The Wheeler Centre

Recorded last May in Melbourne, Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings, Sleepwalking, The Wife) discusses The Female Persuasion – and her incredible career to date – with host Brodie Lancaster.

Brodie Lancaster, left, and Meg Wolitzer, right

Meg Wolitzer’s latest novel, The Female Persuasion, is about public pedestals and feminist friction.

Wolitzer herself is a feminist powerhouse who wrote her first novel, Sleepwalking, while still at university. A precocious talent, she was mentored by the famous essayist and screenwriter Nora Ephron.

Today, she’s the author of 12 acclaimed novels, including The Interestings and The Uncoupling. Three of her novels have been adapted to screen, most recently The Wife, starring Glenn Close. Always witty and always wise, Wolitzer’s work is preoccupied with the everyday struggles and successes of American women.

Wolitzer's own career trajectory – from young upstart to prominent novelist and teacher – makes her especially well placed to explore the tensions of intergenerational feminism. Her latest novel, The Female Persuasion, examines ideological purity, mentorship and compromise in the contemporary feminist landscape. It’s Wolitzer at her piercing and satirical best.

Recorded last May in Melbourne, she discusses The Female Persuasion and her incredible career to date with host Brodie Lancaster.

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In the first of our Walk in the Park mini-series, writers and friends Jessica Friedmann and Fiona Wright come together for an intimate, ambling conversation about bodies, expectations and the pleasures and complexities of moving.

Jessica Friedmann, Fiona Wright and our walking, listening audience at A Walk in the Park, 28 October 2017 — Photo: Amita Kirpalani

In the first of our Walk in the Park mini-series, writers and friends Jessica Friedmann and Fiona Wright come together for an intimate, ambling conversation about bodies, expectations and the pleasures and complexities of moving.

Friedmann’s recent book, Things That Helped, chronicles her postnatal depression through a series of essays which reference theory, pop culture and her personal experiences. She describes the many significant changes she faced at once, and how on the advice of a hospital psychologist, walking and narrating her steps formed part of her recovery – helping to focus her consciousness on ‘the immediacy of voice and breath’.

Acute bodily awareness is a familiar subject for Wright, who in Small Acts of Disappearance describes vividly her encounters with anorexia. Join them for a sunlit lap of Princes Park.

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Andrew Sean Greer is a novelist, short story writer and writing teacher whose books frequently explore themes of love and time. His books – The Confessions of Max Tivoli, The Story of a Marriage, and the sensationally popular, Pulitzer-winning novel, Less, have earned him critical praise for their sensitive, lyrical prose. Last May, he joined Benjamin Law to talk about the ways in which writing can express our hunger for language, for the world, and for each other.

Andrew Sean Greer is a novelist, short story writer and writing teacher whose books frequently explore themes of love and time. His books – The Confessions of Max Tivoli, The Story of a Marriage, and the sensationally popular, Pulitzer-winning novel, Less, have earned him critical praise for their sensitive, lyrical prose. Last May, he joined Benjamin Law to talk about the ways in which writing can express our hunger for language, for the world, and for each other.

When his novel Less won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Andrew Sean Greer tweeted, he ‘had just persuaded a dog to let me put her into polka dot pajamas (not my dog)’. He literally didn’t believe the news.

Readers clearly feel otherwise. Less tells the story of Arthur Less – a writer fearing his own mediocrity and middle age, who takes on a series of far-flung literary engagements in order to avoid the wedding of a significant ex. With understated eloquence, the book’s narrator is generous to its subject, making for a joyful and nuanced celebration of human complexity. It spent six months on the coveted New York Times bestseller list.

Benjamin Law and Andrew Sean Greer — Photo: Jon Tjhia

Beyond the runaway success of his latest novel, Greer is a novelist, short story writer and writing teacher whose books frequently explore themes of love and time. His other books, including The Confessions of Max Tivoli and The Story of a Marriage, have earned him critical praise for their sensitive, lyrical prose.

Last May, Greer joined Benjamin Law to talk about the ways in which writing can express our hunger for language, for the world, and for each other.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Walking Princes Park with doctor and author Leah Kaminsky, Neon Pilgrim author Lisa Dempster recounts her time on the Shikoku Henro pilgrimage in Japan; the circumstances of her adventure, her writing of it, and how it’s impacted her life in the near-decade since.

Walking Princes Park with doctor and author Leah Kaminsky, Neon Pilgrim author Lisa Dempster recounts her time on the Shikoku Henro pilgrimage in Japan; the circumstances of her adventure, her writing of it, and how it’s impacted her life in the near-decade since.

There’s walking, and then there’s walking. When Lisa Dempster set out to tackle the Shikoku Pilgrimage – a 1200km, 88 temple route through regional Japan – she was at a nadir of mental and physical health; desperate for something to bring major change to her life.

'People really do see walking now as a solution, and an answer to things.'

Lisa Dempster

As she describes the gruelling journey, laid out in her travelogue Neon Pilgrim (2009; re-launched in 2017), it surprised her with unexpected spiritual encounters. Yet the sense of an inner shift was still elusive and intangible – and something which only later emerged through writing about the experience.

Walking Princes Park with doctor and author Leah Kaminsky, Dempster recounts the circumstances of her adventure, her writing of it, and how it’s impacted her life in the near-decade since.

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