Write & Seek

Welcome to Write & Seek!

Meet my guest.

Kirsty Iltners is a writer and freelance photographer living on Jagera and Turrbal Country, Meanjin, with her two daughters, her border collie and four axolotls.

She has worked for publications such as Brisbane Times and Broadsheet, runs her own photography business, and has previously been shortlisted for the National Portrait Prize. She has a degree in psychology and is currently studying law at QUT. Her debut novel, Depth of Field was the winner of the 2023 Dorothy Hewett Award. 

Website: kirstyiltners.com.au

Instagram: instagram.com/kirstyiltners

Book: uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/depth-of-field

Meet the debut book.

In photography, you don’t get to have it all. You are always making choices, always making sacrifices.

To capture the light.

Tom’s longest-standing commitment is his run-down house Mayfield, which hasn’t been the same since Adeline. He’s stuck in the past drowning his sorrows in too many bottles of wine and an unfulfilling photography business. Unable to move on, Tom is treading water in a low-commitment relationship. The only problem—she isn’t Adeline.

Lottie is living with her baby, Coral, in a cramped flat above a fish and chip shop. Struggling to make ends meet, all she wants is to find connection—with her distant mother, the parent’s group, her old school friends, but Lottie straddles too many different worlds to quite fit into any of them. She doesn’t have much, but at least her and Coral have each other.

Told through alternating perspectives, Kirsty Iltners’ debut novel examines the lives of two isolated individuals to reveal the fragility of life and the fallibility of our memories.

Winner of the 2023 Dorothy Hewett Award, Depth of Field is a gripping novel where the mechanisms of photography are allowed to falter just enough to expose how selective and unreliable our memories are, especially when parts of the truth are left out of the frame.

Depth of Field by Kirsty Iltners is available to purchase wherever you buy your books. Alternatively, check in with your local library. If they don’t have a copy yet, put in a request!

For more debut Australian books, check out The Australian Debut Author Book List, curated by yours truly!

Welcome to Write & Seek!

Meet my guest.

Zahid Gamieldien is an author, screenwriter, editor and writing tutor. He is the author of the novel All the Missing Children (Ultimo Press, 2024), which has been optioned to be developed into a television series.

His short fiction has been published in literary journals including Overland, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Island Magazine and many others. His work has also been listed for the Richell Prize and selected for inclusion in the ‘best of’ fortieth anniversary edition of The UTS Writers’ Anthology.

His screenwriting has been listed for awards, and as an editor and writing tutor he’s helped several authors get their work into print. Most recently, he received funding to undertake a residency at Varuna House and a major grant from Create NSW to complete his second novel.

Website: zahidgamieldien.com

Instagram: instagram.com/zahidgamieldien

Book: ultimopress.com.au/collections/frontpage/products/all-the-missing-children

Meet the debut book.

Ilene, a working-class mother, is struggling to survive and desperate to reconnect with her children, Jack and Lonnie, in the aftermath of a near-fatal tragedy.But her children vanish, setting off a chain reaction within the community.

Suspended detective Omar helps out with the investigation, uncovering disquieting clues, but he keeps getting pulled away by a dangerous cold case.

Benji, a recovering addict, finds peace by breeding lorikeets and caring for his mother, only to have his clean life upended by a stranger’s menacing threat.

Nera, a city lawyer grieving on a country farm, wants to find out who killed one of her animals and is faced with increasingly strange and unsettling answers.

In this gripping tale of human frailty and the other-worldly, each character must confront the mystery of what really happened to Jack and Lonnie.

All the Missing Children by Zahid Gamieldien is available to purchase wherever you buy your books. Alternatively, check in with your local library. If they don’t have a copy yet, put in a request!

For more debut Australian books, check out The Australian Debut Author Book List, curated by yours truly!

Welcome to Write & Seek!

Meet my guest.

Dr Jacqueline Rule is an Australian author who holds a PhD in English from the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English from Goldsmiths College, University of London (International Programme) and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She is the winner of the University of London’s 150th Anniversary Prize for academic achievement in English Literature.

Born in South Africa, Jacqueline has lived in Sydney for many years. She is admitted as a solicitor by the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

Jacqueline has worked in research (focusing on law and literature) and academic governance at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), as an academic tutor teaching literature at the University of Sydney and as a fiction reader for literary journals. Her PhD thesis focused on the intersections between literature and law, narrative ethics and interpretative practices and the representation of historical trauma through the form of the novel.

In addition, Jacqueline spent several years working in a legal organisation, supporting a specialist committee on youth detention in the criminal justice system.

Website: jacquelinerule.com.au

Book: spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781922964021

Meet the debut book.

He’s in a new home, turning his bag upside down, emptying the contents onto the rug in the middle of the room. It was there, he knows he packed it, the framed picture of his mum, he saw it inside his bag in the social worker’s car. In the picture, she sits. In her rocking chair, their chair, a small pillow tucked behind her, jutting out behind her elbow. Little Cat is on the shelf behind the chair, a row of his books, the window slightly open. Sun pouring through, the photo slightly overexposed.

Faith and Evelyn are close friends, neighbours, and single mothers of Luke and of Mitch – and both bear the scars of the trauma of colonisation and the Stolen Generations. When Faith dies unexpectedly, Luke’s childhood in Sydney is severed into a ‘before’ and ‘after’ and a chain of catastrophic events is unleashed that will alter the course of his life.

Navigating the upheaval of a broken foster system (that serves as a pipeline to poverty and incarceration in ‘juvie’), The Leaves is a bittersweet meditation on motherhood and loss, on the power of female friendship, and the role of the state in perpetuating violence.

Luke’s journey exposes the aftermath of colonisation, as the nature of punishment, historical trauma and healing are examined. In doing so, the novel reveals the cruelty and futility of the youth detention system, and the violence of the law itself.

Through the pursuit of unattainable justice for Luke, The Leaves raises larger questions about a society that is yet to take responsibility for its own historical crimes.

The Leaves by Jacqueline Rule is available to purchase wherever you buy your books. Alternatively, check in with your local library. If they don’t have a copy yet, put in a request!

For more debut Australian books, check out The Australian Debut Author Book List, curated by yours truly!

Welcome to Write & Seek!

Meet my guest.

Deborah is a writer and academic based in Sydney. She grew up in Northam and Perth, Western Australia.

She has an Honours degree in English from the University of Western Australia, and a PhD from the University of Sydney. She is an associate professor of English Literature at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, and is a winner of an Australian Government Award for University Teaching.

Deborah has travelled widely and lived in Paris for several years, where she held positions at Shakespeare & Company Bookstore, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the University of Paris VII and the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).

She is the author of The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald, which was shortlisted for the AUHE award in literary criticism.

Website: deborahpike.com

Instagram: instagram.com/authordeborahjpike

Facebook: facebook.com/authordeborahjpike

Book: fremantlepress.com.au/books/the-players

Meet the debut book.

One hot summer, a group of university students gathers in an orchard to rehearse a play.

Veronika is born for a life on the stage while Felix seizes his last chance for creative freedom. Sebastian woos Veronika, and Cassie longs for Sebastian. Josh and Gloria each carry a secret they are unable to share.

Passion, rivalry and enduring connections will bind the Players across years and continents, long after the final curtain falls and they leave university behind. From Perth to Paris, Cambridge, London, Berlin and Dili the friends search for meaning in their careers and friendship, discover love and endure heartbreak.

The Players by Deborah Pike is available to purchase wherever you buy your books. Alternatively, check in with your local library. If they don’t have a copy yet, put in a request!

For more debut Australian books, check out The Australian Debut Author Book List, curated by yours truly!

Welcome to Write & Seek!

Meet my guest.

Liz Evans is a British journalist, author, former psychotherapist and academic with a PhD in Creative Writing.

Currently based on unceded Melukerdee land in Lutruwita/Tasmania, she has written for the NME, The Guardian, New Statesman, Elle, Dumbo Feather, Lunch Lady, Island Magazine, Womankind and The Conversation, among many others. 

She has been awarded two Varuna Residential Fellowships and the Katharine Susannah Prichard Fellowship, as well as an Arts Tasmania grant for an Education Residency. 

Website: lizevanswrites.com

Instagram: instagram.com/lizevanswrites

Book: ultimopress.com.au/collections/liz-evans/products/catherine-wheel

Meet the debut book.

Five years ago, Kate’s partner, Max, abandoned her for his pregnant lover. The affair has long since crumbled, but Kate has become fixated with Vee, her ‘replacement’. In a bid to find out what compelled Max to leave, she moves to Bridgewell, which stands in the shadow of St Catherine's Chapel, where Vee is now raising her four-year-old daughter, Iona.  Warm and trusting, Vee is juggling work, single parenthood and a controlling ex-partner, Max, with whom she is still secretly sexually involved. Glad of Kate’s friendship, she nevertheless wonders what has brought this glamorous but brittle woman to such a quiet corner of middle England. When Vee meets charismatic artist Tom, she is hopeful of establishing her first meaningful attachment since Max. But Kate has her own plans... Against a backdrop of ancient ghosts, mystical forces and long-buried tragedy, Vee unwittingly yields to Kate’s cruel agenda, until the past and present collide with devastating consequences.

Catherine Wheel by Liz Evans is available to purchase wherever you buy your books. Alternatively, check in with your local library. If they don’t have a copy yet, put in a request!

For more debut Australian books, check out The Australian Debut Author Book List, curated by yours truly!

Welcome to Write & Seek. My name is Katherine and I am the founder of Debut Books, and the publishing coach, budding literary agent and debut author working within its book-lined walls.

This podcast was inspired by something Charlotte Wood said in her book The Luminous Solution - ‘While there is information abound these days with advice and exercises on the craft of writing, there is far less available that shines a light on an individual’s actual writing practice.’

I’ve seen countless writers struggle through the book writing and publishing experience, and it has been easy to see patterns emerge. What truly baffles me is how universal the struggle is to write and publish a book, and yet because our western culture is steeped in scarcity and perfectionism, there is still so much shame around reaching out and asking for help.

Write & Seek is a podcast of two halves, exploring how writers get writing done, and their path to publication.

There is no one way to write and publish a book and I’m going to chat weekly with first-time Australian authors about their personal writing practice, and their publishing journey.