Category: Book clubs

Dave Warner is best known for hard-edged crime fiction, but his latest novel, Sound Mind Dead Body, tips its hat to the Golden Age of mystery. In this interview, he talks Agatha Christie, Art Deco atmosphere, red herrings, and the race between reader and detective to solve the puzzle first. You mostly write police procedurals, […]

Welcome to the Great Big Book Club, Fremantle Press’ regular cosy nights out for people who love stories. Join us in bookshops and libraries across Perth for bookish conversations with emerging and established authors. Browse the program below. The Names of a Hare by Bernice Barry 17th-century Cornwall is a place of peril for a […]

Winner of the 2024 Hungerford Award, Trials of Hope (የተስፋ ፈተና)is a groundbreaking bilingual memoir that challenges how we think about belonging and language. Author Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes weaves together poetry and prose, Amharic and English, to create a deeply moving account of Ethiopian heritage and displacement. In this interview, Yirga discusses the craft behind […]

Edited by Casey Mulder and curated by Kim Scott, Rivers Flow: A Reflection on the Songs of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter brings 23 First Nations writers together to honour the musical and cultural legacy of Archie Roach – a Gunditjmara, Kirrae Whurrong/Djab Wurrung and Bundjalung man – and Ruby Hunter – a Ngarrindjeri, Kokatha […]

Love exists in many forms, and in her new collection of poetry, Love Like This Isn’t Harmless, Bron Bateman writes about the wide variety of love she’s experienced, from self-love to erotic to familial, and even harmful. In this article, publisher Georgia Richter asks Bron about her writing process and what goes into creating poetry […]

Shortlisted for the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award, Nock Loose is Patrick Marlborough’s screwball comedy revenge thriller, centred on a small Australian town that takes its annual medieval festival very seriously. In this interview, Patrick tells us how their novel – and chaotic characters – became into existence. Where did the idea of Agincourt come from? […]

Jay Martin, the 2018 Hungerford Award winner, introduces her new novel, Boom Town Snap. Set among the Canadian oilfields and Australian mining towns, the story follows Georgie as she navigates tricky relationships and environments. In this interview, Jay tells us about some of the very real elements behind the fiction. Did the Me Too movement […]

Andrew HC McDonald tells stories in many forms – through photos, comedy, visual arts, and now novel writing. In this interview, Andrew tells us how his debut fiction book, The Montegiallo School of Swearing, came to be, and how swearing in a foreign language may actually help you learn. Where did this idea come from, […]

After seventeen years of writing, Emily Paull’s The Distance Between Dreams was shortlisted in the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award. Emily is a Western Australian librarian, author and book reviewer. In this interview, Emily shares her behind-the-scenes process. Where did the idea for this novel and its structure come from? What were the most challenging aspects […]

When author Andrea Thompson accidentally discovered that every other gender-diverse person on the planet was also writing a memoir, she switched her focus. She began writing for a central character who taught her the value and peace of the ordinary, and to never give up the fight. In this interview, Andrea introduces us to that […]

Poet Bron Bateman is the editor of Women of a Certain Courage, a new collection of inspiring stories by Australian women. In this interview, Bron gives us insight into her experience connecting with courageous women writers. How did you go about creating the list of women you wanted to contribute to this collection? Were there […]

Kathryn Lefroy might be a fantasy writer for children, but there’s nothing fantastical about her connection to Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy. Her great-great-great-great-great uncle was Jane Austen’s inspiration for Mr Darcy, one of world’s most lusted after characters – both on the page and on screen.  Given the iconic literary connection, teamed with the fact that she […]

Crime writer Alan Carter‘s latest release, Prize Catch, was inspired by living in close proximity to Tasmania’s controversial salmon farms. In this article, Alan dives deeper into how the landscape around him inspires his best-selling crime novels. How much does the place where you live inspire you when coming up with crime ideas? From the […]

Dave Warner‘s Broome detective Dan Clement is back in When It Rains, investigating crime as plentiful as wet season rain. In this article, Dave takes us behind the scenes of his award-winning crime writing procedure. What is it like to work with a protagonist over a number of books? Do you think about Clement between […]

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 […]

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 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 […]