Kevin rudd may 4 2022

The Honourable Kevin Rudd AC. Mr Rudd was first elected as Prime Minister in 2007. Early initiatives of his government were the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, A Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations, and the 2020 Summit. During the term of his government Labor also managed to keep Australia out of recession, despite the Global Financial Crisis, as well as commencing the roll-out of the National Broadband Network and the introduction of nationwide early childhood education, amongst many other programs.

Since leaving office Mr Rudd has written two volumes of his autobiography but has also stayed active in politics. He is senior fellow of the JFK School of Government at Harvard where he leads research into US-China relations. In addition he is the chair of numerous boards such as the International Peace Initiative. He is the current president of the Asia Society.

Now, when, last year, we first invited Mr Rudd to Outspoken it was to speak about his timely pamphlet, The Case for Courage, a call, no, an exhortation, for resistance to the egregious and ubiquitous power of News Corp, but also a commensurate call for a revitalisation of Australia on many different fronts; a shout-out to the Labor party to not just propose policies for a better, fairer Australia but also to tear down the myths of the Liberal party as the natural party of government, to stop shying away from giving them the criticism they deserve for the corruption and destruction of the norms of government that have occurred on their watch.

Well, several months passed, and now he’s here to talk about The Avoidable War, an extraordinary work which really should be required reading for every politician in the western world, regardless of affiliation. Lots of books get called important. This one really is, because of its depth of geopolitical understanding, but also because of the case it puts for avoiding war.

kári gíslason may 4 2022

Kári Gíslason was born in Iceland. He’s the author of four books, two non-fiction and two novels. The Promise of Iceland tells the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, while Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world, co-written with Richard Fidler, is an account of visits they made together to the places where the Icelandic sagas actually took place. It won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018.

His novels include The Ash Burner and the book he will be discussing tonight, The Sorrow Stone, an epic and compelling novel that reimagines the fate of one of Iceland's famous women of history.

Kári lectures in Creative Writing at QUT

Linda Jaivin April 20 2022

Chinese history is long, sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, extraordinary cultural and scientific leaps and deep dark times. Linda Jaivin distils this vast history into a concise narrative that allows us a glimpse of its importance to the formation of China as we see it today. Right now in Australia, we desperately need this sort of understanding.

Linda is the author of twelve books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include A Most Immoral Woman, Eat Me and The Empress Lover, and her non-fiction includes the memoir, The Monkey and the Dragon. She is also a renowned China scholar, working as both a foreign correspondent and translator for both of prose and film (she wrote the sub-titles for Farewell My Concubine, amongst many others).

Warren ward April 20 2022

Warren is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Queensland. His writing has appeared in many publications and he is a winner of the New Philosopher’s Award. 

His book,  Lovers of Philosophy explores the intimate lives of seven philosphers, investigating the way their most personal experiences came to shape their ideas. 

Warren has a wonderful way of weaving the personal with the public, so that, while he tells the grim story of, for example, Nietzsche's emotional trials and Sartre and Foucault's struggles with love, he is also explaining very complex philosophical ideas in an accessible way. 

He manages to draw a narrative of thought from one philosopher to another, from Nietzsche's analysis of the failure of religion through Sartre's ideas of the freedom of the individual, to Foucault's understanding of how we are bound by our culture.

Scott Ludlam March 23 2022

The tag line on the cover of Scott’s remarkable new book, Full Circle, says simply: ‘Australia lost a Senator, the world gained a luminous writer’ and that just about sums it up. Ludlam proves to be more than just erudite, he’s prepared to enlist descriptions of the very foundations of life into his argument for a better understanding of our place in the world, and the responsibilities that come with it.

In  Full Circle Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane, regenerative and more in tune with nature. He shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here, taking the reader on a journey around the world, discovering that we stand at a unique moment in time, when billions of tiny actions by individuals and small groups have the chance to coalesce into a great movement with the power to transform history.

Kevin Smith March 23 2022

Kevin grew up on the western edge of the Snowy Mountains, in a small sawmill village. He has worked primarily in drama and theatre, as actor, writer and teacher. His poetry has been published in Australia and overseas but  Awake to the Rest of My Days is his first anthology.

His poems have been runners-up, finalists, short-listed, gained special mentions, commendations and honourable mentions in major competitions around the world. Mark Tredennick says that Kevin is ‘a rare voice in Australian poetry… his poems remind us what poetry is for.’

Kevin is well known in Maleny where he has lived for many years and we're very excited to have him at Outspoken, reading from and talking about his new collection.

David Williamson October 21 2021

David Williamson is the most produced playwright in the history of Australian theatre.

Now, after 50 years of mainstage productions and numerous film scripts – a remarkable body of work – David has written his long-awaited memoir,  Home Truths. In the book he reveals how a childhood defined by marital discord sparked a lifelong fascination with the capacity for drama to explore emotional conflict; but also about the anxiety that plagued him as he crafted his plays, notwithstanding the joy of connecting with an audience. He writes, too, about the great love story that defined his personal life.

Fearless, candid and witty, David discusses the plethora of odd, interesting, caustic and brilliant people – actors, directors, writers, theatre critics, politicians – who have intersected with his life and work: from the young Jacki Weaver and Chris Haywood in the first Sydney production of   The Removalists in 1971 to Nicole Kidman on the brink of stardom in the 1988 feature film of   Emerald City, of the lively dinners with Paul Keating, through eventful overseas travels with Gareth Evans, Peter Carey and Tim Winton to a West End production of Up for Grabs starring Madonna.

Anthony Mullins October 21 2021

Anthony is a BAFTA and AWGIE award-winning screen-writer. His first short film STOP! was selected for Official Competition at Cannes, and one of his first television gigs was writing webisodes for the ground-breaking US television series LOST. Anthony has been a script producer and script editor on numerous award-winning shows, including Safe Harbour – which won the 2019 International Emmy for best Mini-Series. He has a doctorate in visual arts from the Queensland College of the Arts, where he teaches regularly.

Luke Stegemann Sept 21 2021

Luke Stegemann is an award-winning Australian Hispanist, author of  The Beautiful Obscure, recipient of the Malaspina Award for his outstanding contribution to the development of cultural relations between Australia and Spain.  

His new book,  Amnesia Road -  winner of the Queensland Literary award for non-fiction this year - is a compelling literary examination of historic violence in rural areas of Australia and Spain. It is also an unashamed celebration of the beautiful landscapes where this violence was carried out. Travelling and writing across two locations – the seldom-visited mulga plains of south-west Queensland and the backroads of rural Andalusia - Luke uncovers neglected history and its many neglected victims, and asks what place such forgotten people have in contemporary debates around history, nationality, guilt and identity.

'This book will come to be regarded as a classic of Australian literature.' 

Nicolas Rothwell

Ian Lowe September 21 2021

Ian Lowe AO is a bona fide Australian treasure. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society (and former Head of Science) at Griffith University; the author of ten books and uncounted articles; a former President of the Aust Conservation Society and the recipient of the Konrad Lorenz Gold Medal, awarded by the International Academy of Sciences. Just to begin with.

His new book, Long Half-life is a timely and riveting account of the political, social and scientific complexities of the nuclear industry, revealing the power of vested interests, the subjectivities of scientists and the transformative force of community passion.

Australia has been directly involved in the nuclear industry for more than a century, but our involvement has never been comprehensively documented. Long Half-life tells the social and political history of Australia’s role, from the first discovery of radioactive ores in 1906 to contemporary contentious questions. Quite presciently he discusses whether the next generation of submarines should be nuclear powered (hint: no) But he also talks about whether nuclear energy could help to slow global climate change, and if we should we store radioactive waste from nuclear power stations in our region.

Hugh Mackay June 6 2021

Hugh Mackay is probably Australia’s best-known ‘social psychologist’. He’s written twenty-two books, including Advance Australia… where?, The Art of Belonging, and Beyond Belief. He appears regularly on television, radio and newspapers as a commentator. Being multi-talented he doesn’t stop there, he’s also published seven novels. His new book, however, is The Kindness Revolution, in which he examines the way our society is developing, asking if it might be possible that Australia be not simply the Lucky Country, if it might become the Loving Country, a place where compassion reigns.

‘Revolutions,’ Mackay writes, ‘never start at the top. If we dare to dream of a more loving country – kinder, more compassionate, more cooperative, more respectful, more inclusive, more egalitarian, more harmonious, less cynical – there’s only one way to start turning that dream into a reality: each of us must live as if this is already that country.’

Melanie Myers June 6 2021

Melanie is a Brisbane-based writer, editor, academic and occasional actor. She is a graduate of QUT’s nationally acclaimed acting program and has a Doctorate in Creative Writing. In 2018, she won the Qld Literary Awards Glendower for an Emerging Writer for her manuscript 'Garrison Town', which was published as Meet Me at Lennon’s by UQP in 2019. Meet Me at Lennon's was shortlisted for the 2020 Qld Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance and the 2020 Courier-Mail’s People Choice Award.

Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Arena Magazine, Griffith Review and Hecate, and her short fiction has won or been shortlisted for various literary awards.

Dr Karl May 3 2021

While he’s best known for his radio and television work Karl also has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery. He has worked as a physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and as a medical doctor at the Kids’ Hospital in Sydney. He is the present Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University, where his ‘mission’ is to spread the good word about science and its benefits. He is one of only 100 ‘Apple Masters’ an award which celebrates the achievements of people who are changing the world through their passion and vision, while inspiring new approaches to creative thinking. He has been awarded an ig-Noble Prize, a doctorate from USC, the Australia Skeptic Of The Year Prize and has an asteroid named after him.

He is the author of more than 45 books. I’m not going to list them, but two of the most recent,  Dr Karl’s Random Road Trip through Science and  Dr Karl’s Surfing Safari both include augmented reality.

In April he will be launching his  Little Book of Climate Science. This little book is remarkable. Karl lays out the history of our understanding of climate change, the science of it - why it’s happening - what its effects will be and what we can do about it, all in the most simple, succint, unemotional language imaginable. It is an extraordinary resource. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Russell McGregor May 3rd 2021

Russell McGregor is Associate Professor of history at James Cook University in Townsville. He has published extensively on the history of settler Australian attitudes toward Aboriginal people. His other research interests are in Australian nationalism and environmental history. Here he speaks about his biography of Alec Chisholm, Idling In Green Places.

Alec Chisholm was a naturalist, journalist, newspaper editor and author, but, above all an ornithologist with a passion for Australian birds and the Australian landscape. All but forgotten now Chisholm was once one of the most well-known writers, editors and conservationists in the country. He started early; by the age of 17 he was being paid to write for the magazine  Emu, in this case campaigning against the killing of egrets. In 1907 there was a great trade in their feathers for women’s hats. He held in disdain the idea that 'the moving finger of civilisation must move on over the bodies of the loveliest and the best of Nature's children.' He remained a vigorous campaigner for birds and the natural world his whole life, inspiring Australians to see nature anew. His book  Mateship with Birds is a classic of nature writing.

Russell McGregor’s biography is the first ‘life’ of this remarkable Australian. It was short-listed for the National Biography Award.

Marian Wilkinson April 8th 2021

Marian Wilkinson is regarded as one of the most distinguished journalists in Australia. She has won two Walkley Awards and was the first executive producer of Four Corners. She was a senior journalist for many years with The Sydney Morning Herald, was the Washington correspondent for The National Times and The Age and a senior reporter for The Australian. She is the author of three books of investigative journalism, including Dark Victory, co-authored with David Marr.

In the summer of 2019/20, as Australia burned and smoke from its fires encircled the planet, a lot of people wondered why a country with so much to lose through climate change was doing so little.

The Carbon Club explores the reasons behind inaction, and investigates the small group of key players who determined it.

This is the story of how influential climate science sceptics, politicians and business leaders fought to control Australia's response to the climate crisis and why they were so determined to do so.

Central to their strategy was an international campaign to undermine climate science and the urgency of the climate crisis. The sustained success of the carbon club over two decades explains why Australian governments failed to deal with the challenge of climate change. But at what cost to us and the next generation?

As Wilkinson notes: ‘This is a story we need to know because we are still trapped in it’.

Katie McMahon April 8th 2021

We're delighted to introduce debut novelist Katie McMahon, talking about her novel, out in March,  The Mistake.  

While Bec and Kate are sisters, they couldn’t be less alike. Bec is living the domestic dream with her surgeon husband Stuart and three perfect children. So why does she find herself so attracted to free-spirited Ryan?

Kate’s life is hardly a dream. But when she meets Adam – tall, kind, funny – things start looking up. Until she finds out he’s been keeping secrets from her.

‘I absolutely loved this novel: fresh, funny and heartfelt. I didn't want it to end!’ Liane Moriarty

'Addictive storytelling from an exciting new talent.' Fiona McIntosh

Clare Bowditch November 6th 2019

Clare Bowditch is a musician, an actor, radio presenter, educator and now author (on her website she calls herself music maker/story baker/educator). She visited Maleny to talk about her memoir, Your Own Kind of Girl, a revealing story of a childhood punctuated by grief, anxiety and compulsion, a story that tells how these forces shaped her life for better and for worse. It is a heartbreaking, wise and at times playful. In this podcast she also sings a couple of her songs.

Clare won an Aria Award for Best Female Artist in 2006, was nominated for a Logie for her role in the TV series Offspring, was named Woman of the Year by Rolling Stone, as well as touring with Leonard Cohen, Paul Kelly and Gotye. She is also the founder Big Hearted Business, a love project designed to support creative people in their businesses, and businesses with their creative thinking.

Leigh Robshaw November 6th 2019

Leigh Robshaw is a journalist, free-lance writer, copywriter, business blogger and sub-editor. She writes for a remarkable range of magazines and publications. Now she has written a fast-paced, colourful and sometimes shocking memoir,  You Had Me at Hola, set in South America and Mexico.

A young Australian woman meets a beautiful Peruvian artisan in a market in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. Sensing a deep connection, they fall in love and begin a new life together. Over a period of three years, they travel the continent selling handmade jewellery in the streets and squares of Latin America, dodging police and bandits, mixing with drug dealers and narrowly escaping death.

You Had Me at Hola is a love story between two very different people, with different ways of being. It is about the search for one’s life purpose and the universal quest for belonging.

Anna Funder June 25th 2019

Before turning to writing full-time in the late 1990’s, Anna Funder worked as an international lawyer for the Australian Government, focusing on human rights, constitutional law, and treaty negotiation. After jettisoning her legal career to write Stasiland, she jobbed for a time as a radio and television documentary producer at the ABC.

Stasiland describes the period Anna spent in the former East Germany, after the wall came down. It tells the stories of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi. Shortlisted for many awards in Australia and Britain, in 2004 Stasiland won the world’s most significant prize for non-fiction, the  Samuel Johnson Prize. Hailed as ‘a masterpiece’ and ‘a classic,’  Stasiland has been published in 25 countries and translated into 16 languages, adapted for radio and CD in the UK and Australia.

In 2011 Anna published the novel  All That I Am, set in pre-war Britain. When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they find refuge in London. Here they take breath-taking risks in order to continue their work in secret. But England is not the safe-haven they think it to be, and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart… Based on real people and events,   All That I Am is a masterful and exhilarating exploration of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs, and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places. All That I Am went on to win many awards, including the  Miles Franklin.

Anna lives in Sydney with her husband and three children.

1 hr 15 mins

Mary Garden June 25th 2019

Mary Garden was born and raised in New Zealand, but has lived in Australia for much of her adult life. She also spent several years in India, on a spiritual quest. Her experiences in that country were the subject of her first memoir  The Serpent Rising: a journey of spiritual seduction. She moved to Maleny in 1989 and has had strong connections to the town ever since.

Her new book,  Sundowner of the Skies, is a memoir/biography of her father, a famous aviator who achieved notoriety when he became the youngest and most inexperienced pilot to fly solo from England to Australia. Fellow pilots ranked his 1930 flight along with the achievements of Charles Kingsford Smith and Amy Johnson. Writing the book was a journey of discovery for Mary. Until she started her research she knew little of his life and his extraordinary history.

20 mins

Anne Summers March 3rd 2019

I was born into a world that expected very little of women like me. We were meant to tread lightly on the earth, influencing events through our husbands and children, if at all. We were meant to fade into invisibility as we aged. I defied all of those expectations and so have millions of women like me.’  

Anne Summers has been prominent in Australian media, politics and feminist activism for more than four decades. She is the author of eight books, including the remarkable  Damn Whores and God’s Police, still in print forty-four years after it was first published.

Anne has had a remarkable career. She has been Editor of  Good Weekend, written for the  Australian Financial Review, Far Eastern Economic Review, Le Monde and the  National Times. She is currently a regular contributor to what was recently the Fairfax Press. She is the winner of a Walkley Award for journalism and, in the United States, where she lived from 1986-1992, she was Editor in Chief of  Ms Magazine. She was a political advisor to Prime Minister Paul Keating and ran the Office of the Status of Women in the Hawke Labor government. For six years she was chair of Greenpeace International.

Her other books include Gamble for Power, Ducks on a Pond and the recently released  Unfettered and Alive, a memoir, which she discusses here with Steven Lang.

approximately 1 hr.

Melissa Fagan March 3rd 2019

For all who know Brisbane, McWhirters, a once celebrated department store in Fortitude Valley, is an icon. For Melissa Fagan it is also the starting point for a remarkable exploration of her mother and grandmother’s lives, a poignant reminder of the ways in which retail stores and fashion have connected women’s lives across the decades.

Behind the dusty shop counters of an Art Deco treasure, Melissa discovered both what had been lost and what continued to shine. Her book is, ultimately, a tender exploration of self and family, speaking of the ways in which life surprises us and of how the legacies of others can truly enrich our own relationships and lives.

approx 15 mins

Shelley Davidow December 29 2018

Shelley discusses her recently published memoir Shadow Sisters.

During the terrifying years of Apartheid in South Africa, Shelley Davidow’s family was a crime. At a time when it was illegal for black and white people to live together, Shelley’s social activist parents took in Rosie, an abandoned black three-year-old. Rosie grew up as a beloved daughter and sister in a white household. Against the backdrop of racist laws and ever-present threats of violence, Shelley’s parents did all they could to provide a safe, happy home for their five children. But when Rosie was sixteen, devastating truths came to light, shattering the family’s understanding of the past.

'Davidow's memoir is not only a vivid, stark and resonant reminder of those days, but a rites-of-passage tale about growing up in the midst of violence and killing – as well as experiencing the pangs of first love.' Sydney Morning Herald

16 mins

KERRY O’BRIEN DECEMBER 29 2018

In his intimate ground-breaking memoir, told with wit and insight, Kerry O’Brien reflects on the big events he has observed, on lessons learned and ignored, on the foibles and strengths of the public figures who construct our world. The end result is an engrossing study of a life lived in the public eye, a life intrinsically bound up in nearly three-quarters of a century of social and political history.  

Kerry is one of Australia’s most respected journalists. He has won six Walkley awards including the Gold Walkley and the Walkley for outstanding leadership in journalism. In a career spanning more than fifty years, he has worked for a wire service, newspapers, television and as a foreign correspondent. Thirty-three of those years were at the ABC where he worked on current affairs programs such asThis Day TonightandFour Corners. He was the inaugural presenter of Lateline and the editor and presenter of 7.30 for fifteen years.

1 hour 16 mins

Gillian Triggs October 18 2018

Gillian Triggs has had a long and diverse career in International Law. Born in London she migrated along with her parents to Australia in 1958, when she was thirteen. She attended school in Melbourne and studied law at Melbourne University, then went to Texas to do a Masters in Law, working with the Dallas Police Force on the implementation of the Civil Rights Act. She completed a doctorate a decade or so later. In 1982 she was admitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria as a barrister and solicitor. Soon after that she joined Mallesons Stephen Jaques as a consultant on International law practicing with them for ten years before joining the Melbourne Law School as a professor of International Law. While there she produced papers on a range of subjects, including the WTO, energy and resources law, the law of the sea, international criminal law, international environmental law and human rights.

In 2007 she took on the role of Dean of the University of Sydney’s Law School. In 2012, as we all know, she was appointed the President of Australia’s Human Rights Commission, a position she held for five years. She is now the Acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and is here with us today to talk about her recently published memoir Speaking Up.

One hour and five minutes

Patrick Nunn october 18 2018

Patrick Nunn is here to talk about his recently published book The Edge of Memory, Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World.

Patrick is the author of several other books, including the popular Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific. He is, at present, Professor of Geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast but is well known for the work he undertook in the Pacific Islands where he was, for 25 years, part of the faculty of the University of the South Pacific, holding the positions of Professor of Oceanic Geoscience and pro-Vice Chancellor. His early work on the Quaternary geology and tectonics of many islands and island groups in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu still represents the latest word on many of these issues today. 

Patrick has been a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on several occasions, and, in that role, he was a co-recipient of its 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland, and his world-class research in climate change has been extended with the announcement that he will be Lead Author on the ‘Small Islands’ chapter of the next Assessment Report of the IPCC, scheduled for completion in 2022. 

15 Mins

Kristina Olsson October 10 2018

Kristina Olsson is a Brisbane-based writer. She worked as a journalist for many years, writing for The Australian, The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Telegraph. She has written both novels and memoirs, including The China Garden and Boy, Lost, the memoir about her mother and about Kristina’s missing brother, which won the 2014 NSW Premier's Prize for nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Just this month Simon & Schuster have chosen Kristina’s new novel, Shell, to launch the literary imprint of Scribner in Australia.

Kristina has been to Maleny several times, some of you may remember her visiting Rosetta Books in the 2000s to talk about her novel In One Skin and the book she co-wrote with Debbie Kilroy, Kilroy was here.

One hour

Josepha Dietrich October 10 2018

We begin with Josepha Dietrich whose memoir In Danger was published by UQP earlier this year. By way of introduction I’m going to take the unusual step of reading the author note from the front of her book as a way of describing her because, honestly, I can’t think of a better description:

Josie Dietrich is an English immigrant to Australia. She lives in Brisbane in the home she and her partner built on passive house principles. After coming out of a long reign as a carer, she’s worked as a research assisant for universities on projects to improve psychiatric discharge planning and women’s wellness after cancer. Her prior long-term work was in the After Hours Child Protection Unit, assessing children’s risk of harm alongside the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Unit of Victoria Police. To remain sane during this period, she flitted off overseas for months at a time to climb cliff faces while sleeping on beaches or in abandoned shepherd’s huts. After her cancer treatments finished and in light of her experience caring for her dying mother, Josie joined the advisory committee of CanSpeak Queensland as a cancer and consumer advocate.

This memoir, In Danger, is about her own journey through a diagnosis of breast cancer, following on from the death of her mother from the same disease fourteen years previously. It is not by any means a grim book, in fact it’s quite the opposite, probably, or possibly because of Josie’s familiarity with the illness and her lack of sentimentality towards it.

15 Minutes

Gareth Evans was a representative for the Australian Labor Party in both the Senate and the House of Representatives for twenty-one years, from 1978 to 1999. During that time he served as a member of Cabinet for fourteen years in the Hawke and Keating governments, including seven and a half as Foreign Minister, a role in which, it is univerally acknowledged, he excelled.

After leaving politics he became President and CEO of the International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, during which period the organisation grew to become the pre-eminent international non-government organisation (NGO) working on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict. 

He is presently the Co-Chair of the international advisory organisation The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), from 2010 to 2015 he was Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Canberra-based Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and remains the Patron and Emeritus Convenor of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He is also the Chancellor of the Australian National University.

He has written or edited eleven books including A Cabinet Diary, Inside the Hawke-Keating Government, and the new book he discusses in this podcast Incorrigible Optimist.

In this podcast Outspoken organiser and interviewer swaps chairs and is interviewed by the marvellous Kate Evans from Radio National about his new novel, Hinterland, which is set in the fictional town of Winderran. 

A C Grayling is a genuine example of that much bandied about thing, a most remarkable man. Born in Rhodesia, raised in Nyasaland, he discovered a love for philosophy at the age of twelve, going on to study at ever more prestigious institutions, culminating in Magdelene College, Oxford.

Apart from being the author of thirty books he writes widely on contemporary issues, including war crimes, euthenasia, secularism, the legalisation of drugs and human rights. He founded the New College of The Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London, where he is presently the Master, and was, just this year, awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to philosophy.

His most recent book, The Age of Genius, the Seventeenth Century and the Invention of the Modern Mind, argues that the mind-set of modern times was established in the 1600s, amid terrible war and great injustice. His contention is that, despite such turmoil, this was the period in which ideas of magic and revelation, and the dead hand of religious law, first gave way to science and the rational, leading the way to the Enlightenment and the modern world as we know it. It is a work of philosophy but also of history, following the lives of some of the most significant figures from the period.

Shelley Davidow, March 28 2017

Shelley Davidow is the author of Whisperings in the Blood, a memoir in which immigrant voyages, repeated from one generation to the next, form the basis of an extraordinary story that explores the heartache and emotional legacies created by those who leave their homelands forever. It tells the story of her grandfather, Jacob Frank, who leaves his village in Lithuania to sail to America, of her mother, leaving America to go to South Africa, and her own voyage repeating these and other journeys before settling in Australia. Shelley now lives on the Sunshine Coast.

Approximately 15mins

Malachy Tallack, March 1 2017

Malachy Tallack is from the Shetland Isles, as far north in Scotland as you can go. He attracted a lot of attention with his first book, 60 Degrees North, an account of his journey around the world along the line of the 60th latitude. It was a book that Robert MacFarlane described as brave and beautiful, chosen by BBC Radio 4 as Book of the Week. He was in Australia to promote his new work, The Un-Discovered Islands, a study on islands of imagination, deception and human error. Also well-known as a singer songwriter with four albums to his name, in the final ten minutes of this podcast Malachy plays a couple of his songs.

Richard Fidler, October 2016

Richard Fidler discusses his history of the Byzantine empire as described in his recent book Ghost Empire.

1 hour and five minutes.

Kari Gislason October 2016

Kari Gislason discusses his recent novel The Ashburner. 

Kari and Richard Fidler, above, are good friends and travelled to Maleny for this event together (as they have to various parts of the world). Kari comes back on to the stage at the end of Richard Fidler's conversation to take questions. 

17 mins

The World Without Us, Mireille's third novel, is set somewhere in the Hinterland of NSW's north coast, and concerns the Muller family, Stefan, Evangeline and their two daughters. Stefan, a beekeeper, is originally from Germany, while Evangeline grew up on a commune in the hills behind where they live. The story is woven around the absence of a third daughter, Pip, and the way they each deal with the grief her loss has provoked. At the same time it also braids within its cloth the radically changing landscape wrought by the work miners and loggers, as well as the mysterious failing of Stefan’s hives. 

The novel has attracted remarkable reviews: 

Alberto Manguel, writing in the Guardian says, Juchau’s style is perfectly poised, elegant and restrained. Almost any page of this astonishing novel offers proof of a writer of great poetic power… [it is] a revelation, a masterly story involving the refuge of silence, the fate of bees, and the shadows of old sins.

Tallking about her book Wasted, Text 2016

In 2009 Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother, Alexander, finished his last university exam and went out with some mates on the town. Later that night he wandered to the Story Bridge. He put his phone, wallet, T-shirt and thongs on the walkway, climbed over the railing, and jumped thirty metres into the Brisbane River below.

Three days passed before police divers pulled his body out of the water. When Alexander had drowned, his blood-alcohol reading was almost five times the legal limit for driving.

Why do some of us drink so much, and what happens when we do? Fewer young Australians are drinking heavily, but the rates of alcohol abuse and associated problems—from blackouts to sexual assaults and one-punch killings—are undiminished.

Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s most beloved performers, most famous for her role in Kath and Kim as Sharon Strzelecki, but also for her work in the comedy sketch programs Fast Forward, the D-Generation, and, of course, as Esme Hoggett in the film Babe.

In this new and extraordinary memoir, Reckoning, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities and the secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on. Heartbreaking, joyous, intimate and utterly captivating, Reckoning, announces the arrival of a fearless writer and natural storyteller. It will touch the lives of its readers.

Approximately 1 hour.

Paul Williams is Program Coordinator in Creative Writing at Sunshine Coast University and the author of several short stories and novels. His most recent book is Cokcraco, an exhilarating, playful and witty novel about writing, identity and literary KritiKs.

Some comments from reviews:

'Ever since Don Quixote, novelists have been taking the piss. In Cokcraco Paul Williams does exactly that, turning the full beam of his satirical spotlight on the civil wars in university departments, the cultish bunkum of literary theory, the self-obsession of creative writing courses and the self-flagellation of white liberal guilt… a strange, funny, intelligent and quite unforgettable novel. What Flaubert did for parrots, Mr Williams has done for the humble roach.' Jeffrey Poacher

15 mins.

Professor Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading writers on climate change. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he was named Australian of the Year in 2007.

He has held various academic positions including Professor at the University of Adelaide, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum and Visiting Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

His books include Throwim Way Leg, Here on Earth, The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers. Under the Gillard government he was appointed Climate Change Commissioner, with the specific task of communicating the science of climate change to the public, explaining the reasons why it is necessary to price carbon. In this podcast Professor Flannery talks about his new book The Atmosphere of Hope, which, in the lead up to the December talks in Paris, gives an overview of where climate science is now and what can be done.

Kate Holden is the author of the memoirs In My Skin and The Romantic, Italian Nights and Days. In My Skin was nominated for many awards and was published in twelve countries. Her stories and columns have appeared regularly in The Age as well as The Monthly, Cleo, New Woman and the Weekend Australian.

Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most popular and best-known writers. Her novel The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was short-listed for the Man Booker, the Miles Franklin and the IMPAC Awards. Her earlier novel, The Idea of Perfection, won The Orange Prize in 2001. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History.

In this podcast she discusses with Steven Lang her new book: One Life: My Mother's Story, a deeply moving homage to her mother by one of Australia’s finest writers.

Olivera Simic is the author of Surviving Peace, a Political Memoir, a heartfelt account of life before, during and after the Bosnian War and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.  Simić provides a greater understanding of the Balkan Wars while ensuring we don’t forget the horrors and enduring impact of any war. Combining an academic sensibility with personal experience she describes how she found the determination to build a new life when the old one was irretrievable.