Cirrus@Austlit

'Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman. Her memoir We Come With This Place is shortlisted for the Stella Prize in 2023. An educator, she has worked in teaching and learning for many years – a gift given through the hard work of her parents. She continues to experience the privilege of living with country and with family. Debra completed her PhD in Narrative Theory and Semiotics at Deakin University in 2021. Read the transcript for this interview here.'

'Louisa Lim is an award-winning journalist, podcaster and author. Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong (2022) was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, as well as the Walkley Book Award and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.' 

'Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction.

'Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. They have written two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize, and Throat, which was shortlisted in 2021 for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.' (Introduction)

'Overland Literary Journal Issue 249 features several essays, including A guide to the colonisation of my mother tongues by Natalia Figueroa Barroso and Dovetails by EJ Clarence.' (Introduction)

'Omar Sakr is the author of three poetry collections, Non-Essential Work (2023), The Lost Arabs (2019), These Wild Houses (2017). His first novel, Son of Sin (2022) was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards.

'Omar performs 'Iris', a poem from his latest collection, at the 6:30 mark.' (Introduction)

'Ghassan Hage and Randa Abdel-Fattah reflect on the publication of 'The Racial Politics of Australian Multiculturalism' - a combined work celebrating the 25th anniversary of Ghassan's 'White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society' and the 20th anniversary of his 'Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society'.' (Introduction)

'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.

(Production summary)

'Kate Mildenhall and Astrid Edwards recorded this session The Hummingbird Effect LIVE at Canberra Writers Festival in August 2023.'

'Kate Mildenhall and Robbie Arnott recorded this session Into the Wild LIVE at Canberra Writers Festival in August 2023.' 

'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.' (Introduction)

'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.' (Introduction)

'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.' (Introduction)

'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.' (Introduction)

'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.'' (Production summary)

'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.' (Production summary)

'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.' (Production summary)

'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.' (Production summary)

'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).' (Production summary)

'Brigid Mullane is a publisher at Ultimo Press, and in this interview she discusses her career and her path into publishing.

'She was previously Managing Editor at Hachette, Editor of Kill Your Darlings, and Communications Manager at Writers Victoria. She has also worked in a variety of roles at Melbourne Writers Festival, National Young Writers’ Festival, Emerging  Writers’ Festival, the Sun Bookshop and the Brunswick Street Bookstore.' (Production summary)

'Lucy Treloar is a novelist. Her debut, Salt Creek, won the Dobbie Literary Award among others and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UK's Walter Scott Prize. Wolfe Island, her second novel, won the Barbara Jefferis Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's and NSW literary awards.

'Lucy's essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including Meanjin, The Age, Overland and Best Australian Stories.' (Production summary)