Melissa Chan is a lifelong reader and the designer of Literary Book Gifts which features book related products like t-shirts and totes ranging from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. She drops by to talk about her venture, her favourite books, her love of the classics, and more.
Category: Author interviews
Interview with Ber Carroll
An Irish native, Ber moved to Sydney in 1995 and spent much of her early career working within the financial sector. Since then, she has pursued writing full-time and has thus far penned eight novels, that include Once Lost, Worlds Apartand Less Than Perfect. The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthymarks the first work to be published under the name B. M. Carroll. She drops by to talk about her latest book and lots more.
An interview with Tom Maremaa
The author of Reykjavik: A Novel talks about his book, the setting – both time and place, the composition, his characters and their transitions, and more.
An interview with Margaret Morgan
Aside from penning works for the small-screen, Morgan’s short stories have been published in a myriad of noteworthy publications, including Going Down Swinging and Meanjin, among others. Some time ago, Morgan returned to university, completing abachelor’s degree in Advanced Science in Biology at Macquarie University, where she focused on plant science, genetics and parasitology. These areas of studies were a lifelong interest that proved to largely shape the inspiration for her debut novel, The Second Cure.
Interview with Peter Cochrane
Peter Cochrane is a widely published historian and writer based in Sydney best known for his book Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy, which won the inaugural Prime Minister’s Prize, for Australian History and the Age Book of the Year in 2007. His first venture into fiction was the novella, Governor Bligh and the Short Man. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.’ (PRH 2018)
An interview with Elaine Neil Orr
Elaine Neil Orr grew up in Nigeria and returned home on occasion to North Carolina, where she has now lived for quite a while. All her life, she stretched between two worlds, and as she grew, she grappled with expressions of racism here, which did not exist in Nigeria. In her latest novel, Swimming Between Worlds, she writes in part about the experience of negotiating an identity between these two continents, acts of conscience, and history of place. Berkley/Penguin released Swimming Between Worlds in April to excellent reviews. This detailed interview covers all of Orr’s works, not simply this novel but also her first novel and her memoir, and her process in writing each.
An interview with Twin Peaks’ Kimmy Robertson
Actress Kimmy Robertson had originally intended pursuing a career as a ballerina, before fate intervened in the form of her being headhunted by a talent agent. Launching with several small, but nevertheless memorable roles in films such as The Last American Virgin and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Robertson was then called to an audition for the pilot of a new television series, Twin Peaks. Set to tour with several of her Twin Peaks collaborators in the looming Twin Peaks: Conversation With The Stars, Robertson catches up with Samuel Elliott to discuss her storied career.
Spotlight on Twin Peaks Cast & Crew – Sabrina S. Sutherland
Prior to becoming an Executive Producer on the second series of Twin Peaks, Sabrina S. Sutherland had already collaborated with auteur filmmaker David Lynch on an array of projects, including commercials, shorts, features and numerous other works ultimately left unrealised. Having worked closely with Lynch over a period now spanning some thirty years, she has acted as a main driving force across his oeuvre, often as the pragmatist essential in ensuring the visionary’s vision completed the transition to screen. Catching up with Samuel Elliott in the lead-up to touring Australia and New Zealand as part of the Twin Peaks: Conversations With The Stars event, Sutherland discussed both working on such an inimitable show and with such staggeringly prolific filmmaker as David Lynch.
An interview with Sofija Stefanovic
Sofija Stefanovic is a Serbian-Australian author now based in New York. Among her other writing endeavours, Stefanovic regularly hosts the prestigious literary salon Women Of Letters New York and This Alien Nation, the latter being founded on the ideal of offering those of immigrant backgrounds a platform through which to tell their unique stories. In addition to these hosting duties, she also constantly appears as a storyteller for The Moth and her writing has featured in the likes of The Guardian, Elle and The New York Times. Miss Ex-Yugoslavia is Stefanovic’s memoirs, detailing her childhood as an immigrant in Australia.
An interview with Richard Godwin
Richard Godwin is the critically acclaimed author of Apostle Rising, Mr. Glamour, One Lost Summer, Noir City, Meaningful Conversations, Confessions Of A Hit Man, Paranoia And The Destiny Programme, Wrong Crowd, Savage Highway, Ersatz World, The Pure And The Hated, Disembodied, Buffalo And Sour Mash, and Locked In Cages. He joins us to talk about his later book Insincerity, as well as many other things like social conspiracies, where the book came from, his writing space, and lots more.