Cirrus@Austlit

'Highly respected ABC anchor, bestselling author and hit podcaster Leigh Sales interviews the cream of Australian journalists about their craft – how (and why) they bring us the stories that inform our lives.

Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most accomplished journalists, having anchored the ABC’s flagship 7.30 program for twelve years. She has been a foreign correspondent, hosted Lateline and anchored numerous elections for the ABC. In this book, she turns her interviewing skills onto her own profession, those usually asking the questions: the journalists.

In ten sections – from News Reporting to Editing, via Investigative, Commentary and of course Interviewing – Sales takes us on a tour of the profession, letting the leaders in their field talk direct to us about how they get their leads, survive in war zones, write a profile, tell a story with pictures, and keep the show on the road. A who’s-who of Australian journalism – including Lisa Millar, Kate McClymont, Hedley Thomas, Trent Dalton, Benjamin Law, Tracy Grimshaw, Richard Fidler, David Speers, Stan Grant, Niki Savva, Waleed Aly, Annabel Crabb, Karl Stefanovic and Mia Freedman – talk candidly about their greatest lessons and their trade secrets.

A fascinating insight into a vital and much-misunderstood profession, Storytellers is a book for anyone who’s ever wanted to be a journalist, or even just wondered how the news gets made.'(Production summary)

'In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who’ve faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humour. Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she’s learned about coping with life’s unexpected blows.

'Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don’t know we have.' (Publisher's website)

'Dear Crabb, 
'Recently I've noticed I receive a lot of correspondence addressed to both of us. Invitations, complaints, tweets decrying our hairstyles, even television viewing suggestions. 'You should watch The Katering Show on YouTube,' emailed my friend Ben the other day. 'You and Crabb will love it' Even an Easter picnic invitation arrived with the disclaimer 'Perhaps Annabel might like to come too' It's as if we've morphed into a sister act, perhaps a little more Laverne and Shirley than Thelma and Louise, but a dynamic duo nonetheless. '  (Introduction)

'Richard Roxburgh is best known for his roles on the big and small screen. But recently he's been channelling his creativity in a new direction.'

'The acclaimed actor is about to publish his first book, Artie and the Grime Wave, which he wrote and illustrated. ...'

'In a remote American military base at Guantanamo Bay, 385 enemy combatants sit waiting for their day in court. Among them is David Hicks, who was detained for five years until the March 2007 hearing where he pleaded guilty to the charge of providing material support for terrorism.Detainee 002 reveals in unprecedented detail how an Australian citizen wound up in the War on Terror. Based on more than five years of reporting and dozens of interviews with insiders, Leigh Sales explains the intricacies of Hicks's case, from his capture in Afghanistan, to life in Guantanamo Bay, to the behind-the-scene establishment and workings of the military commissions. Sales' impeccable research takes us from top-secret negotiations at the White House and Pentagon to the domestic fallout Hicks's incarceration has had on his family, to the campaign that Major Michael Mori, the marine who becomes his greatest advocate, waged on his behalf.David Hicks's case is emblematic of some of the greatest challenges facing the world today: the rise of Islamic extremism, terrorism and the accountability of governments towards their citizens. It is a chilling reminder that, in a war with ever-changing rules and no end in sight, there are no limits.' (Source: Publisher's website)