Secrets from the Green Room
Oct 19, 2021
Season 2. Episode 12: Jack Heath
playlist_add
Irma and Craig talk about balancing the writing life with real life and then Jack talks about juggling multiple books, his love-hate relationship with social media and his most embarrasing fan-boy moment at Comicon.
More episodes from Secrets from the Green Room
2 days ago
Season 3: Episode 31: Artistic Director Jeanne Ryckmans
Irma and Karen chat about festivals and events they’ve been attending. Then Karen talks to former Canberra Writers Festival Artistic Director Jeanne Ryckmans about how a literary festival is programmed, the role of publicists and why sometimes they don’t work in the author’s best interests, how a writer should pitch themselves to an artistic director, the positive developments as a result of COVID, the writer Jeanne would have donated a kidney to get on her program (and did!), and crazy festival stories – from the author who did a session in his pjs, to another stung by a wasp right before a session, and a melted chocolate incident that incited panic.
playlist_add
May 2, 2023
Season 3: Episode 30: Jock Serong
Irma and Karen chat about attending festivals as an interlocutor or as a panellist. Then Karen talks to Jock Serong about making the move from lawyer to novelist, why he dives into dark places, the fraught territory of navigating writing First Nations characters and history as a descendant of settler Australians, why he goes on writing excursions with his characters, a surreal green room experience with Ian Rankin, and an utterly disastrous panel event.
playlist_add
Apr 11, 2023
Season 3. Episode 29: Marion Halligan
Karen and Irma chat about the pros and cons of online writing courses. Then they chat to Marion Halligan about how Sylvia Plath inspired her to get started, what she bought with her first earnings, how writing is a kind of madness, the challenge of writing a memoir about her late daughter, good and bad editing experiences and what it was like being edited by her sister, why essays are her favourite form, the controversies while serving as Chair of the Australia Council Literature Board, why the government should pay writers a salary, and why she got angry at Bill Bryson at the Melbourne Writers Festival.
playlist_add