Into the unknown on the Fremantle Press podcast: Prema Arasu on poetry, the deep sea and the vampire squid
Writer and academic Prema Arasu joins the podcast to talk about their debut poetry collection, Vampire Squid. The collection, written during Prema’s post-doc fellowship at the UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, explores how we imagine the deep sea – a place we often perceive as eerie and unknowable.
Prema explains why they were drawn to poetry, the ways in which they relate to the elusive vampire squid, and reads some poems from the book.
Show notes
About Prema
Prema Arasu is a writer and academic at the Deep-Sea Research Centre at the University of Western Australia. Their research utilises transdisciplinary and creative methods to investigate the aesthetics of the deep sea. Prema has a PhD in Creative Writing and continues to teach English and Literary Studies at UWA. They have published stories, poems and scholarly articles on the deep sea, video games, gender, weird fiction and monsters. In 2023, Prema’s fantasy novel, The Anatomy of Witchcraft, was shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award.
Prema’s website: https://premaarasu.com/
Prema on socials: Instagram @prema.jpg
Books by Prema Arasu
About the host
Georgian Richter has an MA (Creative Writing) from the University of Western Australia. She has taught creative writing, professional writing and editing at the universities of Melbourne and Western Australia, as well as at Curtin University. Georgia joined Fremantle Press in 2008 as the fiction, narrative non-fiction and poetry publisher.
Books by Georgia Richter, Fremantle Press publisher
How to be an Author: The Business of Being a Writer in Australia
Music: ‘Letter to a Daughter of St George’, from the Meat Lunch EP: Songs from Floaters. Written by Alan Fyfe. Performed by Trevor Bentley (guitar and vocals – @trevormb) and Chris Parkinson (harmonica). Produced by Blake Carnaby of Nuglife studios with impresario work by Benjamin P. Newton.
Producer: Claire Miller
Mastered and edited by: Aidan d’Adhemar
