Final Draft - Great Conversations
Great conversations with authors from Australia and around the world.
Arts
Books
126
Mirandi Riwoe's Sunbirds
Mirandi Riwoe is an acclaimed author of historical fiction. Her novel Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award. Mirandi’s new novel Sunbirds.
46 min
127
Book Club - Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie
Edenglassie is a thought provoking, disarming and at times hilarious novel. Through the contrasting narratives Lucashenko effectively overthrows simplistic views of early colonial interventions and reclaims the story on behalf of the people whose land was stolen.
3 min
128
Tony Birch's Women & Children
Tony Birch is the author of novels, poetry and short fiction. You’ve met him on the show before with his collection Dark as Last Night which won the Steele Rudd award at the Queensland Literary Awards. Today Tony is joining us with his new novel Women & Children.
40 min
129
Book Club - Mirandi Riwoe's Sunbirds
Mirandi Riwoe is an acclaimed author of historical fiction. Her novel Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award. Mirandi’s new novel Sunbirds. In the shadow of war a wealthy Dutch family celebrate on their tea plantation. The war has not yet touched their wealth and status but on this fateful night the players will be assembled who represent the future of their colonial endeavor.
3 min
130
Graham Akhurst's Borderland
Graham Akhurst is a Kokomini writer who grew up in Meanjin. He is a Lecturer of Australian Indigenous Studies and Creative Writing at UTS. Borderland is his first novel.
36 min
131
Book Club - Tony Birch's Women & Children
Joe Cluny lives with his Mum and his sister Ruby. Joe’s no stranger to violence, getting the strap more often than accolades at the Catholic school he attends. Ruby’s warned him that you don’t ask questions about other people’s bruises. But when one day Joe’s aunt Oona arrives at the house bruised and shaken, Joe will come to understand how much violence lurks in all their lives and the strength it takes to stand up to it.
4 min
132
Bonus - Chris Womersley's The Diplomat
Stepping off a plane in Melbourne, Edward Degraves seems resigned to his fate. Edward and his wife Gertude committed the largest art heist Australia has ever seen, but after years in London Gertrude is dead and Edward is lost. After listing this litany of struggles Edward informs the reader “All I had to do now was survive the rest of my life. Which was no small order, of course.”
36 min
133
Chris Womersly's Ordinary Gods and Monsters
Summer, the end of high school, family dysfunction. Nick’s life has shifted into some sort of liminal zone. When his best friend Marion’s father is killed in a hit and run, Nick wants to be there for her. But a series of spooky actions seem to indicate that the best way to support Marion is to track down her father’s killer!
33 min
134
Book Club Encore - Claire G Coleman's Enclave
In the community of Safetown residents live a comfortable life, secure in the knowledge they are protected by the wall. Within that concrete edifice security patrol their streets and drones surveil the airway to ensure even the smallest transgression is met with swift consequences.
5 min
135
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s We Know a Place
We Know a Place is about the joys of wandering bookshop shelves in search of adventure. Following a family as they make their weekly pilgrimage to their local bookstore after completing weekend chores and coming home with a world of wonder.
31 min
136
Book Club - Davina Bell’s What to Do When You’r...
Both What to Say and What to Do introduce children (and adults) to simple things they can share that promote kindness and inclusivity. Each page is its own little world; containing a simple aphorism and picture that gently unfolds a story about how to approach, deal with or overcome some of the difficult moments in our lives.
3 min
137
Sara M Saleh's Songs for the Dead and the Living
Sara M Saleh is a writer, human rights lawyer, organiser, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been published widely in English and Arabic. Songs for the Dead and the Living is described as a coming-of-age tale played out across generations and continents, from Palestine to Australia.
35 min
138
Book Club - Graham Akhurst’s Borderland
Jono is finishing high school and trying to figure out his place in the world. At school he always felt like he stuck out. As one of only two Indigenous students, along with his best friend Jenny, Jono was targeted by students and always felt like he had to work twice as hard to get half as far. Now Jono and Jenny are starting at the Aboriginal Performing Arts Centre, and Jono’s still not sure. He doesn’t know who his mob are, he feels adrift and the other students still single him out. When an opportunity comes along for Jono and Jenny to work with a documentary crew filming in the Queensland desert they both jump at the chance. The gig is in support of a fracking project though and Jono’s instincts are telling him there’s a lot more to this trip than he initially suspects.
4 min
139
Love Your Bookshop Day at Megalong Books
Love Your Bookshop Day celebrates the unique role our local bookshops play in helping to expand our worlds. Join Andrew as he celebrates the role bookshops play in fostering our imaginations and find out whether anyone picks up when he calls his favourite, local bookshop!
10 min
140
Emily Spurr’s Beatrix & Fred (Spoiler Free)
Beatrix is aggressive alone. Beatrix’s solitude is getting out of hand but adopting a stalker was not on her bingo card of ways to break out of her shell.
33 min
141
AJ Betts' One Song
Eva entered Unearthed High in Years nine, ten and eleven. Now in Year Twelve she’s got one last chance to break into music before she’s old and the world has left her behind.
47 min
142
Book Club - Emily Spurr’s Beatrix & Fred
Who is the mysterious elderly woman who seems to be appearing wherever Beatrix goes? Is she a figment of Beatrix’s imagination or a malevolent force in a sensible knit cardigan?
4 min
143
Thank You Kate & Jol Temple - Radiothon Bonus
On today's show Andrew calls up Kate & Jol Temple, authors of the Bin Chicken books, The Underdogs and so many more, to say thank you for their support of 2ser.
13 min
144
Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Royals
5.17pm on a day much like any other, in a shopping center in Western Sydney six teenagers find themselves alone. Shannon only glanced from her phone for a second, then when she looked back down her phone was frozen and the world had gone quiet. Surprise, then annoyance forces Shannon out into the mall’s concourse which is eerily still. Fear then curiosity lead her to explore the mall where she finds Tiannah, Grace, James, Akira and Jordan; equally alone and equally confused. What has happened to the world and are they truly as alone as they believe?
42 min
145
Book Club - Maxine Beneba Clarke’s We Know a Pl...
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of Foreign Soil, The Hate Race, poetry collections Carrying the World and How Decent Folk Behave. Maxine is also the author of children's picture books including The Patchwork Bike and When We Say Black Lives Matter. Today we're discussing the absolutely joyful We Know a Place and getting excited about visiting our local bookstores!
3 min
146
Radiothon Special - Support 2ser
Radiothon is your chance to support Final Draft and Sydney stories, ideas and culture.
3 min
147
John Kinsella’s Cellnight
Cellnight takes us into a prison where a protestor sits having been taken in for demonstrating against nuclear warships. In the cells the protestor bears witness to abuses even as the sounds of the harbour wash in through the windows and the whole, the truth of the evening becomes a matter of remembrance.
57 min
148
Book Club - Kirsty Jagger’s Roseghetto
Shayla’s working on an assignment for her newspaper when she returns to Westminster Way. She's exploring a new integrated housing development when she is confronted with the ruins of the suburb she grew up in. Shayla grew up in Westminster Way but despite her difficult past she wasn’t prepared to see the street and surrounding suburb leveled in preparation for shiny new homes. The destruction transports Shayla back to her childhood and how she and her mum had to survive each day together. It also leads Shayla to wonder did she get to where she is today because of these struggles or in spite of them.
4 min
149
Jane Harrison’s The Visitors
The Visitors takes us to Gadigal Land in January of 1788. On this sweltering day a strange sight appears in the harbour and immediately spurs the locals into action. Messages are sent to the Nations of the coastal and river regions calling seven men, elders in their clans to congregate and decide what must be done now that The Visitors have returned.
31 min
150
Amy Suiter Clarke’s Lay Your Body Down
Del swore she’d never return. But years after she left Bower and the Messiah Church Del finds herself drawn back into its orbit by a mysterious message from her ex Lars. Del also swore she’d never talk to Lars again after he left her for her friend Eve, but now Lars sounds contrite. Before Del has the chance to call Lars back though she discovers he’s been killed. The press are calling it a tragic accident but Del knows better about Messiah and how they always protect their own.
42 min