Category: Book clubs

Award-winning author Alan Carter heads to Fremantle for an exclusive book club event previewing his crime novel Prize Catch at the Strange Editions Book Club. This event offers a meet-and-greet with the author, and an opportunity to hear about his latest book, as well as some of other familiar favourites, such as the Cato Kwong series. Alan says his […]

Launched this month, Karleah Olson’s A Wreck of Seabirds was shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award. It was described by the judges as a tightly written, atmospheric novel that captured the depths of human emotion. In this interview she tells us more about her journey to publication. Why did you choose a coastal setting for […]

Josh Kemp’s debut novel Banjawarn won the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award and the 2022 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. In his new thriller, Jasper Cliff, which was shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award, he deliberately leaned in to the spookier side of Australian gothic, imbuing his narrative with disturbing insights into the […]

Josh Kemp’s debut novel, Banjawarn, won the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award, the 2022 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction and the Western Australian Premier’s Prize for Best Emerging Writer. His sophomore novel, Jasper Cliff, was shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award for best WA writer under 35. Now this talented young writer is […]

When Robert Edeson needs facts, he often makes them up. Edeson says, ‘In my view, that’s the sublime (and subversive) prerogative of a fiction writer. It is also strangely liberating after an obediently truthful life in science.’

The Players by Deborah Pike takes us into the lives of a group of university students as they fall in and out of friendship and love. In this dramatic coming-of-age story, bonds formed during an intense summer of rehearsals will be tested across decades. The book and author will feature on the Libby Book Club on 18 September […]

The 2024 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards were announced this evening at the State Library of Western Australia, with debut novelist Michael Thomas winning in the emerging writers’ category worth $15,000. In his speech Michael said he was extremely proud to win an award for a book that was based on his forebears. Michael said, […]

As one of the Fogarty Literary Award judges, I am delighted to present to you our third Fogarty Literary Award winner’s book: The Skeleton House. This book caught my attention from the very first sentence. I rode the waves of foreboding and revelation with my heart in my mouth. It is one of those books […]

How to Avoid a Happy Life is Julia Lawrinson’s story of a messy family legacy and a lifetime of extraordinary events that have to be read to be believed. Publisher Georgia Richter says, ‘Julia’s writerly superpowers of observation and analysis, along with a robust sense of humour, allow her to survive and then write about […]

Anatomy of a Secret by Gerard McCann was shortlisted for the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. Publisher Georgia Richter says, ‘Gerard McCann’s memoir documents the experiences of a Catholic boy who was just one of scores of young boys sexually assaulted by convicted paedophile Leo Leunig in Perth in the 1960s. Despite the confronting […]

Back when If I should lose you was first published, Natasha said, ‘My mother will assure you that I am in no way artistic – although my children very kindly tell me that I do beautiful drawings! I love art though and there is nothing better than a quiet walk through a gallery looking at pieces […]

In Death Leaves the Station we were introduced to a nameless mendicant monk who helped solve a baffling crime in Western Australia’s Outback. Now the monk’s road leads him to the wheatbelt where despised landholder Fred O’Donnell is discovered with a fatal bullet wound, all by himself in a locked room. It’s a classic plot handled […]

Tim Minchin has called The Players ambitious and moving, Bem Le Hunte says it is enticing, and Melinda Harvey says it is funny and wise. But long before she found herself garnering praise, Deborah Pike was dreaming of a cast of characters whose passion and rivalry would bind them across time and continents. In this interview […]

With her prize money, Fogarty Literary Award winner Brooke Dunnell travelled to Eastern Europe to research her second novel, Last Best Chance. Just as her debut, The Glass House, was a work of exquisite tension and ambiguity, Brooke says she wanted Last Best Chance to embrace uncertainty, with characters dealing with multiple moral complexities and who struggle […]

Associate editor of Westerly Magazine, Dr Daniel Juckes, launched Kintsugi by Marie O’Rourke in Fremantle this month. With exquisite prose, Marie reflects on the beauty of brokenness and the ways in which time can transform our understanding of the past. But there’s so much more to this wonderful collection of essays, as Daniel explored in […]

Author Karen Herbert is here to ‘bang the drum about the bigger issues’. In her acerbic new crime novel, Vertigo, she confronts the issue of homelessness, a topic she talks about with great passion.

Karen Herbert’s latest crime novel Vertigo is part political thriller, part social commentary and wholly entertaining. In this interview she takes us into the themes of her work. The themes in this book are social and political ones. Why did you choose to focus on homelessness and disadvantage? Homelessness is one of the major factors […]

David Whish-Wilson’s I Am Already Dead is a gripping and high-paced noir novel, and book two in the Lee Southern crime series, that will keep fans of True West on the edge of their seat. In this interview he describes the inspiration behind his work. Where did the idea for this this novel come from?  […]

An article by Emma Young I am not a moral authority. But I am trying to do something moral, something better.   That is: give fifty percent of my royalties from my new novel, The Disorganisation of Celia Stone, to Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE).  This is an Australian think tank that provides large-scale solutions for switching […]

In The Brothers Wolfe, Elliot is the ambitious brother living for the best deals. Athol is the younger brother looking for his independence. Both have a foot in the family menswear business and their eye on a sexy French woman. It’s the perfect formula for financial ruin and a great read. We asked Steve Hawke […]

Michael Thomas celebrated the release of his first novel The Map of William this month – here’s more about it. The Map of William is a classic rite-of-passage novel that follows one young man on his journey of growth and self-discovery. We asked author Michael Thomas to take us behind the scenes of his writing […]

The beloved Great Big Book Club event is back and this year it’s bigger and better than ever – with not one but five events for you to attend!

On a morning exploding with pigeons, I fall into a phone conversation with my old friend Kiera as I walk to work. ‘Can we talk about historical fiction?’ I ask. ‘I don’t write historical fiction,’ she says. ‘I write speculative biography.’ Isn’t that the way of writerly research, I think with a sigh: you push […]

One of my favourite features of novels – and one that makes the art form different to many others – is their ability to take on the perspectives, words and thoughts of a fictional character. As readers, we feel the intimacy of being told a story and enjoy the benign voyeurism of having a window […]