought she was younger than she was, or more that her life had not been as full as it was, and then it got to later on and I realised that she’d had this whole quite full life before being sent to Australia and it was really fascinating. What sort of research did you do to get a feel for the differences in lifestyle and lifespan in that time?

RL: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been sort of doing some historical research – I mean, for, kind of years really, about, you know, life in England in the early 1800s and convict women, for another project that I was doing which was sort of how I first got interested in convict women. So I’d sort of done quite a bit of reading around that area before I actually started on that book. So I guess I had a little bit of a sense of, yeah differences in, you know, what a life might be like compared to how we live now. But yes and no, I mean, in some ways I don’t know that itR

KYD and The Rereaders present Critical Attention, a podcast series focusing on emerging critics. Every episode we profile new Australian critics working in a variety of artistic and cultural spaces.

In episode six, we chat to freelance writer and food critic Sonia Nair, who blogs about not following her food intolerances at Whatever Floats Your Bloat.

Critical Attention is produced by Areej Nur, and is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

The post Critical Attention: Sonia Nair appeared first on Kill Your Darlings.

Here on the KYD Podcast we may be quiet, book-loving types, but we like to think that doesn’t stop us from being revolutionaries on the inside. So the recent Melbourne Writers Festival was a fantastic way for us to celebrate writers who speak out, on more than just the page.

We took the opportunity to speak with one of the US’s most established authors, the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates, as well as one of the most recently celebrated, Angie Thomas. If they’re part of a revolution, it’s one we can definitely get behind.

You can stream the podcast above, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or through your favourite podcasting app.

GIVEAWAY: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts before 1 November to go in the draw to win a copy of this month’s First Book Club pick, Rachel Leary’s Bridget Crack! Simply use your Twitter or Instagram handle (or email a screenshot of your review to [email protected]) and you’ll be entered in the draw. (Australian entrants only)

Read Nathan Smith’s interview with Joyce Carol Oates.

Read contributing editor Samantha Forge on Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give.

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Hello and welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. I’m Meaghan Dew and today I’ll be bringing you interviews with two of the headline guests at the Melbourne Writers Festival. The festival’s theme this year was revolution, so you’ll have the chance to hear both Angie Thomas and Joyce Carol Oates discuss this and other aspects of their writing. First we have Angie Thomas whose first book, The Hate U Give, tackles growing up between worlds in America. 

Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give is about 16-year-old Starr, who lives in two different worlds – the mostly black poor neighborhood where she lives, and the mostly white upper-class private school that she attends. And the struggle of being two different people in two different worlds becomes even harder after she is the sole witness of her childhood best friend Khalil being killed by a cop. Khalil was unarmed, and what Starr does or does not say could not only change her community, but it could end her life.

KYD: When you first began working on The Hate U Give, was that basic outline – a girl witnesses the shooting of her friend – was that what came to you first, and Starr and the other characters were developed to inhabit that situation, or do you feel like the characters developed first, and so in a way shaped the plot depending on what their authentic reactions to a situation would be?

AT: Oh yeah, the characters came first. The first three characters that I came up with from this story were Starr, Khalil and Maverick. Those three have been there from the beginning, so I wanted to write a story around those three. I knew from the beginning that Starr was this girl who lived in these two different worlds. I knew that her dad had a past, he was a gang member, and I knew that this young man Khalil was getting caught up in the

KYD and The Rereaders present Critical Attention, a podcast series focusing on emerging critics. Every episode we profile new Australian critics working in a variety of artistic and cultural spaces.

In episode five, we chat to writer, researcher and editor Alex Griffin about internet criticism, defamiliarising the everyday and how to be a critic who is also an academic.

Critical Attention is produced by Areej Nur, and is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

The post Critical Attention: Alex Griffin appeared first on Kill Your Darlings.

KYD and The Rereaders present Critical Attention, a podcast series focusing on emerging critics. Every episode we profile new Australian critics working in a variety of artistic and cultural spaces.

In episode four, we chat to theatre-maker, cultural critic, e-newsletter queen (and KYD regular) Matilda Dixon-Smith.

Critical Attention is produced by Areej Nur, and is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

The post Critical Attention: Matilda Dixon-Smith appeared first on Kill Your Darlings.