Category: Behind the book

Chemutai Glasheen is a teacher and a sessional academic at Curtin University. She writes fiction for young people and her work is influenced by her upbringing in Africa and the duality of growing up between two different cultures. In this piece Chemutai shares the behind-the-scenes of her first book I am the Mau and Other […]

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 […]

In her latest memoir, Unheard Voices, Dawn Mauldon set out to challenge how voices of displacement, diversity and personal histories influence expectations and outcomes. The author shares her unique and deeply personal perspective on being the child of Deaf parents and what it means to see and communicate in a rich and diverse language world. […]

The Map of William was the unintended outcome of a general curiosity about my own family history. As I became embroiled in the past lives of my forebears, my curiosity soon turned to something else. Not quite an obsession, but close. It became a search for details and evidence—the gathering of little snippets of information […]

Laurie Steed is a writer living and working in the Wadjak region on the traditional lands of the Noongar people. He is the author of You Belong Here and recipient of the 2021 Henry Handel Richardson flagship fellowship. His short story anthology Greater City Shadows was shortlisted for the 2022 Dorothy Hewett Award for an […]

Meet Emma Young, a former bookseller turned journalist and novelist, and her novel The Disorganisation of Celia Stone. The Disorganisation of Celia Stone is an engaging snapshot of the contemporary experience familiar to many women managing anxiety and unrealistic expectations. It follows Celia Stone, the ultimate hyper-organised, journal-obsessed thirty-something with a life that is perfectly […]

I’ve long been a fan of a series of articles called ‘How I Get It Done’, where impressive people with seemingly unlimited abilities (and resources) detail how they go about their day-to-day lives. Often this involves waking up at times that, until I had a baby, I thought were hypothetical numbers, pure maths proofs. Since […]

When I finished my creative writing degree, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to write again. I had half a collection of short stories that I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Obsessed with the idea of a ‘real’ job, but working a part-time/shitty retail gig, I looked back at university as a fun but largely […]

When I signed my publishing contract with Fremantle Press last year, my partner immediately started joking about resigning from work – to wave celebratory pompoms at my book events and writers’ fests, soothe my perpetually poetically-furrowed brow, and make sure my favourite brand of poetry-inspiring beverage is always close to hand. Show me the money […]

In One Wrong Turn Chenée Marrapodi has made all the right turns (of phrase that is). It’s a great book for middle readers and a wonderful retelling of the traditional ballet story. Told with subtlety and honesty, she replaces the ballet clichés with a realistic portrayal of the grit, determination and teamwork required by our […]

True stories in the real world As a publisher and editor, I am an active participant in the creation of books other people will read. The fiction I edit can connect readers to inner words, the non-fiction to the ‘real world’. And some of those stories can be a long time in the making. In […]

Author of The Last Whale, Chris Pash, shares messages of hope from two anti-whaling activists as he marks the return of the Rainbow Warrior to Albany, where she docked ahead of a campaign to sail up the coast of Western Australia to document the wildlife and environment threatened by Woodside Energy’s plans to drill for […]

In this piece, she tells us more about The Archipelago of Us – her beautifully written and compelling memoir about living and working in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories, the place where Australia’s identity is laid bare and where our self-image is challenged at every level.   What do you hope readers will get out of […]

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 […]

Introducing an exciting new voice in Australian fiction: Molly Schmidt, winner of the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. Salt River Road is a compelling coming-of-age novel about grief and healing set in a small town in the 1970s. Watch this video to learn more about Molly’s story and the work she did with supervisors Dr Brett […]

Emily Paull’s novel, The Good Daughter, was highly commended in the 2021 Fogarty Literary Award and now this year’s novel The Dreamers is on the shortlist. Emily Paull is a Western Australian librarian, author and book reviewer. In 2019, her debut collection of short fiction, Well-Behaved Women, was published by Margaret River Press. In this […]

Jasper Cliff, is a gothic Australian crime novel which takes us to somewhere near Marble Bar where an ancient storehouse of bad memories ambushes the unaware. Josh was longlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award back in 2019. His novel Banjawarn was co-winner of the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award and won the 2022 Ned Kelly Award […]

Fogarty Literary Award shortlister Prema Arasu says Australia is on the cusp of developing its own speculative fiction tradition. In their absorbing fantasy novel, The Anatomy of Witchcraft, they take colonial history, gender politics and impressive world-building into the boarding school. Read more from Prema below or, to find out more about how they made […]

In Nock Loose by Patrick Marlborough, a retired Olympic archer and former stuntwoman inspired by Magda Szubanski loses her granddaughter in a fire. This is the beginning point of a wild and lively novel centred around the town’s violent medieval festival, Agincourt. Patrick has been published in many national and international publications, and their novel, […]

Karleah Olson is a PhD candidate at Edith Cowan University, where she is studying Australian coastal gothic literature. It’s clear that her studies have influenced the creativity behind her manuscript A Wreck of Seabirds. The Fogarty Literary Award judges said her tightly written, atmospheric gothic YA novel evocatively captured the natural environment and explored the […]

Katherine Allum describes herself as one of those ‘weird homeschool kids’ who, growing up, was rarely seen without pen, paper and a library book. American-born, she moved frequently during childhood and finished her hybrid education in a small town in the desert. She completed her MA at City, University of London, where she wrote the […]

What does it take to command a submarine? That’s the subject of Running Deep: An Australian Submarine Life.  What’s one thing you’d like Australians to understand about the Submarine Arm of the Royal Australian Navy?  The tremendous value of our submarines as a deterrent, combatant or both, and the resultant positive impact they have on […]

During my thirty-five years as a published writer and thirty years as a teacher of creative writing at various universities, I’ve read several articles by creative writers, writing teachers or editors who say that starting to write a new story is the hardest part. But for me, beginning a story comes relatively easily. Almost always, […]

As mums ourselves, we wanted to create a book our babies would have loved – something fun that also fed their growing brains! Say Hooray engages babies on multiple levels by stimulating their senses and helping them build an understanding of language, the world around them and themselves. Say Hooray also has the potential to […]