The Wheeler Centre

Marlee Silva, left, and Briggs

Adam Briggs – better known simply as Briggs – is a Yorta Yorta rapper, record label owner, comedy writer and actor. He’s part of the ARIA-winning hip hop duo A.B. Original, and outside of music, he’s appeared regularly in ABC TV shows (Black Comedy, Cleverman, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering). Recently, he’s been a writer for Matt Groening’s animated Netflix series, Disenchantment.

Now, Briggs adds children’s book author to his CV. Adapted from his song, ‘The Children Came Back’ – with illustrators Kate Moon and Rachael Sarra – Our Home, Our Heartbeat is a beautiful picture book that celebrates Indigenous resilience, honours legends past and present, and salutes emerging generations of the oldest continuous culture on earth.

In conversation with writer, podcaster and Tiddas 4 Tiddas co-founder Marlee Silva, Briggs talks about the importance of children seeing themselves in picture books – and the rise of books (like Young Dark Emu and Welcome to Country) that distil complex conversations into accessible formats.

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Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work.

In this episode we’re talking to Erin Hortle about her novel, The Octopus and I.

The Octopus and I is a stunning debut novel set on the Tasmanian coast that lays bare the wild, beating heart at the intersection of human and animal, love and loss, and fear and hope.

‘The Octopus and I is a novel about a breast cancer survivor called Lucy, who becomes intensely fascinated with some female octopuses that live down at Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula. There's a particular element of them that she's fascinated by, [a] really bizarre localised phenomenon (which isn't necessarily normal octopus behaviour) where these female egg-carrying octopuses try to drag themselves across an isthmus to try to get to the open ocean. [Here] there are sea caves for them to be able to extrude their thousands of eggs, which they then fan water on for up to a couple of weeks until the eggs hatch, and then the female octopus dies.’

The Octopus and I is out now through Allen Unwin.

Download a PDF transcript of this episode here.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work.

In this episode we’re talking to Ronnie Scott about his debut novel, The Adversary.

The Adversary follows its protagonist from a long Brunswick winter into the sticky heat of one transformative Melbourne summer.

Ronnie was programmed to appear in our Next Big Thing: Here and Gone Edition, which was unfortunately cancelled as part of our preventative measures to stem the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.

The Adversary is out now through Penguin Random House.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work.

In this episode we’re talking to Laura McPhee-Browne about her debut novel, Cherry Beach.

A tender coming-of-age novel, Cherry Beach, introduces a pair of childhood best friends who depart suburban Melbourne to live in Toronto.

'Cherry Beach is a book about two young women who are best friends. They were best friends from childhood and they decide to move overseas, to Toronto in Canada for a few years together, and it's kind of about their journey over there, and a bit about their past friendship.'

Laura was programmed to appear in the Next Big Thing: Here and Gone Edition, which was unfortunately cancelled as part of our preventative measures to stem the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.

Cherry Beach is out now through Text Publishing.

Download a PDF transcript of this episode here.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work.

In this episode we’re talking to Ellena Savage about her collection, Blueberries.

In Blueberries, Savage wields a stirring blend of journalism, poetry, polemic and memoir in her pursuit of human truths: the meaning of power and desire, the decisions that make a life, and one’s place in the world.

‘Blueberries, the book, charts some of my travels and my attempts to make a life for myself that supports writing. And that's often meant me living outside of Melbourne, which is obviously a very expensive place to live if you're not a professional. So the book itself is about mobility in all its connotations, so kind of global mobility, through travel, migration, colonisation. It's about class mobility, social mobility, and also [the] physical mobility of women.’

Ellena was programmed to appear in our Next Big Thing: Here and Gone Edition event, which was unfortunately cancelled as part of our preventative measures to stem the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.

Blueberries is out now through Text Publishing.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melbourne-based writer Kate Grenville is a long-time favourite among readers. She’s the author of the international bestseller The Secret River, and other novels including Sarah Thornhill, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and The Idea of Perfection.

Grenville has spent almost a decade focussed on non-fiction. One Life offered an intimate account of her mother’s life; The Case Against Fragrance investigated the allure, affect and health risks of synthetic scents.

A Room Made of Leaves marks the author’s return to the novel form. It’s a work of historical fiction posing as a memoir written by Elizabeth Macarthur – wife of John Macarthur, the notorious Second Fleet settler and wool baron of early Sydney. Moving between fact and fiction, Grenville uses Macarthur’s story to unravel common notions of women of the past – and to delve into the attraction of false stories.

In conversation with Larissa Behrendt, Grenville talks about the book, her writing and her career.

Presented in partnership with Macedon Ranges Shire Council.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

'With the #MeToo movement right now, we are finally saying what we don't want as a gender,' Lisa Taddeo has said. 'But we are still not talking about what we do want.'

Taddeo's bestselling book, Three Women, is all about what women want. It's a work of immersive non-fiction, telling the intimate true stories of three American women, and of how their sexual desires have been shaped, distorted, fulfilled and exploited.

Described on NPR as 'a work of deep observation, long conversations, and a kind of journalistic alchemy', Three Women took Taddeo eight years to write. She travelled across the country to be near her subjects for months at a time, to learn about their lives and their personal histories.

With its focus on power, judgement, shame and infatuation, the book has become an international bestseller, sparking impassioned discussion and debate. How do we surprise and disturb others – and ourselves – with what we want? How are our desires deeply idiosyncratic and how are they universal?

In this podcast-only conversation – originally slated to be held in May, in partnership with Sydney Writers' Festival – Taddeo discusses these ideas and more with Sophie Black.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Host Evelyn Araluen at the Wheeler Centre

First Nations writers are at the forefront of the most exciting writing being produced on this continent today, subverting creative forms and decolonising Australian literature.

In this event, four emerging First Nations writers from The Next Chapter writers’ scheme – Jasmin McGaughey, Racheal Oak Butler, Lorna Munro and Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi – discuss the creative process, writing for Blak and settler readerships, and how they respond to expectations of genre, character and identity, with host Evelyn Araluen.

Presented in partnership with the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

This event was originally scheduled to take place at the 2020 Sydney Writers' Festival.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work. Find it on the Wheeler Centre podcast.

In this episode we’re talking to Sean O’Beirne about his debut short story collection, A Couple of Things Before the End.

A bitingly satirical collection, A Couple of Things Before the End employs a remarkable range of voices to explore suburban end times.

'What happens if you give a very white, very male, very working class people sort of a whole country… you know, the idea of Australia as the working man’s paradise, or the lucky country, … [what are] the strangenesses and the distortions that can go along with that? … And if you can’t participate... you’ve gotta have a kind of argument to have with the country and what the hell you’re going to be able to do here.'

Sean was programmed to appear in our Next Big Thing: Australiana Edition, which was unfortunately cancelled as part of our preventative measures to stem the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.

A Couple of Things Before the End is out now through Back Inc.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.