The Secret Life of Writers is a series of rambling conversations with some of the world’s most interesting and visionary writers and creative icons about how th...
Steve Toltz on writing fear, Here Goes Nothing, and nailing why we do what we do
Steve Toltz is the author of A Fraction of the Whole, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award and Quicksand, which won the Russell Prize for Humour. Booklist called A Fraction of the Whole ‘a deliriously philosophical novel . . . with uproarious ruminations on freedom, the soul, love, death, and the meaning of life" and in a way that applies to Steve's work as a whole and his new book, Here Goes Nothing. The Irish Times described Here Goes Nothing as, ‘a smart social commentary on our fossil fuel-guzzling, warmongering, information-obsessed, pandemic-riddled world’ and as The Scotsman said, he writes with ‘remorseless, brilliantly withering contempt’, though this sits alongside a story and characters that are both affecting and strangely moving.Steve’s also worked as screenwriter on shows like No Activity and Guilty Party.
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Claire Messud on A Dream Life, self-deception and the pursuit of truth
Claire Messud is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestselling books The Emperor’s Children, The Woman Upstairs and The Burning Girl, as well as a book of essays, Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write. She has received Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters among many other accolades.Claire is also, one of the first writers published under new literary imprint Tablo Tales. Her novella A Dream Life, written in The American Library in Paris, launched Tablo Tales’ short book series of great women writers from around the world. Helen Garner described A Dream Life as ‘A perfect frolic of a book, puffed on breezes of beauty and wit: it waltzes you through a little fear, a little darkness, and tips you out, refreshed and laughing, into the sun'. Fiction Editor of Kirkus Reviews, Laurie Muchnick chose A Dream Life as her pick on the Fully Booked podcast saying: ‘It’s just so delightful to be back reading the voice of Claire Messud with its x-ray vision and her really precise writing…It’s a real comedy of manners and really sharp and funny.’ A Dream Life published by Tablo Tales and distributed by IPG in the US, Manda Group in Canada, Gazelle Book Services in the UK and New South Books in ANZ.
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Hannah Kent on the freedom and delight in writing Devotion, not being shackled to history and her writing life
Australian novelist Hannah Kent’s first novel Burial Rites, about the last woman executed in Iceland, was a bestseller internationally and translated into 30 languages. It won a mountain of awards including the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award and is being adapted for film. Her second novel The Good People set in Ireland in 1825 is also being adapted for film and was also critically acclaimed – Paula Hawkins described it ‘a literary novel with the pace and tension of a thriller’ which could be applied to Hannah's work as a whole. While all of her novels are very different, they’re also tied together by bringing the past alive, and writing about enigmatic people who are often outsiders - and writing about the heart of life – about love and death and suffering. Hannah’s new novel Devotion is just out, and readers everywhere will be delighted to hear it’s ‘a glorious love story’ as Sarah Winman described. It’s both lyrical and compelling and Hannah pulls you in from the first page.
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Charlotte Wood on taking out the lies, The Luminous Solution and following the heat
Charlotte Wood is one of Australia’s finest, most original writers. She is the author of six novels; a collection of interviews called The Writers’ Room; Love & Hunger; and The Luminous Solution, about creativity and resilience. Charlotte’s most recent novel The Weekend is funny, tender and often uncomfortable, and won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year. The Natural Way of Things was a bestseller and published internationally. It received various awards including the Stella Prize, and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction. Charlotte also has two podcast series, The Writers’ Room and Eat like the Animals. The Luminous Solution is wise and filled with energy and inspiration - it isn’t just for writers and artists but for anyone wanting to enrich their inner life. As Ailsa Piper describes, it is a ‘magnificent book of consolation, inspiration, completely individual observation, scholarship, honesty, wisdom and wonder. Every page contains food for the mind and spirit.’
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Sinéad Gleeson on the power of your own story
Sinéad Gleeson is a writer and editor, based in Dublin. Her book of personal essays Constellations: Reflections from Life, won the Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It explores an array of subjects from Sinéad’s experience with illness, to friendship, grief, falling in love, motherhood and ghosts, and throughout these disparate yet connected pieces she weaves stories about art and artists, music and literature. As Anne Enright says ‘if you want to know where passion and tenacity are born, read this book’. Sinéad’s short stories have been published widely and she has also edited four award-winning Irish short story anthologies. Her new anthology of music essays co-edited wih Kim Gordan is coming out in 2022.
The Secret Life of Writers is a series of rambling conversations with some of the world’s most interesting and visionary writers and creative icons about how they got where they are, what they’re working on now, and how they balance art and life. These warm and personal interviews take you behind-the-scenes of the writing world. Hosted by Jemma Birrell, formerly of the Sydney Writers' Festival and Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and now the Creative Director at Tablo. Subscribe to hear a new episode (released on a Thursday every few weeks).
For writers, readers and anyone who loves great life stories.
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