Final Draft - Great Conversations

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Brendan Colley’s first novel The Signal Line won the Unpublished Manuscript Prize in the 2019 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and The Age Book of the Year. Today Brendan joins us with his new novel The Season for Flying Saucers. When the lights appear on the first night of summer Hobart is abuzz. It’s shaping up to be a good season. Noah is skeptical. Life is spiraling more than a little for him; estranged from his family, his wife has left and he’s just been fired from his job. There’s really nothing to leave behind if they do come to get him. But weird has followed Noah ever since that night twelve years ago when they took his father, and this Season for Flying Saucers is shaping up to be a doozy. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement, the author of four novels, including The Lebs (2018) and The Other Half of You (2021), both shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. He’s also perhaps the most welcomed guest on Final Draft, where we first welcomed him around twelve years ago and have had many chats since. Today's show has a Content Warning for discussion of sexual abuse Lifeline's 24-hour telephone crisis line is available on 13 11 14 Bugger follows a day in the life of ten-year-old Hamoodi and explores the intersections of his vulnerability; within his school, within his family and within his own developing conception of self. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Alan Fyfe is a maker of stories and poems who lives on unceded Noongar country. Alan’s joining us today with his new novel The Cross Thieves When his brother punched a wall and stalked off with a pair of scissors, Pell knew nothing good was coming but he followed Gark anyway. Now the brothers are on the run, hungry and carrying the metal cross of a man they’d sworn to kill.  And the night is still young… Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, whose young adult novels, The Boy from the Mish, We Didn't Think It Through, and I'm Not Really Here have been shortlisted for numerous awards. Gary’s latest novel is Good Young Men. Carraway’s Point is an idyllic coastal destination. Kallum, Jordy, Dylan and Brandon grew up together on Chopin Drive, a ready made friendship group. Fast forward eight years. The boys are staring down the end of high school. Well not all of them. Brandon was shot and killed by police and the upcoming trial has them all on edge because they know the public think this is just another death of an Aboriginal person in custody, but the boys know their friend better than that.  While the community braces for the trial, the boys must deal not only with the possibility that Brandon might not receive justice, but what that means for themselves and their lives moving forward. They are no strangers to racism but now it is becoming as ugly and as dangerous as they have ever experienced it. Kallum only just returned to Carrway’s Point. He’s been expelled from his fancy Sydney boarding school and lost his football scholarship. There’s something more though. Kallum isn’t sure if he can trust anyone with the real reason he was expelled. Jordy’s happier since he’s come out but that doesn’t mean his whole life is easy. Since his mum died his dad has seemed lost and so Jordy’s had to act more like a dad to his little brother and sister. Dylan’s just struggling. He was the only witness when Brandon was killed. He’s missing his mate and scared to death of what it might mean if he testifies. It’s barely left him any time to think about life beyond high school, but he’s got dreams just like everyone else. Good Young Men is told across three narrative arcs; one for each of the boys. This allows the story of each character to build, while mingling the competing visions each of the boys has of the other. While we are assured the boys were fast friends in primary school we can see how they have grown apart, trading mateship for belonging as cliques become as important as closeness. The novel works carefully to balance the boys' experiences of high school, home life, and the future. We are given each boy, and their family through multiple lenses and our understanding of the community is deeper for it. For example we see Kallum’s fraught relationship with his family since losing his footy scholarship. His dad’s taking it hard, redoubling his efforts to get Kallum a first grade trial, while his mum wants to welcome her son back home. Kallum’s mum is also police though and so her character within the family looks very different when seen through Dylan whose trauma runs deep. This is a tremendous ensemble cast and it manages well the everyday world of teenage identity against the backdrop of racism and the broader sense that the trial of Brandon’s killer offers no long term solution for the racism the boys face. I’d heard a lot of good things about Gary Lonesborough’s writing and now that I’ve had a read I can confidently say it’s all true.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Emily Lighezzolo is a publishing industry professional. She has won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the Queensland Literary Awards and is joining us today with her debut novel, Life Drawing. Charlie’s moved to Brisbane for uni. He barely knows anyone and it’s not helping that one of his new housemates is the model he’s been sketching in his life drawing class. Maisie’s the heart of the house. People like to think they know her. Maybe too many people think they know her too well. But the parts Maisie keeps hidden are so deep most don’t even suspect they’re there. As Maisie and Charlie circle each other’s worlds they will try to understand whether, hypothetically, they might go well together… Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Dr Liz Allan is an Australian writer and teacher living in the United Kingdom. Her debut novel is IN BLOOM. Content note for references of sexual assault… In coastal Australian towns around the country tourists come and go every summer, often oblivious to the locals and their lives outside their two week picture perfect holidays. The Bastards disagree with this halcyon view of their home town. Vincent is a place to escape and winning the Battle of the Bands is the way to do it. They were on track to do it too, until their lead singer Lily quit the band and accuses their music teacher of sexual assault. The Bastards know it can’t be true though. They’ve got a list of suspects a mile long. Their main job is to narrow down which of the likely culprits really did it. As summer holidays end and the Battle of the Bands approaches The Bastards will sacrifice everything; school, family, friendships to find the truth. They know this is their big shot and nothing can stop them taking it. You think you know the story of The Bastards. I did. Moreover you hope you know the story of The Bastards because if you’re wrong the alternative is almost too horrible to contemplate. Liz Allen’s In Bloom takes the familiar coming of age, artist shooting for the big time then darkens the edges. The Bastards are so named because each of the girls comes from a single mother family. The girls openly disdain their mothers and the men that come and go in the role of ‘father’ in their life. As a group they have committed to escape and music seems like the best way. Set in the early nineties, In Bloom makes full use of the rise of grunge and its associated cultural nihilism. The Bastards recognise their dearth of talent. Lily is the only one who can sing. They see this as a strength and frequently invoke their idols' approach to music and appeal to a kind of artistic purity in their commitment and drive.   That this is a thin hope is revealed before the novel’s opening. Lily’s departure from the band leaves The Bastards scrambling. They fear their dreams may be over and it’s telling that the girls turn against Lily rather than seek to understand what she is going through. In Bloom is cleverly and disconcertingly crafted around the chorused voices of The Bastards. Each chapter chimes with their shared voice creating a surreal sense of hive mind. The girls are so in sync they need only their band name and their vision. Thought and action blur as the group’s attempts to escape become increasingly desperate but also subsumed within the collective, with no one person seemingly taking any of the actions. In Bloom will hook you before you realise that the story might just be spiraling. While you think you are investigating a mystery, the journey towards the truth creeps achingly slowly towards you. The Bastards never doubt their friend has been hurt and their seeming indifference to her plight is telling.  I won’t say any more, other than to note the overall devastation In Bloom wreaks even as it draws you into its darkness. This is an incredibly effective look into a terrible subject and well worth your time in the reading.  1800RESPECT - 1800 732 732

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, whose young adult novels, The Boy from the Mish, We Didn't Think It Through, and I'm Not Really Here have been shortlisted for numerous awards. Gary’s joining us today with his new novel Good Young Men. Four Aboriginal boys growing up together on the same street in a coastal village. It’s a ready made friendship group. Fast forward eight years and the boys are staring down the end of high school. Kallum’s been expelled from his fancy Sydney boarding school and lost his football scholarship. Jordy’s happier since he’s come out but that doesn’t mean his whole life is easy. Dylan’s struggling. He was the only witness when Brandon was shot and killed by police. He’s missing his mate and scared to death of what it might mean if he testifies. ⁠Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople⁠ Want more great conversations with Australian authors? ⁠Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week⁠.

Maria van Neerven reads from her acclaimed debut collection Two Tongues. Maria van Neerven is a Mununjali poet from the Yugambeh nation living in Meanjin. Maria was the winner of the David Unaipon Award in 2023 and was a Next Chapter Fellow in 2024. Two Tongues is her first poetry collection.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Penny Tangey is a librarian, mother and former stand-up comedian living in East Melbourne. What Rhymes with Murder? is Penny’s first novel for adults. Libraries are quiet respectful places full of avid readers, dedicated students, and occasional shushes.  They certainly aren’t the place for crying babies, and absolutely not an appropriate place for a murder.  And yet here Frida finds herself, trying to deal with both. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Today for our book club I’m bringing you an intriguing new work of historical intrigue.  Ian Kemish’s Two Islands Ian Kemish AM is a former Australian diplomat. His first book, The Consul, offered a personal perspective on Australia’s foreign affairs challenges. Two Islands is his first work of fiction. The background to the novel are the war crimes trials conducted in the aftermath of The Wars in The Balkans in the 1990’s. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague involved international teams, including many Australians and has been the subject of numerous books exploring their ongoing impacts. Sharp listeners may recall Gretchen Shirm’s Out of the Woods last year which explored circumstances around the trials. The Two Islands of the title are Skarnsey and Thorkil’s Isle in Scotland’s Hebrides. It is there that Niko has fled on a desperate whim. There the residents are not unwelcoming of visitors and it is a world away from the violence he has seen and which he was due to testify about at the International Criminal Tribunal. Only now the past is threatening to catch up with Niko and he fears if he doesn’t run the violence will continue to threaten himself and his family. Into this setting we meet Ronnie and the other villagers in Lamhraig. There is also Fergus, another stranger to the islands and seeking refuge from a different kind of threat; the one he fears he poses to himself and others. A world away Anita has returned to Australia to see her dying father. She fears she’s neglecting her role as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal, but also what may happen if she fails to see her father. The setup is deceptively simple; can Anita and the Tribunal find Niko before more sinister forces do, and will he be willing to continue to testify against the violence that continues to plague him. Into this story we have the dueling narratives of Ronnie, Fergua and Niko. Each has seen war close up; Ronnie on the battlefields of the second world war, Fergus in Northern Ireland and Niko as a boy in his home town. Each must find a way to go on and it is through the narrative we are offered a glimpse of what that may be. In all honesty I came to Two Islands for the scenic vistas of The Hebrides. The book evokes the peace of the islands and the way of life of the locals. It also takes pains not to romanticize it, even as it threatens to shatter the sense of isolation and peace in pursuit of Niko. The novel does well to show us these parallel stories of war as brutal encroachments on the lives of these three men, and the toll they will carry through their lives. I might have liked to hear more of each, particularly Ronnie, to better understand and to counter the thriller aspect as a horrific consequence of ongoing tensions. As we watch war in our world and look to how it touches our lives it can be helpful to explore narratives such as Two Islands. The Wars in the Balkans we mere decades ago and their impacts are still felt. We may hope to never feel the close up effects of conflict but must acknowledge that they are part of the world we live in. Two Islands shows us something of what that means

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Shailee Thompson is a writer and educator based in Brisbane, Australia. How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is her debut novel. Content Warning or Trigger Notes Let’s put a content warning on our chat Shailee because How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is a slasher slash rom-com and all sorts of messed up stuff happens in both love and murder… Jamie needs a break from her PhD thesis, so she and her best friend Jamie are going to a speed dating event at a local nightclub. Dating is hell and the apps are cooked but this should be a laugh. At least each ‘date’ is only ten minutes. It’s all going so-so, a few sparks from aesthetically pleasing partners when the lights go out. When they return, Jamie finds her current date slashed ear to ear as she is thrown into a fight for her life! Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Starting with a shout out to Emily who is a publishing industry professional. I have had the chance to work with Emily setting up interviews for authors and I’m very happy to be talking about her first book. Emily won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the Queensland Literary Awards and her debut novel, Life Drawing. Charlie’s moved to Brisbane for uni. He feels out of place crashing on his cousin’s couch and barely knows anyone in town. He’s trying to put himself out there with uni mixers and through taking a  life drawing class.  Maisie’s the heart of the house. People like to think they know her. Maybe too many people think they know her too well. But the parts Maisie keeps hidden are so deep most don’t even suspect they’re there. As Maisie and Charlie circle each other’s worlds they will try to understand whether, hypothetically, they might go well together… Life Drawing is the story of Charlie and Maisie. It’s also the story of Maisie and Maisie. When they find themselves in the same sharehouse Charlie feels awkward; this is the girl he was drawing naked just a few weeks ago. Maisie’s not bothered though. On the surface she’s all cool indifference. To the world she has a great body and is completely comfortable in her own skin. Maybe if she can wear that mask for long enough she might even start to believe in it. Share house life is a recipe for implosion though, so maybe Charlie and Maisie weren’t meant to be. Except that life and the internet insist on drawing them back towards each other’s orbit. Life Drawing is driven by the ebb and flow of Charlie and Maisie as they try to discover their own grand romance. They will continue to stumble though as Charlie struggles to be ‘not all men’, while Maisie works to love herself half as much as she pretends. The heart of the novel is Maisie’s journey through body image and self esteem. As a cis-het male I’d be disingenuous if I pretended I was watching this part of the story as anything other than an outsider. Maisie’s struggles are unique but also part of a world where women are compelled into devil’s bargains for their own sense of worth and achievement. Growing through the years we watch on as Maisie and Charlie try to shape lives together and apart. From the first moment Charlie tries to capture Maisie on paper we can see that who they are and how they see each other are complex entities and prone to illusion and misalignment. Maisie’s own story is similarly fraught with confusion and miscommunication. Knowing yourself is not a foregone conclusion of living a life and Maisie must make herself in her own image, not just through the eyes of others.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Maria van Neerven is a Mununjali poet from the Yugambeh nation living in Meanjin. Maria was the winner of the David Unaipon Award in 2023 and was a Next Chapter Fellow in 2024. Two Tongues is her first poetry collection. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

One of my favourite parts of Final Draft is discovering debut novels that get me excited for many more books to come. That was my feeling as I devoured George Kemp’s Soft Serve (sorry pun not intended) over the holidays. George Kemp is a writer of fiction, plays and television. After a life as an actor and producing his own scripts on the stage, George was accepted into The Faber Academy, where he wrote his debut novel SOFT SERVE. We are taken to a small town McDonald’s where four reluctant individuals gather to remember Taz. Pat is still mourning the son she lost too young.  Fern, Jacob and Ethan miss their best friend. Taz died tragically after moving to Sydney and now the four find themselves adrift and struggle with how their lives have become stuck since his death. As fires bear down on the Maccas, the four must confront how they are trapped not just by natural disaster but by their choices since Taz died. As I read Soft Serve I couldn’t help but wonder about how George Kemp’s dramatic training had been brought to bear in his writing. The narrative of Soft Serve is simultaneously cinematic in its race against time drama amidst the fires, with big set pieces set amidst the flames, whilst also containing the intimacy of the stage as we zoom in on the four figures in  the remote fast food restaurant worrying through their all too human problems. The novel is spare, but effective in establishing its central group. Pat grieves in a no-nonsense sort of way as she sets up the fryers and dreads the day ahead. Jacob and Ethan skirt around their truth and try to put on a face for the world. Fern doubts herself even as she shows the most vision of them all. Against the backdrop of an unfolding disaster these all-too-human concerns of love and desire, reconciling the past and exploring the future become overwhelming. Soft Serve shows us the moment when years of avoidance must ultimately be faced. Shown through the eyes of the characters as they face themselves and each other it makes for compelling viewing. And there I go again, talking about Soft Serve as if it were a film I was watching, as much a novel I read. The reader has this highly imaginative and visual experience ahead as they move through a tense and emotional ride of a narrative.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Sara Haddad is an editor and writer. You first met Sara on Final Draft when we discussed he debut novella The Sunbird. Today Sara is returning with a young readers edition of The Sunbird. The Younger Reader's Edition of the Sunbird rediscovers the story of Nabila and explores her story for a new audience. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Shailee Thompson is a writer and educator and today we’ve got her debut novel, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates. Right off the top I’ll let you all know that How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is a horror/slasher story. It has a lot of fun playing with the genre and that’s why I’m bringing it in for you, but if that’s not your thing right now just mute the next few minutes. Jamie needs a break from her PhD thesis on the intersection of rom coms and horror movies. Academia can be murder! So Jamie and her best friend Laurie decide to go to a speed dating event at a local nightclub. Dating is hell and the apps are cooked but this should be a laugh. At least each ‘date’ is only ten minutes. It’s all going so-so, with a few sparks from aesthetically pleasing partners when the lights go out. Not exactly romantic but when they come back on Jamie finds her current date slashed ear to ear as she is thrown into a fight for her life! It only gets bolder and bloodier from here in How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates but this is a narrative that knows its genre. Jamie quickly draws on her academic experience to teach the survivors the ‘Rules’; ten vital tricks to staying alive in a slasher film. These are the group's lifeline as they search for an exit and a way to return to the real world. But their villain has their own plan and besides people never follow rules. Like so many of us Shailee Thompson has come of age in a post Scream world where it’s not enough to simply fill the screen with vicarious gore. The horror films of the seventies and eighties gave a whole generation some freudian insight into human nature and now the post modern slashers of the nineties are spawning their own progeny that know they’re in a story and really want to flip the script. Thus How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is part slasher, part rom com, with a protagonist who doesn’t know whether she’s a leading lady or a final girl, and really prefers not to make the choice. The novel is filled with jump scares, meet-cutes, blood spatter, and sexual tension (not necessarily in that order. From the outset, Jamie’s thesis introduces us to the notion that both genres share a lot in common and the rest of the story goes to extreme lengths to test that theory. This is a lot of fun… Genre heads will enjoy the way the tropes are both respected and inverted. Literary nerds can geek out at the high concept meta narrative. Armchair sleuths can try to solve it. Film nerds will love the myriad nods and easter eggs. And we can all enjoy the vicarious pleasure of not being stuck in the story ourselves. How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is a knowing, pacy, well written look at the type of story we usually take for granted as entertainment. It reassures us it’s ok to have fun, but also the fun is part of a much more clever and dangerous world.  Being a book nerd has never been so much fun.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Kay Kerr is an author and journalist based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Kay’s latest novel, Might Cry Later, is out now. Nora is home for Xmas, Actually she’s been home a little longer than that and will probably be staying a bit after. At twenty-one and living in Melbourne Nora found her life imploding. What came next, well Nora’s not quite ready to face yet, but she came home with a brand new Autism diagnosis that no one in her family wants to talk about. Holidays are hard enough, but as Nora watches all the people in her life gather round she questions whether her neurodiverse brain can regulate through all this stimulation. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Christian White is an Australian author and screenwriter. He is the bestselling author of titles including The Nowhere Child (2018), The Wife and the Widow (2019), and Wild Place (2021). Christian’s joining us today with his latest The Long Night On a quiet night in the sleepy little village of Talowin, Em sits in the Royal Oak pub waiting for her date. Em’s convinced she’s going to die alone, but who knows maybe this date will be different. It’s getting late and Em’s about to give up when a figure enters the pub, and what happens next will change Em’s life forever… Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople⁠ Want more great conversations with Australian authors? ⁠Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week⁠.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. George Kemp is an award winning writer of fiction, plays and television. In 2024, George was accepted into The Faber Academy, during which he wrote his first novel SOFT SERVE. In a small town McDonald’s four reluctant individuals gather to remember Taz. Pat is still mourning the son she lost too young. Fern, Jacob and Ethan miss their friend and struggle with how their lives have become stuck since his death. This is no simple anniversary though. As fires circle the town, bearing down on the Maccas, the four must confront how they are trapped not just by natural disaster but by their choices since Taz died. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople⁠ Want more great conversations with Australian authors? ⁠Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week⁠.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Rhett Davis is the author of Hovering. Today we’ve got his new novel Arborescence Arborescence is the state of having the root and branch like structures of a tree. Importantly it’s a noun, but Rhett Davis asks us to imagine if it were a verb… Caelyn is at a loss. She’s bouncing between jobs that she quickly loses, like when she gets fired from a nursery for taking home the dying plants (they considered it stealing!). She hates that we’re destroying the world but feels powerless to stop it. When she hears about a group trying to become trees, she and her partner Bren go to investigate. What she finds are people standing still in a field, with a support network of others caring for them as they attempt to Arboresce. It’s a mad dream, but what if it could be true? Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Summer time in the Final Draft household brings lots of new release and pre-release titles and the corresponding challenge of knowing where to start. When the titles started rolling in though it was very easy to pick up Kay Kerr’s new novel, her first aimed at adult readers because I’ve enjoyed her Young Adult writing, as well as her strong autistic characters and her approach to neurodiversity.  Kay is an author and journalist based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. She’s the author of Please Don’t Hug Me, Social Queue, and Love & Autism. Kay’s latest novel, Might Cry Later, is our book club title for today. Nora is home for Xmas, Actually she’s been home a little longer than that and will probably be staying a bit after.  At twenty-one and living in Melbourne Nora found her life imploding. What came next, well Nora’s not quite ready to face yet, but she came home with a brand new Autism diagnosis that no one in her family wants to talk about. Holidays are hard enough, but as Nora watches all the people in her life gather round she questions whether her neurodiverse brain can regulate through all this stimulation. Might Cry Later is the story of Nora and her journey through late-diagnosis of Autism. For context, and acknowledging differences in reporting, average ages for diagnosis are typically reported within childhood and females are generally diagnosed later than males. Nora’s story of declining mental health before a diagnosis represents so many women’s experience of having their neurodiversity misunderstood or misdiagnosed on the pathway to diagnosis. That’s the stats but what Kay Kerr gives us is the heartfelt and raw story of what that means in the real world and confronts us with the challenge that getting a diagnosis is just the beginning. When we meet Nora at her parent’s home in the Gold Coast Hinterland it seems like she’s in paradise. Nora acknowledges how the peace and natural environment are good for her and helps her regulate a sensory system she’s learning reacts differently to other people’s. Nora’s also having to deal with how her family, and particularly her family at Xmas care little for sensory regulation if it does not fit in with a rigorous regime of decorating and social engagements. The story weaves between Nora’s Xmas struggles and her memories of her younger, undiagnosed self and all the struggles that now make so much sense to her. These memories force her to face the ways she wasn’t supported as she needed, but also how her behaviours also hurt those closest to her, particularly her best friend Fran. Might Cry Later flirts with a range of classic text structures including rom-com, bildungsroman and quest, whilst ultimately carving its own path through an inevitably messy world. Nora is both endearing and unlikable to the reader, as she is to herself and it’s a strength of the storytelling that we go on this journey of uncertainty with such confidence. I found myself rooting for Nora in her everyday work to figure out her life. Her story is a wonderful look into the autistic experience, and part of a growing body of writing exploring the neurodiverse world.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. William J Byrne’s debut novel is The Warrumbar. Robbie’s not so different from the other boys in his class. He loves cricket, school not so much. His Mum is Aboriginal and his Dad is white. They live on the outskirts of town and don’t have much.  When Robbie meets Moses his world is opened up. He learns about The Mission where his Mum grew up, about the world that Moses has seen after enlisting in the army. Moses tells him about life; the mistakes he’s made and how he’s worked to overcome them. Robbie’s Dad thinks Moses is trouble. They have history and Robbie’s Dad warns him off seeing him. Of course Robbie doesn’t listen, which draws him down to the Dam one fateful day. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople⁠ Want more great conversations with Australian authors? ⁠Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week⁠.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher. She is co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Evelyn’s first collection Dropbear won the Stella Prize in 2022 and she is joining us today with her new collection The Rot. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Xmas time is here and as sure we’ll be reaching for mince pies, gravy and white wine in the sun, we’ll also be turning our attention to festive tales that make us feel warm and full of cheer. Because festive cheer is what makes a Xmas story Xmassy right? I saw the other day that this year marks the 35th anniversary of Home Alone. Feeling old yet? This iconic Xmas movie is full of all the festive staples like child neglect, break and enter, and attempted murder (are we going to need a content warning Andrew?). And Macaulay Culkin has a job for life, trotting out every five years or so and acknowledging his place alongside Mariah Carey in the modern Xmas pantheon.  On the occasion of Home Alone’s 35th Culkin decided to indulge another great Xmas tradition; weighing in on whether or not Die Hard is a Xmas movie. About now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with books. This is book club after all.  Well Die Hard was a book; Nothing Lasts Forever, a 1979 action thriller novel by American author Roderick Thorp. Home Alone was novelised after the fact, so do with that what you will. What I’m interested in though is the fascination with danger and in particular our predilection for mayhem and murder alongside our carefully hung stockings. Agatha Christie knew all about this. The phrase ‘A Christie for Xmas’ was synonymous with the reading public's love of a cosy crime around the holiday season. The Golden Age great wrote several books and short stories with Xmas at the centre of the narrative. The larger motif of festive murder was celebrated more through the release of a new novel around Xmas time each year. The tradition continues long after the author’s death through the release of adaptations of the novels around the festive season.  Cynics may wonder if this is simply a commercial imperative. Cashing in on a public with time on their hands, but of all the types of diversion I wonder why murder is so popular a choice. It’s not just Agatha Christie.  I’m waiting to read Benjamin Stevenson’s 2024 installment of his Ernest Cunningham series, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret. I gifted it to my wife, so I guess I have to wait for her to finish it first. Horror is also a big part of the Xmas cannon. From the thorough exploitation of Krampus, through to Gremlins and with many straight up slashers in between, we love some violent Xmas storytelling. It’s beginning to look a lot like whether it’s Kevin McCalister, John McClaine, or just Joe from How to Make Gravy, everyone is looking to survive their Xmas and praying that there’s no one in her who wants to fight. So if you’re hanging out for a tightly plotted, or wildly bloody Xmas story this year, don’t fight it. You’re in good company, whether we acknowledge it or not. The why may be harder to decipher, but I’ve got my elves working on it and I think I may have something for you for our next (and last) book club for the year!

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Today Felix Shannon joins us in conversation with Benjamin Stevenson Benjamin Stevenson is an award-winning stand-up comedian and author of the globally popular ‘Ernest Cunningham Mysteries’, including Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone. Ten suspects. Ten heists. A puzzle only Ernest Cunningham can solve. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Today's Book Club is a reading from Evelyn Araluen's new poetry collection The Rot. Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher. She is co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Evelyn’s first collection Dropbear won the Stella Prize in 2022 and she is joining us today with her new collection The Rot. Originally aired on 2ser 107.3

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Dr Katharine Pollock (PhD) is the author of Her Fidelity. Her new novel is Starry Eyed. To say that Scarlett Fever is the centre of Addilyn’s universe would be to imply that there is only a finite number of universes and that Scarlett hasn’t traversed them all in her majestic ship Lynx. Ever since childhood, Addilyn has loved Scarlett Fever and the opportunity it’s given her to travel the cosmos in her mind. Scarlett’s certainly offered her more than the real world seems willing to, and so when Addilyn is given the chance to interview Scarlett Fever’s Wunderkind director, Josh Jolly Courtney (now sexily salt & pepper at the temples) she doesn’t hesitate to jet off to New York. Is this her hero's journey, or does another story await her? Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Sally Hepworth is a New York Times bestselling author of ten novels. Her novels have been translated into over 30 languages. Sally’s novel The Family Next Door has recently been adapted for television. Sally joins us today with her new novel Mad Mabel.  Elsie just wants a quiet life. She’s been more than thirty years in her quiet little Melbourne lane and she’d happily stay thirty more if she thought she had that much time left. Unfortunately for Elsie her elderly neighbour Ishaan has to go and die. Nothing suspicious of course and poor Elsie is the one to find the body. Nothing suspicious, but it only takes one curious person, one probing question and a short search and Elsie’s past is there to discover. And try as she might Elsie can’t seem to escape Mad Mabel. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Luke Johnson is a physiotherapist and writer from Victoria.  He’s joining us today with his debut novel King Tide. When you’re young in a small town it can feel like there’s not much to do. So you make your own fun. Maybe it’s footy, maybe church camp in the summer. Tate, Luther and Brylie are thick as thieves until the disappearance of Tate’s little brother shatters their world. The boys play footy and Brylie leaves town when her minister father gets a new posting. Years later and Brylie and her dad are back. Their return coincides with the discovery of a body on the beach. Another disappearance that connects them all. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Rhett Davis is the author of Hovering. Today we’ve got his new novel Arborescence Arborescence is the state of having the root and branch like structures of a tree. Importantly it’s a noun, but Rhett Davis asks us to imagine if it were a verb… Caelyn is at a loss. She’s bouncing between jobs that she quickly loses, like when she gets fired from a nursery for taking home the dying plants (they considered it stealing!). She hates that we’re destroying the world but feels powerless to stop it. When she hears about a group trying to become trees, she and her partner Bren go to investigate. What she finds are people standing still in a field, with a support network of others caring for them as they attempt to Arboresce. It’s a mad dream, but what if it could be true? Caelyn throws herself into studying the phenomenon and becomes the worlds foremost expert. Respect does not follow. That is until people start disappearing, while trees appear fully grown in places they shouldn’t be.  As the disappearances increase in frequency the world’s infrastructure is stretched to breaking. It’s simply not feasible to live with trees blocking streets and without the people required to run a global economy.  Caelyn insists it’s for the best, but what of those lost? For those of you who read Rhett’s debut novel Hovering, Arborescence will have you shouting ‘He’s done it again!’ (If you know you know) The very simple concept of people becoming trees metamorphosises into a narrative both sprawling and deceptively personal. What could be some strange Ent fan fiction is instead a rumination on what it means to be alive. Central to the narrative is the imperfect love story of Caelyn and Bren. Through them we are shown contrasting views of this world in flux, alongside a kind of model for how to respectfully disagree without being awful Bren’s own job as a manager to a possibly AI workforce serves as a counterpoint to Caelyn’s increasing fervour about the Arborescent population. It also injects some dark humour into the possibility that we will be ruled one day by our computer overlords.   It arises through the narrative that becoming a tree is a very human thing to do. Or more appropriately the sense of purpose and the wish to be a force for good is what makes it human. Within this space we must contend with the morality of our responsibilities to each other as social creatures and our responsibilities as the nominal stewards of the world in which we live. It’s a muddy question and this is not your grandparents' apocalypse. I’m trying to have fun with this review because I had an enormous amount of fun reading Arborescence. And because it’s a book that will take me some time to process and figure out what I truly took from it. That’s not a bad thing but it does present a problem for filing copy. Suffice to say that Rhett Davis has crafted an intellectually challenging novel with an intriguing concept and a personal, relatable soul. It’s the sort of novel I hope to find and I’m excited to be recommending it to all of you.

Andrew is joined In Conversation by Maeve Marsden. Maeve is the Artistic Director of Blue Mountains Writers Festival and the two explore programming a festival and exploring ideas that not everyone agrees with. The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. January Gilchrist is  Brisbane based author. Her debut novel is The Final Chapter Writers’ retreats are supposed to be about creativity. In the gardens of Thorne House and the surrounding bush writers, poets and creatives search for their muse. But on one fateful weekend, as snow descends on the Blue Mountains, four writers arrive at Thorne House with more than literary success on their minds. Desley has escaped her family and her demanding husband for a last ditch attempt to live her dream as an author. Colette is seeking escape from the paparazzi who are more than usually ravenous about her public life. Maia already has the success and the money, but is looking for something more. Mix in two poets and trapped from the world by the blanketing snow. You have a recipe for murder! ⁠Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople⁠ Want more great conversations with Australian authors? ⁠Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week⁠.

Sally Hepworth is a New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, with her novel The Family Next Door having recently been adapted for television. Today I’ve got for you her new novel Mad Mabel.  Elsie just wants a quiet life. She’s been more than thirty years in her quiet little Melbourne lane and she’d happily stay thirty more if she thought she had that much time left. Unfortunately for Elsie her elderly neighbour Ishaan has to go and die. Nothing suspicious of course and poor Elsie is the one to find the body. Nothing suspicious, but it only takes one curious person, one probing question and a short search and Elsie’s past is there to discover. And try as she might Elsie can’t seem to escape Mad Mabel. She’d always just accepted that the other children called her Mad Mabel, never asked why. She’d also accepted that friends were something the other children had, not her. Mabel had her books. Her mother was distant, her father rich and important, but her aunt doted on her and for a gangly, red-headed girl in 1950’s Melbourne, that would have to be enough. If only everyone could have left her alone. But when a series of strange and violent incidents occur around Mabel, it’s soon the whole community her Mad. Still Mabel yearns for quiet and privacy. She certainly was trying to become the youngest person ever in Australia to be convicted of murder! Now, nearly seven decades later Elsie is telling the story of Mad Mabel. She wants to clear the air, but such notoriety doesn’t just disappear quietly. Sally Hepworth is well loved for her character driven mysteries. In Elsie/Mad Mabel she has crafted a character who defies you to like her and yet despite her curmudgeonly exterior is destined to find a place in the hardest of hearts. Mabel’s life exposes the impunity with which women and young girls were treated; in the 1950’s as now, and how that treatment, rather than receiving opprobrium often becomes a part of their larger ostracism. As a girl Mabel is sheltered from the truth of her family’s tragic history, but she is not shielded from the notoriety. Bereft of friends she has little resources to call on when her marginalisation leads to unwanted attentions. As an adult, and believing she’d long since left her past behind, Mabel, now Elsie must figure out if she does have a community to rely on and what her role is within it. The setup is simple. When a neighbour dies Elsie’s past come rushing in. Despite the clear innocuous nature of the elderly man’s demise people ask; but Mad Mabel was so close by. We as readers are implicated in this speculation. Aren’t we here for the spectacle? When a pair of online journalists come knocking on her door, how can we help but imagine Elsie as the latest in a long line of true-crime fodder. Meanwhile the very human circumstances of Mabel’s life and the choices she made (and those taken from her) unfold in twinned narratives of the 1950’s and present day. The more we learn, the more we are challenged with the question of whether Elsie’s tough exterior is in fact a shield, and whether her proximity is an impending catastrophe or perhaps the best protection we could ask for.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Brandon Jack is the author of the acclaimed memoir 28. Brandon’s debut novel is Pissants.  Brandon’s also a footballer, who played for the Sydney Swans but on this this show I think we’ll celebrate his writing achievements  At the [Name Redacted] footy club the Pissants are waiting for the call up to the big leagues. In the meantime they will drink, take drugs, kidnap dogs and every now and then reflect on what they’re doing. Can the Pissants make the big leagues and will they actually discover themselves on the way? ⁠Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople⁠ Want more great conversations with Australian authors? ⁠Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week⁠.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Natalia Figueroa Barroso is a Sydney author of Uruguayan descent Today we’ll be discussing her debut novel Hailstones Fell Without Rain. Hailstones Fell Without Rain spans fifty years and three generations of women of the Ferreira family. Graciela has lived in Western Sydney since she emigrated from Uruguay in her twenties. There she has raised three daughters, although her thoughts are never far from home despite the fact she is avoiding calls from her Aunt Chula. Chula raised Graciela ever since her mother Tata, a political activist and freedom fighter, was disappeared by the military government in Uruguay. Chula much to tell Graciela, but a conversation would necessitate acknowledging she is estranged from her eldest daughter Rita. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Randa Abdel-Fattah is a researcher whose writing covers Islamophobia, race, Palestine, and social movement activism. Her books include Coming of Age in the War on Terror, When Michael met Mina, and 11 Words for Love. Her new novel is Discipline   A high school student, Nabil is arrested for displaying a Hamas flag at a rally demanding Australia stop supplying weapons to Israel. As the media scramble to cover the story, politicians and the authorities work to present themselves as tough on this sort of thing. Hannah, a Palestinian/Australian journalist is confronted with how she can represent her community in reporting the news, whilst still being perceived by her white colleagues as an impartial reporter. Her husband Jamal seeks to use his academic voice to speak up for Palestine but must contend with his more conservative Phd supervisor Ashraf, who is concerned about establishing his own academic credentials free from controversy. Hannah and Jamal are also monitoring their social media helplessly. There are attacks on Palestinians by Israel and they must wait for news of the escalating violence and pray that their families are safe. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. Naima Brown’s essays have appeared in Vogue, the Guardian, and more. She wrote, along with Melissa Doyle, the non-fiction book How to Age Against the Machine and is the author of The Shot.  Mother Tongue is her second novel. Ever since the birth of her daughter Jenny, Brynn’s life has been ruled by The Schedule; a clockwork routine that means Jenny will love her and Brynn will be the mother she know she can be.  Her husband Eric works hard for the family and Brynn will too. Her best friend Lisa always tells she has the perfect life and if Brynn doesn’t feel like that’s true well then maybe she just needs to work harder at it. Maybe it’s the working hard that did it. Why Brynn was outside on the icy step, taking the fall and then ending up in a coma. When Brynn awakes from her coma her life is still the same picture of suburban idyll. It’s just Brynn doesn’t seem to fit it anymore. She speaks fluent French, a thing called Foreign Accent Syndrome, and English is an effort. Suddenly her world feels strange. Brynn is a new person, and while Jenny still accepts her mother, no one else seems to. Eric is becoming withdrawn, even hostile. Her parents are avoiding her and Lisa thinks she might be faking and is eying of Eric. It’s all too much and so Brynn leaves… Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Omar Sakr’s The Nightmare Sequence Omar is an award winning poet and writer from Western Sydney. His works include the novel, Son of Sin and the poetry collection The Lost Arabs, which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Omar joins us with his new collection The Nightmare Sequence, illustrated by Dr Safdar Ahmed

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading! Thomas Vowles’s Our New Gods Thomas Vowles is a screenwriter and novelist. His debut novel is Our New Gods. Ash has recently arrived in Melbourne and is seeking to define himself outside of his small town existence. When he meets Luke it’s love-at-first-sight, at least for Ash. Luke is gorgeous and seems to be everything; great apartment, cool friends, hot boyfriend. Raf is something else; cool, in control, dangerous. At least according to Booth, and Booth is scared…

Brandon Jack is the author of the acclaimed memoir 28.  He’s also a footballer, who played for the Sydney Swans and in his debut novel Pissants he combines his sporting prowess and literary flare into a unique and memorable narrative. At an unnamed footy club the reserves team are waiting for the call up to the big leagues.  Calling themselves the Pissants, they train at least as much as they complain, honing the skills that keep them nominally in the club’s good books. In the meantime they will drink, take drugs, kidnap dogs and every now and then reflect on what they’re doing.  On its surface, Pissants could be taken for a romp through the bad behaviour of footballers. We get to know each of the group by their nicknames; Fangz, Stick, Squidman, Big Sexy and  Pricey. The nicknames, and the stories that coined them, get their own chapter leaving the reader in no doubt these guys have a knack for trouble. There’s not a lot of football being played here, much to the Pissants' chagrin. But that doesn’t the boys don’t train and party hard, making sure they diligently uphold club culture, even if they don’t always remember doing it.  The antics of the group are laid bare in a range of chapters as innovative in their style as they are often depraved in their action. We are privy to the many and detailed rules of pub golf, a closed Whatsapp group that couldn’t withstand public scrutiny, and an anthropologically driven interpretation of sports media interviews. In these sections Jack plays with form even as he dives beneath the surface of the players we might otherwise see as louts at best and criminals at worst. Because Pissants tells us the tales that don’t make the papers. Whilst it offers us an inside view of the semi-pro locker room it, Pissants also shows us exactly how raw, stupid and unthinking these guys can be. Except they’re not unthinking. Beneath the ill-advised decisions and startling acts of group think we are given an insight into the personalities and developing characters of a group of young men who probably have too much free time.  Pissants isn’t a morality tale. That wouldn’t ring true for the assembled group of players, many of whom come out worse the wear they put themselves through. The novel does offer the reader a look at how the players are not just the drug-addled brats they sometimes pretend to be. The offer of something more is exemplified by the novel’s counternarrative. Eliott is offered to the reader unadorned by a nickname and adrift from the club. He’s travelling through Europe and seems to possess none of the joie de vivre his playing companions take into every experience. In Eliott we are given a look at the personality behind the facade. His search for something outside the world that offered everything until it didn’t, mirrors the journey each of his player mates is inching towards.  Pissants is a cleverly written and immensely readable novel. Its larrikin air both depicts and subtly critiques its subject matter, giving the reader a chance to pull back the dirty socks and find out a little more about the masculinity fueling Australian sporting culture.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Samuel Wagan Watson is a poet of Munanjali, Birri Gubba, German, Dutch and Irish descent. He’s won the 1999 David Unaipon Award for Emerging Indigenous Literature, and The Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize amongst others. Paul Collis is a Barkindji man, born in Bourke in far western NSW on the Darling River. Dancing Home is his first novel and won the David Unaipon Award in 2016. The First Nations Classics series  from UQP ranges across genres, including memoir, fiction, non-fiction and poetry. The series is inspired by the richness and cultural importance of First Nations writing, and aims to bring new readers and renewed attention to brilliant, timeless books that are as relevant today as they were on first publication. Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading! Web - ⁠https://2ser.com/final-draft/⁠  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/

Thomas Vowles is a screenwriter and novelist. Today we’ll be discussing his debut novel Our New Gods. Ash has recently arrived in Melbourne. Like so many who’ve come from a regional town he’s looking to define himself whilst feeling wary of being .  When he meets James it’s love-at-first-sight, at least for Ash. James is gorgeous and seems to have everything; great apartment, cool friends, hot boyfriend. James may not want Ash for a lover but his friendship gives Ash entry to a cool new world, with an equally cool set of friends. Amidst this group is James’s boyfriend Raf. Raf is something else; cool, in control, dangerous. Ash sees this firsthand at a party and hears it from Raf’s ex Booth.  Booth is scared, and Ash is desperate to find out why before James gets dragged into it. — Our New Gods is a stunning thriller with more twists than I rightly know what to do with in our short time together. On its surface we have a love triangle with James and Raf at the centre and Ash staring on, unrequited but willing to do anything for James. As James tries to find his footing in Melbourne’s gay scene he can’t help but acknowledge to the reader that it’s only James he wants. Thus Ash is flung into an increasingly ill-advised set of scenarios as he frantically scrambles to protect James from the danger he sees in Raf. The novel plays with the tension between Ash’s desperation and the very real set of escalating circumstances surrounding the young men’s lives. Everyone in Our New Gods feels poised on the cusp of something whilst living at the breakneck speed of your twenties when everything seems possible but nothing feels like it has consequences. When it all comes to a head we as readers must also accept that we’ve dragged along for the ride, but now things are going to get real. Our choices in identifying and feeling kinship with the characters will extract a toll on us as we have our expectations thrown to the wind in the novel’s third act. Our New Gods is exciting, fun reading. Vowles’s skill as a screenwriter is brought to bear in the pacing and visual styling of the novel. His writing compels, even as it beguiles and tricks the reader into placing their trust in smoke.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Matt Rogers is the best selling author of more than thirty novels and is joining us today with his new novel, inaugurating his Logan Booth series, The Forsaken. You never know who your neighbours are behind closed doors. Logan Booth is counting on that. He doesn’t want to get chummy with the denizens of Brownsville and he doesn’t want them knowing anything about him. Especially not his past. It’s a Devil’s Bargain. One that will see Logan’s only friend killed before his eyes, forcing Logan back into a life he thought he’d left behind forever.  Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading! Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Sinead Stubbins is a writer, editor and cultural critic, and the author of In My Defence, I Have No Defence. Her debut novel is Stinkbug. The advertising agency where Edith works is going through a restructure. Everyone’s worried the new Swedish owners will bring their own team and they’ll be out of a job. With redundancies the hot topic round the watercooler, a select group of Winked employees are chosen for a corporate retreat. Edith’s made the cut and assumes this is her chance to show her worth. The assignment is simple; find a best work friend. Easy for Edith, she’s already got Mo and while she’s got some other stuff going on, surely she can fake her way through a weekend. Sure there’s dead birds at the perimeter and Edith is hiding a dark secret. But really, what could go wrong in a converted Convent watched over by a saint called Christina the Astonishing?! Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading! Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/

Presenting a poem and reflection by Omar Sakr as part of his new collection 'The Nightmare Sequence'. *Content Warning - contains discussion of the genocide in Gaza

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love. These are the stories that make us who we are. Robbie Arnott is the award-winning author of Flames, The Rain Herron and Limberlost, and as is appropriate for an award winning author, he is joining us today because his most recent novel Dusk has won the Literary Fiction Book of the Year at the ABIA Awards. Twins Iris and Floyd figure they are close to the bottom when they receive word of a bounty on offer for anyone who can stop a Puma killing stock and shepherds in the highlands. With no guns and no experience, but also no other choice the pair make the journey into the unknown  Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople Want more great conversations with Australian authors? Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading! Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/

Today I’m bringing a book so good I’ve already given my copy to my mum, and she’s loving it. Laura Elvery’s Nightingale. Laura Elvery is the author of Trick of the Light and Ordinary Matter. As readers of Ordinary Matter will know, Laura has an interest in women who have been ignored, or perhaps misunderstood by history. Nightingale takes us into the final days of the life of iconic nurse, statistician and social reformer Florence Nightingale. At ninety years old, Nightingale knows how much she has achieved in her life. Yet as she lies in her bed, all of that still doesn’t compensate for the infirmity she feels. That and the fact her only visitor is Mabel, her housekeeper and nurse. At least the window is open, bringing in the lifegiving air she has sought out her entire life. At her age a knock on the door could as well be a dream, and so it is with some surprise that Florence welcomes into her home a young soldier. A man who says he met Florence in Scutari, a man named Silas Bradley.  From here we are thrown back into Florence’s past as we revisit her time at Scutari, the military hospital where she made her reputation. We confront the horrors of war and the reality of women who sought to be more than the confines of the society that raised them. As I began reading Nightingale I reflected on how my understanding of Florence Nightingale exists in broad brushstrokes and contains perhaps as much myth as fact. Her historical figure can sometimes seem two-dimensional as the lady with the lamp, the founder of modern nursing. Of course she was also famed for her statistical work that helped identify the impacts of unclean environments in war mortality, significantly ahead of the development of germ theory.  The novel acknowledges the legend as well as the woman in an intricate narrative exploring the very human factors of the work of nursing. Of course Nightingale is heralded for the lives her pioneering work saved, but the novel gives equal hearing to the lives lost and the impact these losses made on the life of Florence Nightingale. Florence’s story entwines with that of Jean, a young nurse in Florence’s care and that of Silas, equally young and a soldier in the war. That their lives are given central concern highlights the fact that so many like them were to die with their lives untold.  Elvery’s narrative offers an ingenious trick of immortality in the telling of these exemplary lives and also offers us as readers a chance to wonder at the whole process of celebrating the brutality they were forced to be a part of. There’s a central conceit to Nightingale that I’m going to leave unspoken in this review. It asks the reader to consider the myth making as only one part of the story of Florence Nightingale and offers up a different type of endurance to the legacy of being so great in the face of so much horror. This conceit can be paired with the refrain ‘Let me tell you what it’s like’, wherein characters seek to explain, to offer up, or perhaps transfer something of their experience as form of bondage but also connection.