Tony Birch is an activist, historian and essayist. In this interview Tony reflects on his most recent novel, Women and Children. His works include The White Girl (winner of the 2020 NSW Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing and shortlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Prize), Ghost River (winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing), and Blood (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award). Tony has appeared on The Garret several times before, including for one of his first recorded discussions of The White Girl and reflections about creativity during the Pandemic. You can read the transcript of this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Charlotte Wood has won the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister's Literary Award (as well as many other awards). She is the author of ten books - seven novels and three non-fiction works. Her latest novel is Stone Yard Devotional, which she describes as an 'interior' and 'austere' work, and her most personal work of fiction to date. Charlotte has appeared on The Garret several times before, including to discuss her non-fiction work The Luminous Solution, as well as a deep-dive into her international bestseller, The Natural Way of Things. You can read the transcript of this interview here. About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hedley Thomas is a journalist and has won eight Walkley awards, the first for his investigations into the Australian Federal Police investigations of Dr Mohamed Haneef, and the second for the podcast 'The Teacher's Pet'. In 2023 he published 'The Teacher's Pet' the book, and in this episode Hedley takes the reader behind the scenes of the global podcast. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar and founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne. He is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2020) and Right Story Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking (2023). His work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to resolve complex issues and explore global crises. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  This episode comes with a trigger warning for suicide and mental ill-health. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie author of Bundjalung and European heritage. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead, and her latest novel is Edenglassie. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Killing Darcy won the Royal Blind Society Award and was shortlisted for an Aurealis award. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside.  You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Laura Jean McKay is a fiction writer, and her latest work is the short story collection Gunflower. Her previous novel, The Animals in That Country, was awarded the international Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as the Victorian Prize for Literature and the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year. Laura was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mirandi Riwoe is an award writer of historical non-fiction. In 2023 she released Sunbirds, a historical fiction romance interrogating a bygone era - Java in 1941 before the Japanese invasion of World War II and in the lead up to the revolution to overthrow the colonial administration of the Dutch East Indies to become Indonesia in 1949. Her 2020 novel Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and the Queensland Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her short fiction and novellas can be found in the collection The Burnished Sun. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sara Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon.  Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other, and made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) is her first novel. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Masters has practiced the dark art of investigative journalism for decades. He spent extended periods with Australian forces in Afghanistan, and in 2023 published Flawed Hero, his account of reporting on Ben Roberts-Smith and subsequent defamation trial. He is the author of Flawed Hero (2023), No Front Line (2017), Uncommon Soldier (2013) and Jonestown (2006). His reports 'The Big League' and 'The Moonlight State' both led to Royal Commissions. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most recognised and respected journalists. As the new presenter of Australian Story and the recent host of the ABC’s flagship current affairs program, 7.30, she has interviewed dozens of prominent people. Leigh is the winner of three Walkley Awards. She has written three long form works - Detainee 002 (2007), Any Ordinary Day (2019) and Storytellers (2023), as well as the essay On Doubt. In 2023, her service to journalism and the community was recognised with an honorary doctorate from Edith Cowan University. Leigh has previously appeared on The Garret, and you can listen to that interview here. You can read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Instagram, and perhaps follow our host Astrid Edwards there too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Mildenhall and Robbie Arnott recorded this session 'Into the Wild' LIVE at Canberra Writers Festival in August 2023. Robbie's acclaimed debut, Flames, won a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist award and a Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prize, and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, a New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, a Queensland Literary Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the Not the Booker Prize. His follow-up, The Rain Heron, won the Age Book of the Year award, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the ALS Gold Medal, the Voss Literary Prize and an Adelaide Festival Award.  Limberlost is his third novel. It won the Age Book of the Year Award and the BookPeople Book of the Year Awards, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Read the transcript for this interview here.  Thanks to Canberra Writers Festival This recording took place at 2:30pm on Sunday 20 August at Kambri Cultural Centre (ANU), and thanks go to the phenomenal team at Canberra Writers Festival for sharing this audio with us. If you are interested in running festivals, judging prizes and writing reviews, we recommend this interview with Beejay Silcox, Judge of The Stella Prize and Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Mildenhall and Astrid Edwards recorded this session 'The Hummingbird Effect' LIVE at Canberra Writers Festival in August 2023. Kate's debut novel, Skylarking, was longlisted for Debut Fiction in The Indie Book Awards 2017 and the 2017 Voss Literary Award, and her bestselling The Mother Fault was longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and shortlisted for the 2020 Aurealis Awards. The Hummingbird Effect is her third novel. Kate also teaches creative writing and co-hosts The First Time podcast. Read the transcript for this interview here.  Thanks to Canberra Writers Festival This recording took place at 2:30pm on Saturday 19 August at Kambri Cultural Centre (ANU), and thanks go to the phenomenal team at Canberra Writers Festival for sharing this audio with us. If you are interested in running festivals, judging prizes and writing reviews, we recommend this interview with Beejay Silcox, Judge of The Stella Prize and Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Erin Riley is a social worker, and has spent most of the last decade working alongside marginalised populations in community aged care. Erin is also a writer, and their A Real Piece of Work is their debut memoir and collection of essays. Erin brings a queer lived experience to their professional work and to their writing. They were a Penguin Random House Australia Write It fellow in 2021, and have been published in Kill Your Darlings, Bent Street and various corners of the internet.  Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anna Funder is the author of the international bestsellers Stasiland (2002) and All That I Am (2012). Her third major work, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life (2023) interrogates the historical record to uncover Eileen O'Shaunessy, the wife of George Orwell, and her influence on his writing. Her books have won multiple literary awards: Stasiland received the the Samuel Johnson Prize (the UK's premier award for non-fiction and All That I Am the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Originally trained as an international human rights lawyer, Anna is a former DAAD Fellow in Berlin, Australia Council Fellow, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow.  Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Briohny Doyle writes extraordinary fiction. Echolalia was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2021, and in 2023 she released Why We Are Here. Briohny is a lecturer in creative writing at The University of Sydney and a former Fulbright scholar, and her writing also appears in The Monthly, The Guardian, Meanjin, The Griffith Review, and The Age. Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beejay Silcox is a writer and literary critic, and also the Artistic Director of the Canberra Writers Festival. Her literary criticism and cultural commentary regularly appears in national arts publications, and is increasingly finding an international audience, including in the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian and The New York Times.  Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the memoir The Hate Race and the poetry collections Carrying the World and How Decent Folk Behave. Her children's picture books include the CBCA Honour book The Patchwork Bike and the illustrated poem When We Say Black Lives Matter, which was longlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. In 2023 she is Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne. Maxine has appeared on The Garret before, and you can listen to her most recent interview here. Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sally Young is professor of political science at the University of Melbourne. Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires (2023) interrogates the history of Australia's media dynasties and the move from newspaper print to radio and TV and the online world. She is the author of six previous books on Australian politics and media, including the award-winning Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia's Newspaper Empires, which Media Monsters follows on from. Her other works include How Australia Decides, Shooting the Picture (with Fay Anderson) and The Persuaders. Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Larsen is a writer, arts and cultural consultant currently based on Kaurna Yerta in Tamtanya/Adelaide. As one of Australia’s best-known social media poets, her alter ego Katie Keys (aka @tinylittlepoems) wrote and posted a daily poem for over a decade. Her first printed collection, Public. Open. Space, was released in 2023. Kate’s work has been published or commissioned by The Relationship is the Project, Meanjin, Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Voice & Verse and anthologies, magazines and arts organisations across Australia, Asia and the United Kingdom. In this interview Kate discusses her 2023 essay in Overland, 'Tears for Peers: the hidden costs of Arts funding'. Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Isabelle Oderberg is a journalist with two decades of experience across Europe, Asia and Australia. Her first book, Hard to Bear, addresses a gap in the market and demonstrates it is possible to write about an experience some dismiss as unpalatable. Isabelle mentions her agent Melanie Ostell, and Melanie has appeared on The Garret before to discuss what a literary agent does. Read the transcript for this interview here.  About The Garret: Writers and the publishing industry Follow The Garret on Twitter and Instagram, or follow our host Astrid Edwards on Twitter or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.