Neda Vanovac's Podcast - 2ser FM

This week a retro Melbourne crime special! We have a couple of books that are both more whydunit than whodunit set among the mean streets of working class Melbourne, but that's about where the similarities end. We're starting off in 1933 with The Richmond Conspiracy by Andrew Grimes, which begins, as all good crime novels should, with a ruthless businessman found dead in a warehouse. Annamarie Reyes did some investigating and finds out what inspired the novel. Next up Jacqui Le chats with Peter Twohig, winner of this year's Ned Kelly Award for crime fiction for his novel, The Cartographer. In this story, an 11-year old boy who witnesses a murder relies on the bravado of superhero comics and detective stories as a guide for survival, on the run from a killer who's seen his face. And finally Neda Vanovac chats with American author Morgan Callan Rogers, whose first novel is set among the close-knit fishing communities of north-eastern America.

Tonight we are talking all about islands - those wonderful remote places that harbour some of the most unique landscapes and eco-systems, inspire some of the greatest literary adventures and forays into the human psyche and in their isolation can hide some of the worst abuses and dirtiest secrets. We talk with two authors who explore this unrestricted nature of islands by drawing on their own experiences. First up, Robert Drewe dropped by to talk with Neda Vanovac about the British nuclear tests on the Montebello islands off the WA coast in the 1950s. Jon Doust chats with Will Mumford about his new novel, To the Highlands - the second addition to his trilogy that chronicles the stages of a young man's development. And Allan Browne reads his poem, The Three Little Bops, featured in his first collection of poetry, Conjuror.

Playwright, librettist, essayist, screenwriter, novelist, memoirist… Louis Nowra, it seems, has tried his hand at writing almost everything. His new novel, Into That Forest, is ostensibly written for young adults, because Louis says he needed readers who could suspend their disbelief. And why? Well, Hannah and Rebecca are two young girls in the 1880s caught in a terrible storm who end up orphaned, lost, and taken in by two Tasmanian tigers. Their years in the forest will mark their lives forever, as they spend their adulthoods trying to sing themselves back. The story is about the brutality and kindness of people and animals, losing your language and the extinction of a species. I spoke to Louis while he was out walking his dogs, and he explained just how similar the Tasmanian tiger is… to a chihuahua. We also have a story for you by Elisa Parry. She's reading Illustrations, which was published in the Space issue of Voiceworks Magazine. It's about returning to and reimagining once-loved places of childhood.

Have you ever wondered how to read a novelist? Not just what they write, but who they are? Or rather, who we think they are, reading between their lines and superimposing our own lives upon theirs? Have you ever tried to figure out what makes them tick, the layers they dress their characters in, the way they lay themselves bare and the things they keep secret? Well, this week we have two very special interviews for you unravelling just that. Kate Burraston speaks with the very prolific Lily Brett about her new novel, Lola Bensky, which is loosely based on her own past as a rock journalist in the 1960s and 70s. And then later in the show we'll hear from John Freeman, the editor of Granta literary magazine, who has interviewed just about every big name in literature that you can think of, and a few you can't. He spoke to Neda about his book, How To Read A Novelist.

This week we’re talking about home and who we are. Which is fitting, really, because this week is also Supporter Drive, and we’d like to share with you who we are here at 2SER, and fill you in on some of the things that have been going on at this station. The next fortnight is 2SER's annual supporter drive, where we ask you to help keep us on air if you enjoy community radio and the interviews we've been bringing you. Rates start at just $35 per year for concession, $70 standard. EVERYONE who donates gets a prize, and you'll go into the draw to win a WHOLE lot of goodies - more details in the podcast. If you'd like to donate - at any time of year - please call 02 9514 9500 or visit our website: www.2ser.com. Now, on to the show! First up, novelist Toni Jordan talks to Neda about Nine Days, her sweeping family saga, which follows the most important day in the life of nine members of one family, from 1939 Melbourne to the present day, tracing their turning points, triumphs and tragedies. Then Una Butorac talks to political commentator Tim Soutphommasane about why he thinks multiculturalism in Australia today is succeeding despite recent riots and ethic tensions. His book is Don’t Go Back To Where You Came From.

In our globetrotting world, although we're dipping into the Middle East, this is also a show about Australia. About the consuming nature of place, about living across two countries, and of going away and coming home again. Foreign correspondent Irris Makler speaks to Will Mumford about her memoir, Hope St Jerusalem. A look at the adventure and unpredictability of working in a consuming and dangerous place like Israel. The Yasmin Parry caught up with Alice Melike Ülgezer about her first book, The Memory of Salt. A tale of family, Turkish culture, and coming to terms with the past. Featured music: David Byrne and St Vincent, Ice Age

Tonight we're going for a stroll down empty suburban streets and across wide-open isolated paddocks as we have a look at what constitutes Australian gothic. It's not always haunted houses, long white dresses, and psychological thrills... or is it? Jeanavive spoke to writer Chi Vu, who has transposed a gruesome Buddhist folktale to the immigrant Vietnamese community of 1980s Footscray in Melbourne. And Chloe Hooper spoke with Neda about her return to fiction with The Engagement, an unsettling exploration of sexual fantasy. And then we have Tim Burton's 1988 short film Vincent, a rhyming story about a young boy who idolises the actor Vincent Price, slowly becoming consumed by his fantasy and mirroring Edgar Allen Poe's classic gothic poem, The Raven. Featured music: Magic and Moonlight by Nox Arcana

Kara Kidman is a writer and broadcaster. She presents FBi's Out of the Box, and the unbelieveably popular Unwatchable TV segment on Radio National Drive. She was last seen onstage at her Year Six rendition of Agadoodoo, where she starred as the pineapple who got pushed. In this story, Hillary Clinton and a persistently rhyming Ellen DeGeneres end up at a dive bar, listening to Meatloaf.

Jessica Bellamy is a playwright and Lindsay Lohan anthropologist. She also has a Hot Or Not blog called "Would Jess Like It?" which can be found by googling 'shit in a bucket'. This is her first piece of erotic fan fiction and she's pulled out all the stops. It's called Princess of the Pilbara. Pairing: Gina Rinehart & Tony Abbott

Nick Coyle is a writer and theatre maker whose shows have travelled to the New York Fringe Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Here he is, reading his story about when Carrie Bradshaw meets Oprah Winfrey, and fiction and reality collide.

Slam poetry. It’s electrifying. At the Sydney Writers Festival four performers got up in a converted woolshed filled with cocktail tables, the back of the room filled with people standing, craning to get a look at the action. The overflow spilled into the barn next door, watching on screens as American slam poet Lemon Andersen rapped about life in New York, and as Australian playwright Benito diFonzo talked about his own personal GFC. Joining them was Luka Lesson, Australia’s current national slam poetry champ, fresh off a three-month tour in the US. He’s also co-director of The Centre for Poetics and Justice based in Melbourne, and I caught up with him down at Walsh Bay before the show to find out the difference between lyrics and poems, the importance of silence, and his album, Please Release Me.

Barry Heard was conscripted to the army and was sent off to the Vietnam War with no idea of how it would change his life. His memoir, Well Done, Those Men charts his experience in training camp, his year in Vietnam as a radio operator, and the several decades that followed as he tried to integrate into a society that just didn't know what to do with him. The further Barry got from the war, the worse his post-traumatic stress became, and he eventually had a nervous breakdown. Writing his memoir saw a similar outpouring of sentiment from an entire generation of Australian men who'd kept quiet about the way war changed them.

Novelist Alex Miller is one of Australia’s most successful, with two Miles Franklin awards under his belt for Journey to the Stone Country and The Ancestor Game. His latest book, Autumn Laing, began as a work loosely modelled on the life of artist Sidney Nolan, but quickly morphed into something different. The heroine, Autumn, is a cranky, fiery woman of 85, flatulent, and impatient, furious at the indignities of old age. She’s looking back on her life with no small measure of guilt. Autumn recognised the talent of artist Pat Donlon as soon as she met him, and they embarked on an affair that would mark the rest of her life. In the novel, she continually casts back into the past, to Melbourne in 1938 and her circle of artists, poets and writers trying to tackle the establishment of the time. I met with Alex to talk about biography, guilt, the masks of the confessional, and how Sidney Nolan came to change his life.

The Occupy Wall Street movement this last week in New York reached a turning point when a judge evicted protesters after several weeks of camping. Occupations across the world have clashed with authorities, and organizers are now faced with the task of reevaluating how the movement will go forward, if at all. I report the future of the movement in New York and Sydney.

A child survivor of the Holocaust, Diane Armstrong migrated to Australia from Poland in 1948 during the postwar boom. With a long career as a journalist and novelist, in her new book she’s returned to that time. Empire Day follows the lives of the residents of Wattle Street in Sydney, as the locals try to adapt to the unfamiliar ways of the immigrants escaping Europe. I met with Diane to talk about how she transported herself back to the 40s, the things she remembered and the ways in which her characters took on lives of their own. Music featured: Say it with Firecrackers – from Holiday Inn Buttons and Bows – Dinah Shore Rambling Rose – Perry Como

In 2004, Aboriginal man Cameron Doomadgee swore at a police officer in the street. 45 minutes later, he was dead in a police cell, having sustained injuries more typical seen in high-speed car crashes. The man accused of killing him, Chris Hurley, was a police officer in Cameron’s hometown of Palm Island, a seemingly idyllic island off the coast of Queensland with one of the highest rates of crime and violence in Australia. The investigation into Cameron’s death was politically charged as two very different elements of Australian society clashed over the tragedy of what had happened. Journalist Chloe Hooper’s award-winning book on the case, The Tall Man, has been adapted into a documentary. I spoke with the film’s producer, Darren Dale, about making a film when one of the main characters is dead and the other won’t talk.

American journalist Kim Barker turned up in Kabul not long after 9/11 without much of an idea what she was doing. She was swiftly swept up in the maelstrom that is the life of a foreign correspondent, doing the Taliban Shuffle between Afghanistan and Pakistan for eight years for the Chicago Tribune. Her book chronicles the existence of journalists in war zones – always on the edge and about to crack, careening along on an adrenaline high. Along the way she gives readers background on the region and lets them peer in on a life that saw her close friends kidnapped, her relationships broken down and all the while, relentlessly hit on by senior Pakistani government officials. She spoke to me from New York about the importance of telling the story you see, being a woman in a war zone, and bluffing her way through some very bizarre situations.

This week an Australian citizen filed charges of war crimes against the Sri Lankan president before a Melbourne magistrate. The Federal Attorney-General stopped the motion, citing President Rajapaksa’s “diplomatic immunity” as he visits Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting this week.

When’s the last time you read an all-Australian comedy crime caper? Author Derek Hansen thought it had been far too long. He’s cooked up a story about a drought-ravaged country town called Munni-Munni. The residents find $3 million buried by robbers, and their bank manager uses it to re-establish the town on solid economic grounds. But the criminals are out of jail and they want the money, the cops want the money, and two of Australia’s most notorious hitmen are hot on the trail. I spoke to Derek about the value of violence, the effects of comedy, and basing a character on Neddy Smith. This interview was first broadcast by 2SER FM's Final Draft on 25 July 2011.

Beginners is the new film from director Mike Mills. It's the story of graphic designer Oliver (Ewan McGregor) falling in love with Anna (Melanie Laurent). Oliver's a solitary artist, drawing portraits of old girlfriends and rewinding memories of his past. He's grieving for his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) who has just died of cancer. Hal came out as gay in his mid-seventies shortly after the death of his wife, and spent four happy years as a gay man before getting sick. Mike mined his personal history to create this love letter to his family. He previously worked as a graphic designer and his illustrations appear in the film as Oliver's work. His father also came out as gay shortly after his mother's death. I spoke to Mike about grief, loneliness, and fictionalising his own life. This interview was first broadcast by 2SER's Final Draft on 20 August 2011.