Outspoken Maleny

Kristina Olsson in conversation

Kristina Olsson is a Brisbane-based writer. She worked as a journalist for many years, writing for The Australian, The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Telegraph. She has written both novels and memoirs, including The China Garden and Boy, Lost, the memoir about her mother and about Kristina’s missing brother, which won the 2014 NSW Premier's Prize for nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Just this month Simon & Schuster have chosen Kristina’s new novel, Shell, to launch the liter...

Josepha Dietrich in conversation

We begin with Josepha Dietrich whose memoir In Danger was published by UQP earlier this year. By way of introduction I’m going to take the unusual step of reading the author note from the front of her book as a way of describing her because, honestly, I can’t think of a better description: Josie Dietrich is an English immigrant to Australia. She lives in Brisbane in the home she and her partner built on passive house principles. After coming out of a long reign as a carer, she’s worked as a rese...

Gareth Evans in conversation

Gareth Evans was a representative for the Australian Labor Party in both the Senate and the House of Representatives for twenty-one years, from 1978 to 1999. During that time he served as a member of Cabinet for fourteen years in the Hawke and Keating governments, including seven and a half as Foreign Minister, a role in which, it is univerally acknowledged, he excelled. After leaving politics he became President and CEO of the International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, during which period th...

Steven Lang in conversation with Kate Evans

In this podcast Outspoken organiser and interviewer swaps chairs and is interviewed by Kate Evans from ABC Radio National about his new novel, Hinterland, which is set in the fictional town of Winderran. Kate came to Maleny for the occasion.

Shelley Davidow in conversation

Shelley Davidow is the author of Whisperings in the Blood, a memoir in which immigrant voyages, repeated from one generation to the next, form the basis of an extraordinary story that explores the heartache and emotional legacies created by those who leave their homelands forever. It tells the story of her grandfather, Jacob Frank, who leaves his village in Lithuania to sail to America, of her mother, leaving America to go to South Africa, and her own voyage repeating these and other journeys be...

A C Grayling in conversation

A C Grayling is a genuine example of that much bandied about thing, a most remarkable man. Born in Rhodesia, raised in Nyasaland, he discovered a love for philosophy at the age of twelve, going on to study at ever more prestigious institutions, culminating in Magdelene College, Oxford. Apart from being the author of thirty books he writes widely on contemporary issues, including war crimes, euthenasia, secularism, the legalisation of drugs and human rights. He founded the New College of The Huma...

Malachy Tallack in conversation

Malachy Tallack is from the Shetland Isles, as far north in Scotland as you can go. He attracted a lot of attention with his first book, 60 Degrees North, an account of his journey around the world along the line of the 60th latitude. It was a book that Robert MacFarlane described as brave and beautiful, chosen by BBC Radio 4 as Book of the Week. He was in Australia to promote his new work, The Un-Discovered Islands, a study on islands of imagination, deception and human error. Also well-known a...

Richard Fidler in conversation

Richard Fidler is best known these days for his Conversations with Richard Fidler on ABC radio. Conversations is the most podcast program on the ABC, with 1.8m podcasts downloaded a month, which, by any standards, is a lot of podcasts. But Richard had an earlier career, before he morphed into Australia’s best interviewer. He started out in the trio the Doug Anthony All Stars in the 80s, playing guitar in the ensemble with Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson. All three of them have gone on to be sign...

Kári Gíslason in conversation

Kári Gíslason was born in Iceland. He’s the author of four books, two non-fiction and two novels. The Promise of Iceland tells the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, while Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world, co-written with Richard Fidler, is an account of visits they made together to the places where the Icelandic sagas actually took place. It won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018. Here he discusses his new novel, The Ashburner. Kári comes ba...

Mireille Juchau in conversation

The World Without Us, Mireille's third novel, is set somewhere in the Hinterland of NSW's north coast, and concerns the Muller family, Stefan, Evangeline and their two daughters. Stefan, a beekeeper, is originally from Germany, while Evangeline grew up on a commune in the hills behind where they live. The story is woven around the absence of a third daughter, Pip, and the way they each deal with the grief her loss has provoked. At the same time it also braids within its cloth the radically chang...

Elspeth Muir in conversation

Tallking about her book Wasted, Text 2016 In 2009 Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother, Alexander, finished his last university exam and went out with some mates on the town. Later that night he wandered to the Story Bridge. He put his phone, wallet, T-shirt and thongs on the walkway, climbed over the railing, and jumped thirty metres into the Brisbane River below. Three days passed before police divers pulled his body out of the water. When Alexander had drowned, his blood-alcohol reading was almost...

Magda Szubanski in conversation

Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s most beloved performers, most famous for her role in Kath and Kim as Sharon Strzelecki, but also for her work in the comedy sketch programs Fast Forward, the D-Generation, and, of course, as Esme Hoggett in the film Babe. In this new and extraordinary memoir, Reckoning, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities and the secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dr...

Paul Williams in conversation

Paul Williams is Program Coordinator in Creative Writing at Sunshine Coast University and the author of several short stories and novels. His most recent book is Cokcraco, an exhilarating, playful and witty novel about writing, identity and literary KritiKs. Some comments from reviews: 'Ever since Don Quixote, novelists have been taking the piss. In Cokcraco Paul Williams does exactly that, turning the full beam of his satirical spotlight on the civil wars in university departments, the cultish ...

Tim Flannery in conversation

Professor Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading writers on climate change. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he was named Australian of the Year in 2007. He has held various academic positions including Professor at the University of Adelaide, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum and Visiting Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolution...

Kate Holden in conversation

Kate Holden is the author of the memoirs In My Skin and The Romantic, Italian Nights and Days. In My Skin was nominated for many awards and was published in twelve countries. Her stories and columns have appeared regularly in The Age as well as The Monthly, Cleo, New Woman and the Weekend Australian. The biography on her website begins with the tantalising entry: I was born in Melbourne in 1972 and, apart from some time in Rome, Shanghai and London, I have always lived here. I went to progressiv...

Kate Grenville in conversation

Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most popular and best-known writers. Her novel The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was short-listed for the Man Booker, the Miles Franklin and the IMPAC Awards. Her earlier novel, The Idea of Perfection, won The Orange Prize in 2001. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History. In this podcast she discusses her new book: One Life: My Mother's Story, a deeply moving h...

Olivera Cimic in conversation

Olivera Simic is the author of Surviving Peace, a Political Memoir, a heartfelt account of life before, during and after the Bosnian War and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Simić provides a greater understanding of the Balkan Wars while ensuring we don’t forget the horrors and enduring impact of any war. Combining an academic sensibility with personal experience she describes how she found the determination to build a new life when the old one was irretrievable.

Andrew MacMillen in conversation

Andrew’s journalism has been published in, amongst other places, Rolling Stone, Good Weekend, Wired, The Guardian, The Monthly, The Australian, Qweekend, GQ Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, Backchannel and, The Saturday Paper.

John Birmingham in conversation

John Birmingham is the author of the cult classic He Died With a Falafel in His Hand; the award-winning history Leviathan; the Axis of Time series and the Disappearance trilogy. He contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Brisbane Times and The Monthly on topics as diverse as the future of coal (and media) as well as national security. He began his working life as a research officer with the Defence Department's Office of Special Clearances...

Ellen van Neerven

A conversation with last year’s David Unaipon Award winning author Ellen van Neerven about her debut novel Heat and Light. Ellen’s writing has appeared widely in publications such as McSweeney’s and the Review of Australian Fiction. She works at the State Library of Queensland as part of the ‘black&write’ Indigenous writing and editing project. She’s the editor of the digital collection Writing Black: New Indigenous Writing from Australia.

Henry Reynolds in conversation

Henry Reynolds is Australia’s pre-eminent historian. In the early eighties he single-handedly changed the way Australian history was conducted when he shone a light on the way the country had been settled with his book The Other Side of the Frontier. His work prompted a flowering of study about Aboriginal-White relations throughout the two hundred years since white settlement. Reynolds himself went on to write more than twelve books focusing on the subject, including the best selling Why Weren’t...

Graeme Simsion in conversation

Australian author Graeme Simsion’s first novel, The Rosie Project , was an international publishing phenomenon, selling over a million copies in more than forty countries. The novel's hero is, according to The Guardian, one of those rare fictional characters – like Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones – destined to take up residence in the popular consciousness. In the highly anticipated sequel, The Rosie Effect, Don Tillman and Rosie are married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie...

Sally Piper in conversation

Sally's novel Grace's Table is a 'wise and tender novel about food, friendship and marriage...' It's a delightful slow burn of a book, which places the kitchen at the centre of the home, the room in which nourishment is given and received and, in the end, everything is revealed. ‘the women in this novel don’t heed the rules for ageing quietly… they pull us into their past and present with their wise-cracking talk and acerbic wit...' Kristina Olsson author of Boy Lost...

Karen Joy Fowler in conversation

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and four collections of short stories. She's the winner of several major awards, including two Nebulas and the PEN/Faulkner, this last for We Are All completely Beside Ourselves, the novel she was primarily discussing on her tour of Australia. At the time of the interview the book had been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Two days later it was bumped up into the short-list.

Clare Dunn in conversation