'Nic Brasch: Welcome to the Garret. A. S. Patric is the latest in a long list of esteemed writers who have claimed the Miles Franklin Award. Alec joins the likes of Patrick White, Tim Winton, Thomas Keneally, Elizabeth Jolley, Peter Carey. And the honour of this award isn’t lost on this self-described kid from the Western suburbs. We sat in one of the board rooms in the State Library of Victoria recently, and talked about writing. I wanted to learn about his process, his influences, and ultimately, why he writes. What I find is an immensely talented and honest writer. I started by asking him the question all award winners get asked: How did he do it?' (Introduction)
Show notes
- After winning the Miles Franklin Award, Alec joins the likes of Patrick White , Tim Winton, Thomas Keneally, Elizabeth Jolley and Peter Carey.
- Alec’s publisher is Transit Lounge.
- Alec’s grew up in a household with Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy on the shelves.
- Alec viewed science fiction (including Piers Anthony and Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot series and Foundation series) as his ticket out of the Western suburbs, and found science fiction more relevant to his life than Charles Dickens and Jane Austin.
- At the time of recording this interview, Alec was reading Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
- Alec recommend the little-known A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin.
- Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.
- Alec was influenced by the 1989 film Dead Poet’s Society.
- Nic mentioned Paul Kelley’s memoir How to Make Gravy.
- Both Alec and Nic consider Gerald Murnane a great Australian writer not even short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award.
- Alec works at Readings Books (one of the sponsors of Season 1 of The Garret Podcast).
