Category: Behind the book

Deep-fakes, misinformation and untrustworthy leaders … Diving deep into the world’s problems might sound depressing, but to award-winning crime author Alan Carter there’s hope in reading about it. In this interview, Alan takes us through the creation of his latest novel, Last Bastion, and how crime novelists play an important part in our developing world. […]

What began with the surreal image of a dead whale swimming between Perth skyscrapers grew into Rebecca Higgie’s sweeping exploration of love, memory, climate crisis and the stories we tell about the dead. We spoke to Rebecca about the six-year journey behind The Book of the After, the real-world urgency shaping its imagined futures, and […]

New York has long been a city of writers, readers and literary appreciators. Gone Guru is partly based on author Nadine Browne’s past experiences in New York City, but this isn’t the first time we’ve visited New York between the pages. Back in 2013, Fremantle Press authors Alice Nelson and Natasha Lester both researched novels […]

In Free World, the gripping third novel in the Lee Southern series, award-winning author David Whish-Wilson turns a prison into the setting for a locked-room mystery that tests both his characters and the boundaries of goodness. In this Q&A, he discusses building plot through character and consequence, drawing on his experience of prison environments, exploring […]

Gone Guru may be a work of fiction, but it’s fuelled by real moments from Nadine Browne’s life – from moving to New York City to the messy, vulnerable work of figuring out who you are (both on and off the page). In this interview, Nadine reflects on the experiences that shaped her debut novel, […]

Worlds Within a World is a powerful collection of stories from five First Nations women. Edited by Ballardong Noongar woman Casey Mulder, these honest and wise reflections provide insight into what it means to grow up as a First Nations woman in the second half of the twentieth century. In this interview, authors Barb Hostalek, […]

Elders, memory, language, hunger, burning, flowering, flight … these are the different cycles around the life of a seed featured in Luisa Mitchell’s collection of poems, Song of the Shadow of a Seed. In this interview, Luisa speaks about writing toward healing, connection and truth-telling, the importance of truth-listening, and the hope that readers might […]

Shortlisted for the 2024 Hungerford Award, I Remember Everything is Fiona Wilkes’s debut novel. Crossing timelines, from Bristol in the 1980s to 2020 London, I Remember Everything takes a poignant look at first love, chosen family and coming out, just as the devastation of the AIDS epidemic looms. In this interview, Fiona reflects on the […]

Howard McKenzie-Murray’s debut novel This Is Where We Say Goodbye is a quirky, bittersweet story full of vivid characters and energy as twenty-one-year-old protagonist Maud reels in the aftermath of loss. In this interview, Howard speaks about how his background as a playwright shaped his fiction, what writing the novel taught him, and how real […]

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, […]

From Fremantle Press to Night Parrot Press, Linda Martin has been an advocate of West Australian writing and publishing for decades. In her upcoming release, A Tale of Two Publishing Houses, she shares her experiences with risk-taking, author–editor relationships and building an independent press from the ground up. What inspired you to research and write […]

In 1869, R.D. Blackmore wrote about romantic heroine Lorna Doone. Years later, Bernice Barry has reimagined the lives in the book in The Names of the Hare, delivering a historical fiction novel about a girl with a knowledge of herbs becoming a woman among the witch hunts. In this interview, Bernice tells us more about […]

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 […]

Brigid Lowry’s A Time of Living Graciously is a gentle, unflinching look at ageing, dying and what it means to live mindfully through it all – both a conversation starter and a source of comfort. Brigid shares her thoughts on writing through the heavy topics, and the importance of humour. Listen to a conversation between […]

During their postdoctoral fellowship at the UWA-Minderoo Deep-Sea Research Centre, author Prema Arasu explored the deep sea through the perspectives of scientists who each relate to it differently – be they oceanographer, geoscientist, taxonomist, marine biologist, geneticist or the creative writer–observer. In this interview, Prema dives deeper into the work, and puts the scientists who […]

Ask any writer about what inspires them and a life-long love of reading is most often mentioned. For Giles Watson, author of Eungedup: A wetland summer diary, the spark of nature writing came from the books of his childhood – from a worn copy of Watership Down to the radical poetry of Emily Dickinson. Here, […]

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 […]

Devastating earthquakes, floods and landslides … and now a killer on the loose. Franz Josef, a tiny South Island of New Zealand town, is the setting of Alan Carter’s latest crime novel and the third instalment of the Nick Chester series. Below, Alan chats to us about the making of this thrilling new novel. Why did […]

Assuming a new identity to enter the thrilling and dangerous illegal shadow network at Fremantle Port, undercover operative Paul Cutler returns in O’Keefe by David Whish-Wilson, David chatted to us about how he conducted his underworld research, his own similarities with Paul Cutler/O’Keefe and his feelings around incorporating violence into his novels. What kind of […]

Lawyer-turned-author Lisa Ellery returns to the world of crime with her new outback mystery, Hot Ground. This pacy new tale follows Detective Jessy Parkin as she investigates the disappearance of a gold prospector in Kalgoorlie. In this interview, Lisa tells us about why she chose Kalgoorlie as the setting, how she bonded with her main […]

In his latest non-fiction book The Shameful Isles, author David Price uncovers a dark chapter of Western Australian history. In this interview, David tells us about how he first learned about the events that took place on Bernier and Dorre Islands, and the research that went into creating this deeply moving account some of our […]

In Karen Herbert’s broody new crime novel, The Ghost Walk, protagonist and amateur sleuth Ruby Rose Gillespie lives with cystic fibrosis. As she sets out to solve the murder of her secret lover, she starts to wonder whether she really knew him at all. In this interview, Karen tells us more about writing a disabled […]

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? […]