A new instalment of The Comics Question, a series where Bernard Caleo and I discuss comics, graphic novels, and all manner of illustrated books, zines, and other associated productions.In this episode, Bernard spoke with Li Chen, author and illustrator of the graphic novel Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat.…

In this episode, a conversation with Ailsa Piper, author of the memoir For Life. When her husband doesn't answer his phone, Ailsa Piper knows something is wrong. She calls their neighbour, and minutes later, he rings back. 'Oh, Ailsa. I'm so sorry,' he says. Five words to change a life. Wanting to flee her shattered world in Melbourne, Ailsa migrat…

This is a very special instalment of the podcast, as we have not one, not two nor three, but four interviews with four award winners – the 2024 winners of the four categories of The Reading Prize.First presented in 2014, The Readings Prize supports new and outstanding Australian voices across three separate categories of fiction: Children’s, Young …

In this episode, we have a recording taken from the launch of Follow Your Gut, with co-creators Briony Barr & Gregory Crocetti, writers Lisa Stinson & Ailsa Wild and illustrator Ben Hutchings. In this graphic novel, one meets the ecosystem inside them ... A timid Bifidobacterium named Biffy is forced to leave their family and become part of a new c…

In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Emma Hakansson’s Sub-Human. The book delves into what it means to be an animal, how our view of other animals impacts our view of other people, oppressions, and the planet, how we got here, as well as how we can move forward together. The event was opened with a launching speech by Georgie Purce…

In this episode, Andy McCarthy, author of Here Comes the Sun, in conversation. Misunderstood, tormented and bullied for years, Andy McCarthy was unable to find his pack. When he dropped out in Year 10, his prospects weren't good. He had no idea then that his personal drive and dogged determination would lead to incredible success. At 19, Andy conne…

In this episode, Jordan Prosser, author of Big Time, in conversation. The book is set in a not-too distant future Australia, where the eastern states have become the world's newest autocracy – a place where pop music is propaganda, science is the enemy, nationalism trumps all, and moral indecency is punishable by indefinite detention. Big Time is a…

In this episode, returning guest, Sarah Street, author of A Curse of Salt, in conversation to discuss their new book, A Sea of Wolves. The book is billed as a sapphic romantasy inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. It features an enemies-to-lovers fairytale twist set upon the stormy seas. It’s perfect for fans of Lies We Sing to the Sea and Marissa M…

In this episode, a conversation with Paul Ham, author of The Soul: A History of the Human Mind. Almost everyone thinks they have a soul, but nobody knows quite what it is. For thousands of years the soul was an 'organ', an entity, something that was part of all of us, that survived the death of the body and ventured to the underworld, or to heaven …

In this episode, a conversation with Khin Myint, author of a new memoir, Fragile Creatures. Khin's sister Theda has a strange illness and a euthanasia drug locked in a box under her bed. Her doctor thinks her problem is purely physical, and so does she, but Khin is not so sure. He knows what they both went through growing up in Perth - it wasn't we…

In this episode, recorded live at Readings Carlton, a talk and a Q&A session with public intellectual and widely published author Clive Hamilton. Hamilton’s most recent book is Living Hot, a collaborative effort written with George Wilkenfeld. The book tells the blunt truth about our current climate change predicament: it’s time to get cracking on …

In this episode, a conversation with Emma Kowal, anthropologist and physician and author of the book Haunting Biology: Science and Indigeneity in Australia. The book recounts the troubled history of Western biological studies and Indigenous Australians. The stories Kowal tells feature a variety of ghostly presences: a dead anatomist, a fetishised p…

In this episode, something a little different, and a little bit special. Recorded live at the Athenaeum Library in Melbourne, author and literary columnist Jane Sullivan interviewed Mark Rubbo, legendary bookseller, past president of the Australian Booksellers Association, and founding chair of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Of course, Mark Rubbo …

In this episode, a conversation with Francesca de Tores, author of Saltblood. The book is a work of historical fiction; it is a wild adventure, a treasure trove, and it weaves an intoxicating tale of gender and survival, passion and loss, journeys and transformation, through the story of Mary Read, a truly remarkable historical figure.…

A new instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast. In this episode, Readings Prize and Readings Foundation coordinator Angela Crocombe – who is also senior buyer for Readings Kids – was joined by members of the Teen Advisory Board for a discussion with author Lili Wilkinson. Wilkinson is the award-winning author of nineteen books for young people, incl…

In today’s episode, a conversation with Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis, authors of Girt By Sea: Re-Imagining Australia’s Security. Australia has drawn closer to many of its Asia-Pacific neighbours in recent years, but 'when push comes to shove, it continues to look well beyond the oceans and regions that surround it to the distant horizons of E…

In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Judith Bishop’s Circadia. These fiercely empathetic poems range deep into the woods of present, past and future time. With visionary imagination and rapt musicality, this concluding volume in Bishop's award-winning trilogy on time sings in the mind long after reading.…

In this episode, a conversation with Stuart Kells, author of the new book, Alice(TM). This book is the extraordinary story of Alice Corporation, a company created to reimagine financial markets, that brings together an unlikely cast of characters: renowned author Kate Jennings, international banking insider Ian Shepherd, Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling,…

In this episode, a conversation with Anna Downes, author of the crime novels The Safe Place, The Shadow House, and now, Red River Road. In this new book, set on the Coral Coast of Western Australia, solo traveller Katy is on a mission to find her free-spirited sister, Phoebe, who disappeared along the same route a year ago. But as she drives her ca…

In this episode, a conversation with Manisha Anjali, a writer, artist, and teacher, and author of 'Naag Mountain'. This book is a journey across oceans, from the Asian subcontinent to the South Seas, a journey about human trafficking on sugar plantations in Fiji and Australia. Anjali brings to life the histories and events, the stories and myths of…

In this episode, a conversation with Ouyang Yu, author, translator, academic, and renowned poet. Ouyang Yu’s first collection of stories in English, The White Cockatoo Flowers, is both assured and tender and at times surprisingly funny. It includes stories set in China and Australia that revel in the truth and candour of lived experience and the jo…

In this episode, a conversation with Winnie Dunn – a Tongan-Australian writer, editor, the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement, and now author of the novel Dirt Poor Islanders. Dunn’s book is a potent, mesmerising novel that opens our eyes to the brutal fractures navigated when growing up between two cultures and the importance of unders…

In today’s episode, a conversation with Amanda Hampson, author of the runaway crime novel success, The Tea Ladies. Hampson has returned with a sequel, The Cryptic Clue. It’s set in Zig Zag Lane, in the heart of Sydney's rag-trade district, where our intrepid tea ladies, Hazel, Betty and Irene, have their work cut out. Solving a murder, kidnapping a…

In this episode, a conversation with award-winning writer Steven Carroll, author of Death of a Foreign Gentleman, the first book in a series of post-war literary crime novels featuring Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter. Set in Cambridge in 1947, the book is a playful, poignant and absorbing novel, with shades of The Third Man and Brighton Rock, whi…

A new instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast. This episode features some of the members of the Readings Teen Advisory Board engaging in conversation with Tobias Madden, author of the books Anything But Fine and Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell. Madden’s third YA novel, Wrong Answers Only, was recently published in Australia.…