Allison Tait is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, magazine features, blog posts and is also a co-host on our top-rating podcast, So you want to be a writer. Usually she’s the one asking the questions, but today – following last month’s launch of the first book in her new series,
Mark Dapin has worn many hats – as a features writer (i.e. the “Lunch with…” series in The Sydney Morning Herald), a magazine editor, a non-fiction writer, and writer of novels. He also just wears a hat a lot of the time. Earlier in the year on our top-rating podcast,
You could say it was a painter who kick-started Air Commodore John Oddie’s journey to writing Flight Command: From the farm to the frontline. Specifically, Archibald Prize-winning portrait artist Ben Quilty, sent in 2011 as ‘official war artist’ (a legit profession since World War I) to paint the men and
Andrew McMillen is a freelance journalist based in Brisbane, Australia. His first book, Talking Smack: Honest Conversations About Drugs is a pretty frank look at the plentiful world of drugs within the music industry. We caught up with him recently to talk about the book and his approach to writing. But
James Phelps, you should be locked up. You’re a sports journalist and you’ve written a non-fiction book, Australia’s Hardest Prison: Inside Long Bay. Tell us about it. Ever wondered what it would be like to go to prison? Not an American movie style prison, but the one you would really
Judith Rossell is an uber-talented writer and illustrator of children’s books, as well as being a presenter for our Writing Picture Books course in Melbourne. Her latest book, Withering-by-Sea, is launching this month so we asked her to paint us a picture of what it’s all about. Once she’d finished
Bambi Smyth is the author of Men on the Menu – 75 delicious affairs around the world. That title gives you plenty of clues – namely food and frolicking! But to add some filling to this dish, we went to directly to the source and asked Bambi a bunch of
Steve Sammartino is now relieved that he can call himself “an author”. Because it’s just a lot easier to explain than his actual life as a “projecteer” – juggling many projects at once, from organic egg farms as a child to marketing roles, advertising agencies, countless successful start-ups, blogging to
You know that feeling you get when you see an email telling you that you’ve won three million euros? That little moment between reading the subject line and realising that you don’t actually have a prince for a nephew, but you think “oh my god I’ve won three million euros!”? We get
Karen M Davis is an ex-cop who took on writing and smashed it with her first novel, Sinister Intent – released in 2013. Now her second book is out, and Karen recently spoke to us about Deadly Obsession and her approach to writing. Hi Karen, tell us about Deadly Obsession,
Last week, Fiona McFarlane’s The Night Guest was shortlisted as a finalist in the 2014 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, adding to the long list of accolades already this year for this debut novel. We thought it would be a good opportunity to share some gems from our podcast interview with
Recently we locked Deborah Rodriguez, author of The House on Carnaval Street, in a padded room and yelled questions at her through an intercom. Okay, some of that isn’t true, but the author and question bit are. And most of her adventures are usually crazier than that anyway. Here’s how
If you Google ‘CM Lance’, you’ll actually find two writers – one is a male who lives in the U.S. and writes about wizards, and the other is a female Australian author. She has been an astronomer, a Unix computer specialist and now a novelist (so, just the usual career
In episode 15 of our top-rating podcast, So you want to be a writer, Allison Tait spoke with two authors at the same time: Kim Wilkins and Kimberley Freeman. But rather than talk over each other, it was all very orderly. That’s because it was the same person. Dr Kim
Laura Greaves’ Facebook page name says: “Laura Greaves Writes Books”. And actually, it’s pretty appropriate because she says that’s all that she has ever wanted to do. Her latest book is Be My Baby and we thought we’d sit her down and ask her precisely nine questions about that with
Once a lawyer, then an actor, now a writer, it’s fair to say that Australian author and playwright Sofie Laguna has worn plenty of hats over the years. And even within her writing persona, she has never been one to stick to the same thing – bouncing from picture books to plays, young reader series to adult novels.
With such an interesting journey to date, we figured she’d be an interesting person to chat with – especially with the release of her latest adult novel, The Eye of the Sheep. And we weren’t wrong.
Hugh Howey is the author of the best-selling book WOOL, which started life in the ebook jungles of Amazon as an online novelette. This was before it became a global sensation and the first instalment in a three-book series known as the Silo series. Hugh’s second book in this series,
Great news: our new half-day course, Writing Australian History is coming up in November! So to get the inside story, we asked presenter and historical guru, Pamela Freeman, a few questions around this fascinating genre…
Hi Pamela. There seems to be lots of Australian historical stories appearing in mainstream media currently (e.g. Gallipoli and ANZAC Girls etc). Why do you think they’re so popular at the moment?Historical fiction generally has become more popular worldwide, often due to television shows like The Tudors and Da Vinci’s Demons (although I wouldn’t call that history!).
In Australia generally, people are becoming more interested in history; the number of people going to the Dawn Service for Anzac Day, for example, has gone up and up over the last ten years or so. And then, of course, we had the 60th anniversary of World War II, and now the 100th year anniversary of World War I, which is sparking even more interest. The media are riding the centenary wave, but I think they’re being successful because people are genuinely interested in the past and, in particular, in the people from that past – how they differed from us and how they were the same.
Belfast, 2am, Tomb Street. A young man lies dead in an alley. Cracked ribs, broken jaw, fractured skull. With the Celtic Tiger purring and the Troubles in their death throes, Detective Sergeant John O’Neill is called to investigate. Meanwhile O’Neill’s partner, DI Jack Ward, a veteran troubled detective, is receiving death threats from an unknown source…
You’ve just read the synopsis for When Sorrows Come – Belfast-born author Matt McGuire’s second novel in his DS O’Neill series. It’s a follow up to his debut 2012 novel, Dark Dawn, and further explores the brutal criminal underworld of new Northern Ireland.
Matt currently resides in Sydney, so we thought we’d chat to him as a he launches his book and we launch our new Crime and Thriller Writing course.
Dr Anita Heiss is a busy woman. As the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles, she’s never far from a well-shaped word or two. Her books include Am I black enough for you? and Tiddas, and she is on the list of Booktopia’s favourite Australian novelists.
In 2001, Anita was the first Aboriginal student in the history of the University of Western Sydney to graduate with a PhD in communications and media. And despite being so busy, she’s always willing to connect with her loyal readers to help grow the voice of Aboriginal writers. “I like meeting my readers,” she says. “I think festivals are a great way to do that. It’s a great way for readers to engage with you and learn about why you do what you do.”
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