Danielle Binks - Chapters for Change

Music. Spirit of reconciliation, I acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.

I pay my respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Highland peoples today. Welcome to Totally Lit, the podcast celebrating reading, writing and creating literature. I'm your host, Kai Garvey. Thank you for listening.

Danielle Binks, welcome to Totally Lit Hi, thank you so much for having me Thank you for joining me and being patient I've had a few technical difficulties tonight My six-month-old puppy has chewed right through my headset, I'm willing to forgive a lot for the sake of puppies So that's a very good, if it is indeed an excuse It's one that I'm very much willing to let fly because puppy. She's causing hijinks in our house all day today. She's bitten through a pair of my glasses.

She's now bitten through the headset. I think it's because I need to get her moving more, so getting her outside. Well, she knows how to make maximum damage. So is it a her, not a he? Yeah, so I support, yes, I support girls' wrongs as well as their rights. So I say, let her rip. May take after her mother in causing that damage. I love it. Now, I'm super excited to chat to you. I've actually had you on my wish list for quite a long time, Danielle.

So I'm very excited to have you join me. And I just wanted to start with how much I loved your website. You've got a little tagline there, Art Changes People and People Change the World, that resonated with me when I was checking out your website. Oh, thank you. You are like a writer extraordinaire. You write, you teach, you're an agent. You support Chapters for Change, which is an amazing organisation, which we'll touch on a bit later.

So your latest book is Six Summers of Tash and Leopold. Do you want to share a little bit about that book? It's a middle grade book for eight to 12 year olds, probably at the slightly upper end of middle grade. And it is about that really weird transition year between year six and year seven. And it follows two next door neighbours who are former best friends, who had a really big falling out for a reason, but they are the Tash and Leopold of the title.

And when we meet him, Leopold is about to go to high school on a scholarship to a school that he doesn't really want to attend.

And Tash has kind of stepped back into his life because of a mysterious letter that got misdelivered to her house and kind of brings up the old urban myth of a witch who lives in their, increasingly gentrified neighborhood and it kind of throws them back together and Leopold is a little bit cautious and curious potentially begin a friendship with Tash once again especially as it feels like she's keeping something very close to her chest but at the same

time Leopold starts experiencing school refusal in a very big way because of a few social anxieties and a few things to do with his parents back home that have gone a little bit skewiff as well. So he's got a lot of pressure on him and it kind of materializes in huge anxiety and an unwillingness to go to school. And at the same time, and for more mysterious reasons, Tash is also refusing to go to school.

So they're very much thrown into each other's orbit again, just as the mysterious witch of their neighborhood also kind of creeps up on them and inserts herself into their life in a very big way, but she's not as scary as they once thought as children. So it's a little bit of a suburban urban mystery. It's very much a heart story and very much about friendship. And I think also about the kind of anxieties that kids are going through at the moment.

The world, I am very glad that I am now an adult and not a tween or a teenager because I think the world, I had a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of school refusal at that age. But yeah, also watching the news at the moment is full on. Yeah, couldn't pay me enough to be a kid again because the future looks very scary.

It looks very scary as an adult. So I think I, I feel like I kind of understand that for kids because I feel like I have that anxiety and I just try and put myself in their shoes and kind of write books for them that I think addresses these issues.

And I always said with Tash and Leopold, I kind of wrote Leopold and Tash's school refusal for very different reasons, but they both have school refusal. I kind of wrote that for the kids who are experiencing it at the moment, but also for their classmates who maybe don't understand why someone was there in their classroom at one moment and hasn't been seen for a few weeks. Maybe they're going through some anxiety, some things at home.

So just to create more empathy amongst kids as well, to understand that some kids are just having really rough mental health or physical health problems that stop them from attending and to, you know, not criticize or judge them too quickly, not to make fun of them, not to bully them, to already, you know, pile on what is already a very anxious, inducing situation for the kids and their parents especially.

I also tried to show how grueling it can be on the parents trying to get their kids to go to school when it's the one place they don't want to be. And I kind of write at one moment that, you know, a lot of the time adults, when they don't want to be in a situation, they just take themselves out of it. If I don't want to be here, and you can, yeah, if I don't want to be here, whether it's work or a party or a function, I'm just going to leave.

I'm just going to take myself out. I'm going to either hop in my car or call a taxi or call an Uber. I can just go, but kids don't really have that autonomy over themselves, which also leads to even more anxiety. The thought that you don't get a say in this just kind of piles on the anxiety, which is completely understandable.

So I try to write from that. It's, you know, I kind of picture it like trying to get on a level with kids, like kind of, you know, coming down to their level and trying to understand how they must feel. So, yeah, just empathizing with them on that one kind of stratosphere especially. I love that messaging. I'm the mum of two boys who have autism and I spend a lot of time reassuring my guys and getting them through school and they're both graduated and they're now out working.

But I keep saying, this is just a point in time. Things will change. And I know that you were only here because I've chosen for us to be here. But life will be different. And they are flourishing now. They're sort of out in the world and have chosen their paths. But, yeah, the last couple of school years were really challenging.

Yeah. So I love hearing writers that are examining those themes. Yeah, absolutely. Really? Recognising that also there are kids who have anxiety, but they also have friends and their fellow students around them who don't necessarily know how to support or reach out. To those. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the way that school is structured can be very the antithesis of what certain students need.

And if you think about it, school really hasn't changed that much from when, you know, we got through the industrial revolution and decided that all kids should go to school as, you know, a form of human rights, which I completely agree with. But we haven't really, beyond getting rid of the cane, et cetera, school is still pretty much the way it's always been structured. And that doesn't necessarily work for every single kid. and not every single kid's brain works in the exact same way.

So it's really hard to stick them in the classroom and kind of say, here's a bell curve. You have to impress us amongst your cohort. And if you can't do it, then you're the odd one out. But in reality, when you leave school, you get a lot more choice in your life. So it's really hard to kind of say to kids, as you did to your sons, I promise this is just a moment in time. And when you get through this, you can do more of what you want.

And I completely understand kids would be like, well, why can't I just do what I want now? Because it's not working for me and it's making me actively unhappy. So I completely, like, there's lots of things that kids ask very plain, simple, common sense questions that I think adults would just do a lot of shrugging and saying, you know what? I don't know. That's a very good question. That's a very good point.

But we don't really like to give kids too much leeway. But I think we should give them a little bit more and personally a little bit more grace because I think, like you said, being a kid right now in this point in time is really, really hard, harder than it's ever been before in a lot of ways, not including, you know, the pre-industrial revolution era when the kids were down in the coal mines. That was obviously terrible.

I definitely think back, I am very interested in a lot of historical themes and I'm like, I don't think I would have survived. I would not have made it through. Yeah. Most kids as well, if you'd say, okay, you're going to have to walk two hours to get to school. A lot of kids would just be like, you know what I'm going to do? Not go to school and walk two hours there and back.

Just nope but you know especially as young women you think well schooling for us was very much a privilege it wasn't a guarantee for a really long time actually given girls an education so we probably should take it in our stride but I completely agree with you there are just some instances some points in time where I think oof I would not have survived being a kid then either I'm I'm not built for those for those time periods yes indeed if the time machine ever comes my way,

There's, you know, not a lot that I'd want to, I don't know that I could survive very much back in time. It'd be tough. I think I'd have to go like early 2000s, but even that wasn't great. So who knows? We've gone off track. I've mentioned time travel already. I know the 90s. The 90s is good. I may be reflecting my age there. Yeah. Like, it would be kind of cool to be San Francisco grunge era, 90s, could be kind of cool.

Like, seeing Kurt Cobain in a San Francisco cafe somewhere for the first time, you know, hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit for the first time could be pretty awesome. Maybe the first big day out in Australia. I don't know. I'd have to think about it. But I definitely couldn't do, one of my favorite books and TV shows is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. But I know for a fact I wouldn't survive in that time period, much as I'd like to think that I could go in there and find my own Jamie Fraser.

I just know that I, without Google Maps or Apple Maps, I'm just sitting down and waiting for someone to come and get me. I'm not doing anything. Well, even that idea that you can't move from town to town safely. Yeah. Because that's because you're watching Outlander that, oh, actually, you could be attacked. Yeah. I'm just giving up. Yeah. I'm just giving up straight away. Yeah, that's me.

Time travel novels are amongst my favourite, but I just know that if I was in the protagonist situation, I'd be sitting down and just giving up and being like, you know what, I'm done. The same way for a zombie apocalypse. If that's happening, I'm not running. I'll just become one with the zombie horde and just accept my fate because I'm not doing cardio every day of however long a zombie apocalypse goes on for. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I can't do it, babe. I'm just accepting my fate.

And what sort of reception have you had from readers on Tush and Leopold? It's really lovely. I think I write quite gentle books, quite quiet books, books that will pull on the heartstrings.

And what I've heard from young readers and from librarians and booksellers is the kids will come in who don't want to read the dystopias, who don't want to read an anxiety-inducing, but they just want something that sort of speaks to their heart, that they can have a little bit of a cry over maybe, get in touch with their deep feelings, or have a character like Leopold, who kind of reflects their experiences of not loving school.

And those are kids who've come back and said, I really enjoyed this. This was really good. It made me cry, but I really, really liked it. And the best one is when kids ask booksellers or librarians, like, what else did she write? And then they can hand them other books that I've written, whether it's The Year the Map Changed or The Monster of Her Age, my other two books, or the anthology that I edited, The Begin and Begin, Love Oz YA anthology.

I love when kids kind of turn around and say, yeah, what else has she got? That was pretty good. I'll try something else from her is the best ever compliment. Amazing. And have you got anything in the works that you're working on at the moment? Yes, I'm currently contracted for another book that I thought was going to be middle grade, but it might end up being younger and YA, so kind of on the cusp between 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old readers.

It's going to be set in World War I, so I'm going full historical for the first time. Yeah, I've done 1999 for the year the maps changed, which I promise you is historical for the current group of young readers because they call that the 1900s and give me a mild heart attack every time they do because they've got no idea what dial-up internet is or what the Y2K bug was. And yes, like I said, they call 1999 the 1900s, which is completely accurate for them, I understand.

But my next one's going to be set in 1914 to 1915 and it will be set on the home front in Australia during World War I. And it's going to be about, what can I tell you, enemy aliens at home and a young boy who comes close to the enemy in his own backyard, but maybe has his eyes opened and starts rejecting a little bit of the propaganda of the time. So, we'll see. I'm in the thick of writing it, and it's due at the end of this month to my editor, and then it will be coming out next year sometime.

And what has the research been like for that? Have you been having to delve into the history books? Yes, I've gone to the War Memorial in Melbourne. I've brought a lot of and borrowed a lot of books from my library, but I've also bought some pretty obscure books on eBay that I needed for my research in my particular location in the southeastern suburbs of Victoria to know what was happening in 1914, 1915, around that time.

I've watched a lot of documentaries. I particularly loved Peter Jackson's Colourisation of World War I, that documentary he did where he was allowed into all of the archives that had never been released before and he colorized a lot of the the movies that were taken at that time and the photographs of that time so to see, world war one colorized for the first time was just really kind of mind-boggling because to me it's always been black and white photos and very grainy but he kind

of did a full redo on them and kind of sharpened them up a little bit so it feels even closer which is really bizarre but i've loved the history aspect i've loved going to my local library and delving through the stacks and asking for help from librarians and from the Trove people and a few other universities who had some of the old records that I needed and getting their permission to potentially recreate them in the book,

should I hope to have my publisher kind of print certain propaganda posters and things. So I've been getting on top of my copyright as well. Because it's World War I, a lot of things are at a copyright now and you can use them. So it's been really fascinating for me, both on the kind of fundamental copyright side, but also on the story side. And every bit of research I've done has kind of bolstered my idea for the storyline, which is really nice.

There was nothing, I guess because World War I was, I studied 20th century history university, so there was not a lot that I didn't know about World War I. So it was good to kind of dust off the cobwebs of my memory and realize that it was kind of up to scratch. And the reason that I plotted certain things was because I had accurately remembered them.

So that was really nice as well, because it feels like for all that we do, the kind of pomp and circumstance around Anzac Memorial, it feels like in this day and age we're getting further and further away from we shall remember them.

And it feels like we as not just Australia as a nation but kind of everyone ever involved in World War I and World War II and Vietnam and Cambodia and every conflict it seems like none of us have learned the lesson and the idea is peace and the idea is to not ever get into conflict but it seems like the western world in particular and I am thinking about American fascism at the moment has very much pivoted to the military-industrial complex.

And it is just very hypocritical to have recently, and I say celebrated Anzac Day, but I don't think it should be a celebration. I think it should be a real memoriam. It should be a reflection on the lives that were lost. And particularly for World War I, where it could have been avoided, it really was a lot of posturing from nations who had militarised. In particular, I see a lot of.

There's correlations between what kicked off World War I and where we are now as a society, where it feels like we're a bit of a tinderbox. It feels like the orange man is in America with his finger close to the button on a lot of nuclear warheads. and it feels like nobody's pulling anyone back from the brink. We're all just letting everyone rampage across this world and kill and slaughter and it's awful.

So then to, like I said, celebrate Anzac Memorial and not really adhere to the true lessons of that, which is promotion of peace. Pulling ourselves back from the brink of disaster by using diplomacy when we can and upholding human rights is more important. Than just kind of touting around and saying, hey, let's throw some more money into the war memorial. Isn't that great?

Well, is it? If you're not going to actually take the lessons of these catastrophes that slaughtered and killed so many generations? No, I don't think it is. But this is probably giving you a hint of what I'll be discussing in my book. It's a World War I novel that is trying to talk about the propaganda at the time and the push for militarisation at the time and how damaging that was and dangerous that was and it indeed did lead to some absolute catastrophes.

And it's interesting, especially when, as you're going through school and learning about war and history and you're looking at it going, how does this happen? Like surely nobody would do what has happened and that won't happen again. And now we're in a space where it's like, oh, this is how that happens. It's happening. Yeah. Who's going to say stop? It's happening right now and it truly is.

A few bit players who don't say anything, who don't stop it when they could, who don't care enough or whose interests align with some pretty big players who, and I always see that conflict always begins in land grabs. It's always about land and I just see the world getting more and more dangerously on the brink, particularly as we have climate catastrophe and there's going to be less hospitable land.

I think we're going to see more wars and more conflicts as spits of land become even more and more spittle. So very quickly, if we're not learning any lessons from current conflicts that are raging, and unfortunately we do have the dire lessons of them, For instance, Cambodia, the Cambodian genocide, which was 50 years ago, kind of recently, 50 years in the past, but still very close to the here and now, because we're here tonight to discuss Chapters for Change.

And what's amazing is that that is a charity that has been born from the fact that there are still ramifications today from the Cambodian genocide that that society is dealing with today. And amongst them is low literacy rates, low schooling and education amongst young people, an inability for people to pull themselves out of dire straits and poverty because the entire country has been sent backwards, as genocides will do, to entire populations.

So, you know, being an ambassador for Chapters to Change, I think, wow, it's very close to the surface that the heat of war is one thing, but there is a long tail to these disasters that go on for generations and generations and generations. And it's not enough to just have peace or a ceasefire for the time being, because these things are going to be generational trauma. There are entire generations being wiped out.

And it is an illness that will go on for decades and decades and decades and that is devastating. So it's very heartening to be an ambassador for Chapters to Change and having an ability to do something about it is fantastic.

Like the readathon that's on in July, that's an amazing – It's coming up and it's an amazing way to contribute and actually try and put a little bit of good into the world that as we were just discussing feels like it's going a little bit darker and darker, but you can do a little bit of something in one little corner of it that was one of the worst places to be at one point in time 50 years ago. But now we are really trying to equip people on the ground with the ability to change their fates.

And I love that the number one way that we found to do this is literacy, which is kind of remarkable. And it kind of also leads into every single study that says, hey, if you improve literacy, you're going to be a little bit more. You improve democracy, you improve empathy amongst people, you improve political awareness and critical thinking, and you equip people with the ability to go into the workforce in a number of ways as well.

So really, literacy is the silver bullet in a lot of ways for society. And no wonder it's one of the ways you can build a society back up from the ground up by just encouraging more kids in school, equipping them with well-funded libraries and books. And I just think that's kind of a beautiful remedy to society today is to do a little bit of good when it feels like everything is very bad a lot of the time. Well, I think there's such a challenge that when we're looking at the world.

We can't see how we can make an impact ourselves. Like we can vote but it often feels like when you're voting, oh, my little vote, how's that going to change things?

But then you I have found that with my writing it's opened the world up for me to do some good with it yeah so can you tell me a bit about how long you've been an ambassador for chapters for change oh gosh I joined them I want to say in 2022 when I feel like I was doing a lot of recorded videos during still kind of a Melbourne lockdown uh and but very much well I think I knew about them in 2022 but 2023 i joined their ranks from memory and then 2024 was doing a lot of stuff so yeah

probably 2023 even though i kind of knew about human and hope in 2022 and was kind of on the on the outside looking in and then was invited in to the party and got to participate which was really fun in 2023 that's been amazing. It's very exciting and obviously you have stuck with it. You've been with them for a few years. Yes, I've been with them for a few years now. It's very fun. So I thought I would talk a bit about the need, like why Chapters for Change exists.

Yeah. So one in five Cambodians over the age of 15 are illiterate and only 38% of teenagers are enrolled in secondary education and 20% of children are engaged in child labour. So, yeah, when you think about that, it's like that's full on. But there is a solution, though, that Chapters for Change is addressing in that trying to help Cambodian children access to quality, cultural, appropriate education and, again, being positioned to secure stable employment opportunities through that literacy.

So, the readathon, which is in July, do you want to tell me a bit about how that works? Yes. So the readathon is you commit to doing whatever is the challenge for you. If just reading one really big book is going to be a challenge for you in July because you've got a lot of other stuff on, go for it. I said that's amazing. If you want to read five poetry collections, kind of skinny, but still going to pack a punch because it's poetry and it's incredible.

Or if you want to knock down an entire series that has been, you know, gaining cobwebs on your to-be red pile, whatever works for you, you choose what your reading target is going to be. And then you campaign to fundraise. And it's amazing what your money can get you. In Chapters for Change as a fundraiser. $25 will support a child with a library membership. $90 can provide six months of language classes and $150 can equip the library with 30 new books.

And that's 30 new books, both in English and the Khmer language as well. Because the really important aspect of Chapters for Change is this is not a bunch of people from Australia coming in and telling Cambodian communities in Siem Reit how to go about things. It's actually equipping community members with, we're going to help you. You tell us what will work and what you need.

Because obviously people who live in their own communities know what they need, rather than people from the outside coming in like a bulldozer saying, all right, here's how it's going to go. So it's very grassroots led. It's very local led, which is very, very important to us as well. And was one of the reasons that I decided to come on board.

It didn't feel like paying lip service to this idea of, all right, I'm going to roll up my sleeves as a white woman and come busting in and save everybody. No, no, no, no, just, you know, put my money where my mouth is. I'm going to just help you out with funds as much as I can. And then I trust the community to do community work because I think everything has to be community led. Community will save ourselves and themselves.

And it doesn't really work because obviously we saw in Cambodia what happens when outside forces come in and has dire consequences for the social and political trajectory of the country. So very much they don't want to repeat that. And it's completely understandable that as they're trying to pull themselves out of this 50-year-long crisis, not of their own making, but because of outside geopolitical forces, of course, they want to lead in their own recovery as well.

And they best know what they need as well, which is really, really incredible. And Chapters to Change Readathon is an initiative of Human and Hope, which is just an incredible association in Cambodia that, like I said, is Grassroots Community Centre in rural Siem Reap. So it's just, it's the best. Organization to be part of. And I just feel very honored to be part of it as well. So one important question, do picture books count?

Yes, of course. Picture books absolutely count. That might be the way I can read the most in July. Yeah. Picture books totally count. Picture books, you may think that because they're quick to read, that they're easy to read. But I can tell you right now, some picture books are going to stay with you for a very long time.

Marie Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, every time after I finished reading that to my nephews I just have to like decompress for a second because it's actually such a beautiful heart-rending story we'll eat you up we love you so it's such a beautiful book and there are so many beautiful books that I feel like as soon as you turn the final page you do just want to talk about them with somebody and obviously most of the time it's the little person that you've been reading to

just to have like a mini little book club with them but I think just because books are quick to read doesn't mean that they're easy to read and that goes for picture books as well which are totally works of art so I think that completely counts and especially if you want to maybe push yourself to read them to somebody who would love to be read to so I kind of push myself to read to my nephews you know I'll bring along some

some gifted books for them and say all right let's sit down and have a bit of a read and that's a really good way to get your readers them going as well to make it kind of a community event it's such a beautiful interaction to be able to read with children and especially then have a discussion afterwards about what you've got out of it and also things that you get out of a picture book as an adult are often very different to what children do see and understand in the books as well. Totally.

It's been really enjoyable for me as a picture book author now to be getting out to schools and libraries and actually hearing what a child thinks about what you've written as well. Totally. And it's the best thing to see, like, children's reading hour at libraries and bookshops and schools. It's the best thing to see the little preppies up to, you know, year one, year two, seeing them collectively reading books, whether So, they're picture books going into early chapter readers as well.

Kids have the best reactions to books. They find them to be so interactive. They just want to kind of, you know, they're sitting on the floor cross-legged, but they want to kind of leap up and just help you with the reading of it because they're getting so involved and it's just really beautiful. Or kids can be really, really moved by a book. I know my nephew recently had The Wild Robot read to him and he was just in floods of tears because it was so beautiful.

And then he watched the movie of it and was also in floods of tears and you know was kind of shocked that he was so moved and emotional about it but he just kept kind of blubbering and saying the bird which is just beautiful it's it's it's the absolute best reaction when you realize that books can do that to a person yeah that's empathy in action that is everything that books are good for creating empathy critical thinking we always say as well you would know this too the

way that you think about books, mirrors, windows, and sliding doors. So, some books are mirrors where kids will see themselves reflected in the pages. And that's beautiful because it tells them that, hey, your story matters. Look, this character is just like you. Their story is in this beautiful book being told. And maybe you can relate to some of the aspects. That's really wonderful and gorgeous.

Or they are windows, a character who doesn't necessarily look like you or have the same life as you, but you still empathize with them and you're really interested in their life, even though you're just having a peek through the window at what they're going through. Or their sliding doors, which is kids can like physically move the door and step into the imagination and that world of the book and really feel like they're inhabiting it. And all three of those are completely valid and incredible.

And it's expanding of their imaginations each and every way. And it's expanding of their hearts as well, which is why, yeah, books are the silver bullet. It's the way to better a society in all ways, basically. Yes. And just you learn so much from books. Like my whole world has come from books and now also Netflix. Yeah. I love a good documentary. Now, if for schools or any kids that might be listening, how can they sign up to be part of the readathon?

Definitely go to the Chapters for Change website. Also get involved via Chapters for Change. I've got a TikTok account. I know the kids love TikTok. Look at me being down with the lingo. There's a TikTok account. There's a wonderful Instagram account as well if you have permission from your parents to go and have a look at it. So you can sign up via Chapters for Change on the website.

It's incredible, very, very fun. maybe you want to have a discussion with your parents that, hey, how can we get involved in the readathon? Maybe it's as simple as choosing an audiobook to listen to in the car drive to school. Could be a really great way to knock down a book for the readathon. And audiobooks also totally count because they are reading. There is nothing more natural than being read to. It's one of my favourite ways to read. It's one of the ways that I'm definitely

going to get through the readathon very easily. Whenever I walk my dog, I have my little audiobook going.

So, yeah, it's a really great conversation for families to have as well about, hey, how can we get involved in this particularly when the end goal is reading more to help other people read more that's kind of beautiful and is there any like a bit of competition of who is there any sort of award if you read the most books or is it around the satisfaction of it there are lots of well there is the satisfaction of it but there are lots

of prizes and incentives and the more active that you are with the reading the fundraising and the connecting the better because there are prizes and incentives for reaching certain goals. Which I won't promote that too much because I don't want anyone to beat me.

So, yeah, by all means. You're going to be at the top of the leaderboard by the sounds of it. Absolutely, I will. Especially now that I've given away my biggest trick, which is that audiobooks totally count. Especially if you listen to them on occasionally 1.5 speed like I do. I am a minimum 1.25 speed. I literally am a speed reader. I think because I was raised watching The West Wing and that Aaron Sorkin pitter-patter back and forth like a ping pong competition.

So, I can do a 1.25 or a 1.5 speed and suddenly like a 10-hour audiobook knocks down to seven hours.

Look at me go i'm just i'm just like speedy mcqueen out here okay anyone that is listening for tips on how to win the readathon yeah absolutely picture books audiobooks poetry collections highly recommend as well uh but i'll have to switch to audiobooks oh i think you should definitely switch to audiobooks non-fiction audiobooks i just listened to sarah winn williams's careless people about when she worked at facebook that was a non-fiction but i think it was also a horror story so highly

recommend but if you if you're somebody who's normally a podcast listener i would sign up to your local library borrow box or libby app and just trawl through and see what's good on non-fiction that's a really good way to do it as well very cool okay a challenge to all our listeners sign up beat danielle. Readathon and beat danielle yeah totally, Amazing. Now, just quickly, as well as all your writing and your readathon reading, you're also a lecturer and an agent as well.

That must be super cool to be like uncovering raw talent in the wild. Yes, it is. It's really cool. I love being an agent and definitely being an author and an agent led me to becoming a creative writing teacher at RMIT University as well, which is really lovely and delightful. So, I kind of get to see the emergence of emerging writers at all stages, which is very lovely. I see them as newbie students, like, you know, like newborn deer, foals, if that's what they're called.

Nobody tells you, like, the industry of writing. Like, when you start out, it's like, oh, I want to be a writer. And then you write something. and then this whole other world unfurls where you need to learn the business of writing. So, that's kind of what I do. I teach writing fiction for young adults because YA writing is one of my particular passion projects and faves.

And then I teach in Towards Publication, which is both still polishing people's manuscripts, but it's for people who have a nearly completed manuscript and I kind of show them the business side of writing as well. So, I explain what an agent does. I explain what royalties are. I kind of go through what's happening in the industry at the moment. Like what's the temperature gauge? Is romanticism still the all that anybody wants? What's happening with tariffs?

Are tariffs in America going to impact books in Australia? We talked through all the business side of it as well. So it is a reminder that if you want to be a writer and you want to be published by a traditional publisher, you are stepping into capitalism. You are stepping into a business and industry. So you should probably know how it works and you yourself are going to be, you know, your own boss. So you should probably treat it with a little bit of seriousness if you want to, you know.

Make a career out of this. But equally, some people don't. They just want to learn how to be better writers for their own satisfaction. Maybe they just want to write their family memoir just to pass around at the family Christmas. And that's completely fine as well. So, I kind of do a little bit of all worlds. But I do really enjoy it. I started teaching in 2021 because the previous teacher who was teaching at RMIT put their foot down and said, I'm not doing online teaching ever again.

And RMIT sort of assured her and said, you'll never have to.

That was 2020. That's all over and then I agreed to take it on board and our very first class was where Dan Andrews called a curfew in Melbourne an 8 p.m curfew and our class started at 5 30 so we literally came into the classroom said hi for 15 minutes then all had to turn around and get various trains and trams and cars home because we had to make curfew so I started teaching in 2021 and 2022 which was a lot of 2021 was all online 2022 was sort of hybrid but now I'm sort of in

my stride 2025 and I just I love teaching so much and it's really good with my agenting as well because, like I said, I have the background to what's happening in the industry and I just kind of like helping people become clearer storytellers in whatever medium they're wanting to tell stories in. So, can we sign up to RMIT to do your course if it's online? I mean, you can sign up. I don't understand how the back-end works because I'm

just a casual teacher. I'm just there to look pretty and give you great advice. I don't know how the back-end quite works. But I do have a couple of students who sign up to do the one-off class with me. And unfortunately, you do have to sort of be Melbourne-based because it's kind of up in the air if I'm teaching online or in person. We don't yet have hybrid teaching at the moment.

So, I know that T in RMIT stands for technology, but we don't have the technology in my building to record the in-person lectures that I do and have interaction with any students who'd be watching at home unfortunately I'm hoping that it goes hybrid one day and we can open it up to all of Australia who'd like to come and join me in the classroom not just being Melburnian so if it ever happens trust me I'll shout about it from the

rooftops though yeah absolutely and you are an agent with Jacinta DeMars agent yes so how long have you been with Jacinta for oh since 2016 was when I joined Jacinta. So quite a long time. 2016, I joined up. And I think that my very first author who was published was published in 2018. I want to say it was Margot McGovern's Neverland. So, now it's 2025. Margot is still with me. She's written a wonderful YA horror novel called This Days Between Us.

She has another horror novel coming out, also for young adults. So, yeah, kind of wild. She was one of the very first clients I ever signed up. And she's still going strong and has gone from a kind of magical realism, slight gothic storytelling narrative into full-blown horror. So in that time for 2016, 2025, she's had a real rebirth and loves a body horror slasher horror, gothic horror. So if that tells you anything about what's been happening in the world, maybe that's a good indicator. Okay.

I am not sure if I can write horror, but I'll have to add that to my arsenal. I love horror. And I do say one of my predictions, if you'd like a free prediction, I think the scarier that the world gets, the more horror makes sense and people are willing to go to horror. It's kind of like how a lot of women find true crime podcasts very comforting. And it's partly because of the what if scratching that side of your brain that kind of asks, what would you do in that scenario?

Or some women listen to them thinking, okay, if I know what happened in this scenario, maybe I could look after myself if it was ever to happen to me. The same way I think works in horror. The more horror filled the real world gets, the more that you want to kind of escape into fictional horror, but with a kind of mind to thinking, maybe this is really going to happen. Maybe there really will be a zombie apocalypse.

That would be like the second COVID. Maybe there will be a nuclear apocalypse because the orange man is in power. Or it just kind of pokes at the idea of things are so bad, but they could be worse. Or things are really bad right now, but I should prepare myself for them to get worse.

So I just think something about horror speaks to the current climate where it's like a funhouse mirror distorted version of society that is a little bit safer to look into rather than looking outward through that window and seeing how bad the real world is getting. You look into the mirror and go, all right, this is like a safe space to scare myself. And then eventually I'll have to put the book down and go and face the real

world, which is even scarier. But for now, I'm just going to stick with horror. I have to admit, my two sons are over 18 now and they're giants.

So they look like big Vikings. And we were watching the news the other night and it was discussing women not feeling safe walking around at night. And they said, do you ever feel unsafe walking around in Brisbane at night? I'm like, yes, I do have to think about where I park my car and if it's in a dark car park and maybe I will make a phone call while I'm walking so I'm not really by myself or I will say to a friend, let's walk to a car together at night.

And they were truly surprised just because that's not their experience. But they hadn't ever thought of me feeling unsafe as well. And it was cute that they were concerned, oh, mum, we don't want you to feel scared just doing your normal things. But I'm like, well, that's being a woman as well is that even though it may not happen, you do need to think about, well, what if I put myself in that situation, there are the odds that I could run into somebody that isn't safe.

It's one of the first times, I guess, men or young boys or, you know, young men in particular have. Kind of get the idea of it's not all men, but it is all men. And it's the analogy that I love is if I was to hand you a box of Froot Loops, but I was to say, look, one of these Froot Loops is poisoned. You just don't know which one. You'd be real careful in each spoonful that you were putting into your mouth, right? Like that is, you know, not all men, but all men.

And I know in Melbourne in particular, but you know, everywhere in the Southern Hemisphere now that we've gone into winter and it gets darker a lot quicker, you have to really plan your evenings. You know, what you could do that had like a 6.30pm kickoff start time, you suddenly go, oh, it gets kind of starts getting dark around five o'clock now.

So I really have to recalibrate all of the mechanisms I had for where I was going to park and how well lit it is and how long am I going to stay out with my friends for? So yeah, and I guess that's also just the mental labor that men don't have to go through. is women aren't always thinking about that stuff. It's just ingrained in us because everyone knows someone or has experienced.

So, yeah, that's the horror. That's the horror. And I guess it's also why female horror is a particular subgenre that's just really kicking off right now. And there's a few different pathways to it. But one of my favourites is the good for her horror, which is what if she's the monster, which I just think is fabulous, that completely flips all of that on its head. So, yeah, all of that stuff you really have to think about. But it's lovely that they've asked you for what's your lived experience.

Yeah, I think it actually had never dawned on them and it just was because, yeah, there was some discussion on the news around Brisbane being safe at night. And they were like, oh, that's our mum. That's someone we love and care for, may feel unsafe or... We don't want her to feel that way. So that was nice. And again, see, it's just sharing stories.

It's actually asking somebody, hey, what's your story? It can totally flip your entire view. So that was you giving them a little window into your life. Whereas previously, maybe they've only ever seen mirrors of themselves in society and never thought, hey, what does a woman feel like in this situation?

And you never know if they're great big Viking blokes. Maybe the next time they see a woman hurrying in front of them because they're behind her, not meaning to do anything, but they're just, you know, a great big bloke walking at night. Maybe they'll just hang back across the street or get out their phone and play some Taylor Swift and just be like, oh, my gosh, I love her. Isn't she great? And just make them feel safe.

I did see a reel by Joel Creasy, the comedian, where he, it was something along the lines of that when he is walking behind a woman in the dark, he might start singing or humming some Lady Gaga songs. Yes, yeah. Very appreciated. It's important that I'm safe. Yeah. You know, some Chapel Roan Pink Pony Club would be appreciated because then we know that you're a true ally and, like, who else would know that? Yeah, that's a very good point. I love that.

But, yeah, it would be a bit alarming to be walking along and suddenly sort of hearing some Lady Gaga going. Yeah, true. That's okay, we're safe. That's true. Or it's the Lady Gaga killer. One of those. It's either Joel Creasy or a new serial killer who plays Lady Gaga in your final moments. Either way, I'm hoping for Joel Creasy. We did. Took a very dark turn. I do love Joel Creasy. That makes me want to go and watch one of your specials.

Well, thank you so much for joining me. It's been great to chat to you. I have to confess I was nervous. I'm like, oh, because I've pitched to you before and you said no. Did I? I'm so sorry. I don't think it was in my early days when I wasn't very good. Probably I wasn't very good, truth be told. I would just think, what am I talking about? But now I've been doing this for a little bit longer and I'm like, yeah, I can talk about anything. That's fine.

And teaching does that to me as well. I can talk to anyone about anything now that I'm a teacher. But I also kind of love that I reserved the right until I had a great charity like Chapters for Change to talk about. Otherwise, it just would have been so self-centered and all about me, me, me, me, me, which I could totally do. But I prefer talking about Chapters for Change, which is a really worthy cause. And it's, you know, it's kind of the best of the bookish world.

Like I said, you read more to help others read more. And I just think that's a kind of great charity idea. It's amazing. So thank you so much for sharing Chapters for Change with us. And I'm hoping a lot of listeners will rush and sign up. Try and beat me. Yes. And that we try to beat Journey out. Yes, you won't, but, you know, good try. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you.

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