The Wheeler Centre

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 Kirsten Alexander about her debut novel, Riptides.

Set in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland during a time of tremendous social upheaval, Riptides is a gripping family drama about dreams, choices and consequences.

'In some ways I thought it's not a straight line ever from the past to the present… I think our country is still evolving, we're still coming into our own being, and I think we still have a lot to learn about how to treat one another and the space we’re in. But some of the lessons we learnt in the past we just throw away very easily. I'm not sure if other countries do that, but Australia certainly seems to struggle to learn from our past.'

Kirsten 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.

Riptides 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. Find it on the Wheeler Centre podcast.

In this episode we’re talking to Wayne Marshall about his debut short story collection, Shirl.

A daringly experimental collection, Shirl plays with white Australian masculinity, especially in suburban and rural contexts, in ways that are fantastical, absurd and comic.

'The collection is quite nostalgic, I guess. I started writing it... from a cancer diagnosis. But also, three months before that [happened], I’d become a father for the first time, so I was really looking back at the kind of world that I grew up in. And it was that crazy, strange, over-the-top Australiana. There’s something absurd about it that has always caught my eye.'

Wayne 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.

Shirl is out now through Affirm Press.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With entries now open for the third year of The Next Chapter, the Wheeler Centre’s writers’ scheme, join three recipients and their mentors – Arthur Bolkas and Arnold Zable, Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi and Ellen van Neerven, and Jean Bachoura and Maria Tumarkin – to discuss the varied forms support for emerging writers can take, and the unique qualities of writing mentorships. Hosted by Veronica Sullivan.

Veronica Sullivan, Maria Tumarkin and Jean Bachoura

Presented annually, The Next Chapter gives ten outstanding emerging writers the time and space to write, and a 12-month mentorship with an experienced writer. Through these mentorships, tomorrow’s great voices are steered and supported by today’s literary icons.

Presented in partnership with the Emerging 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.

For the first batch of episodes, we’ve partnered with our friends at the Emerging Writers’ Festival to spotlight four brilliant new voices from around Australia writing across fiction, memoir and poetry.

In this episode we’re talking to Prithvi Varatharajan about his debut collection, Entries. Entries playfully explores form, using a combination of poetry and prose to consider memory and experience.

'The writing … arose from states of joy, anguish, ambivalence and contemplation. The poems come from a period of ten years, while other poetic, essayistic and diaristic pieces were produced with intensity over a shorter duration.'

Entries is out now through Cordite Books.

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.

For the first batch of episodes, we’ve partnered with our friends at the Emerging Writers’ Festival to spotlight four brilliant new voices from around Australia writing across fiction, memoir and poetry.

In this episode we’re talking to Monica Tan about her memoir, Stranger Country.

'Will I ever really belong to this country? As a Chinese Australian? As a non-Indigenous Australian...? I was 32 years old and barely knew the country of my birth. It was time to change that.'

Stranger Country is a compelling account of Monica's six-month solo trip to some of Australia's most beautiful and remote landscapes. A thoughtful and provocative reflection on cultural and national identity, Stranger Country grapples with what it means to call Australia home as a non-Indigenous person.

Stranger Country is out now through Allen & Unwin.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.