SA Drink Of The Week

Graham Kilsby interview

The Kilsby Sinkhole episode is live now but its show notes will be updated Thursday, August 1, in the evening.

The Kilsby Sinkhole episode is live now but its show notes will be updated Thursday, August 1, in the evening.

A weekly podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, news, interviews, chat and quizzes. 

Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. 

The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis and Nigel Dobson-Keeffe.

Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday (when we have published a new episode) with an overview of that week's show. Plus, consider joining our Inner Circle; a small group of passionate South Aussies who allow us to pick their brains and gain interviewee suggestions.

This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, ...

The Adelaide Show

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, and general news. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis, and ends with an original song by a South Australian artist. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday with an overview of that week's show. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, and general news. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis, and ends with an original song by a South Australian artist. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday with an overview of that week's show. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

Steve Davis talks to Graham Kilsby and Jen Will about the Kilsby Sinkhole near Mount Gambier

286 - The Kilsby Sinkhole

Doug Reed and Kylie Mildwaters

Musical Pilgrimage

In Kadina, the commercial heart of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, farming families have been trusting the same lawyers with their most important moments for generations. This episode brings two of those lawyers to the table: Doug Reed, who has practised in Kadina for 50 years and is preparing to retire, and Kylie Mildwaters, who grew up on a nearby farm, left for Adelaide to study law, and came back to build her own thriving practice. Between them, they offer an unusually honest portrait of what country law actually looks like: the trust earned slowly, the gossip that spreads fast, and the quiet privilege of knowing the grandchildren of your very first clients.

There is no SA Drink of the Week this episode

The Musical Pilgrimage this week is perfectly timed: Adelaide artist My Chérie releases her new single Stuck Inside My Head today, the same day she performs at WOMADelaide. It is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence and the challenge of quieting a restless mind, and it could not be a more fitting soundtrack for a week when this city is buzzing with live music and big ideas.

You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve!

The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.

And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au

If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it.

And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concise
page.

Running Sheet: Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law

00:00:00 Intro

Introduction

00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week

There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.

00:03:01 Doug Reed and Kylie Mildwaters

Kadina in the 1970s, as Doug Reed (Germein Reed) remembers it, was a proper provincial town: half its current size, built around farming, animated by fierce rivalry between Kadina, Moonta, and Wallaroo, and populated on Fridays by farmers’ wives dressed to the nines for their weekly shopping. Small Woolworths. No McDonald’s. Three pubs per town, and a pub meal was a night out. The frictions, factions, and fictions of small-town life, as Steve puts it, drawing on a line from The Carpathians, were very much in evidence, including, as Doug notes with some amusement, two rival Methodist churches in Kadina alone.

Kylie Mildwaters (Mildwaters Byrth Lawyers & Conveyancers) grew up on the other side of that rivalry, as a Moonta girl who had nothing to do with Kadina. The inter-town competition, she and Doug agree, has mellowed considerably since council amalgamation, though not, they hasten to add, on the sporting field. The footy rivalry remains entirely intact.

It is when the conversation turns to trust that the episode finds its real heart. Doug is direct: you cannot advertise trust. You earn it through your work, your community involvement, and your reputation, and when you make a misstep in a town this size, it spreads like wildfire. Kylie’s version of the same lesson is more pragmatic: word of mouth on the Yorke Peninsula is the best advertising you could possibly have, which means looking after every client, every time, without exception. Her additional piece of hard-won wisdom for any country lawyer? Do your Woolworths shopping online.

Doug reflects on one of the quieter privileges of rural legal practice: the moment you realise you are sitting across the desk from the grandchild of a client you first helped decades ago. He calls it a privilege, and it is hard to disagree. That kind of continuity is particularly characteristic of rural practice. The corporate memory you carry about a family, built across generations, is something a city firm simply cannot replicate. It is also a responsibility, and one reason why Doug’s decision to transition the bulk of his client base to Kylie’s firm, Mildwaters Birth Lawyers, has clearly not been taken lightly.

The conversation takes a sharper turn when farm succession enters the picture. The number of farming families on the Yorke Peninsula, one of Australia’s premier cropping regions, is now a fraction of what it was when Doug first arrived. Farms have grown dramatically, consuming neighbouring holdings, and with that growth has come a corresponding rise in what is at stake when a family asks who gets what. Kylie, who practises in estate and family law as well as holding membership of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), paints a vivid picture of the legal tensions this creates: promises made about farm transfers, falling-outs between parents and children, and the litigation that follows. The old assumption that the farming son gets the farm and off-farm assets go to everyone else is, she notes, increasingly being questioned.
Doug raises another pressure on modern legal practice: the Google-armed client. He recalls a family arriving having looked up the rule against perpetuities the night before. A little knowledge, he observes drily, can be a dangerous thing. Kylie adds that this is precisely why careful, unhurried thinking remains essential, a lesson Doug drummed into her when she first started, back when her instinct was to get everything done as quickly as possible.

The episode closes with one of its most enjoyable exchanges: Steve asks about fictional lawyers. Doug nominates Perry Mason and, with considerably more warmth, Dennis Denuto from The Castle, a man whose grasp of the law was limited but whose faith in the vibe of it was unshakeable. Kylie, more practically, notes that films have given clients thoroughly incorrect expectations about everything from courtroom procedure to the formal reading of the will (there is no such legal requirement) to the idea that marriage automatically entitles each party to half of everything. As for Steve’s elaborate video will, he has just learned it will never be shown. He is very sorry to hear it.

Here are links to a few of Kylie’s blog posts about farm succession, referenced in the discussion:

Kangaroo Island: What a Movie About Two Sisters Can Teach You About Estate Planning

What Troy Cassar-Daley’s ‘Family Farm’ Teaches About Succession Planning On Yorke Peninsula

Why the Most Well-Intentioned Promise About Your Will Might Not Help Your Children

00:38:09 Musical Pilgrimage

In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature My Chérie‘s new song, released today, Stuck Inside My Head.

Adelaide is buzzing this week. WOMADelaide is upon us, and right in the thick of it is local artist My Chérie, whose brand new single Stuck Inside My Head drops today. Written and performed entirely by My Chérie, with additional production, mixing, and mastering by Mario Spate, it is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence, spiritual longing, and the very human challenge of quieting a restless mind. My Chérie has described wanting the production to feel like summoning an inner power: a moment of connection with something bigger, almost like nature answering back. For fans of Soccer Mommy, Samia, and Wolf Alice, and for anyone who has ever lain awake with their thoughts looping at full volume, this one will feel like a hand on the shoulder.

In Kadina, the commercial heart of South Australia&rsquo;s Yorke Peninsula, farming families have been trusting the same lawyers with their most important moments for generations. This episode brings two of those lawyers to the table: Doug Reed, who has practised in Kadina for 50 years and is preparing to retire, and Kylie Mildwaters, who grew up on a nearby farm, left for Adelaide to study law, and came back to build her own thriving practice. Between them, they offer an unusually honest portrait of what country law actually looks like: the trust earned slowly, the gossip that spreads fast, and the quiet privilege of knowing the grandchildren of your very first clients.
There is no SA Drink of the Week this episode
The Musical Pilgrimage this week is perfectly timed: Adelaide artist My Ch&eacute;rie releases her new single Stuck Inside My Head today, the same day she performs at WOMADelaide. It is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence and the challenge of quieting a restless mind, and it could not be a more fitting soundtrack for a week when this city is buzzing with live music and big ideas.
You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We&rsquo;re here to serve!
The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for&nbsp;Best Interview Podcast in Australia&nbsp;at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for&nbsp;Best News and Current Affairs Podcast&nbsp;in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.
And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It&rsquo;s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we&rsquo;ll add you to the list:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au">podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au</a>
If you enjoy the show, please&nbsp;<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/another-boring-thursday-night/id696302138">leave us a 5-star review&nbsp;</a>in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.redbubble.com/people/theadelaideshow/shop?asc=u">The Adelaide Show Shop</a>. We&rsquo;d greatly appreciate it.
And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/complete-list-adelaide-show-episodes/">our index of all episode in one concise page.</a>
Running Sheet: Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law
00:00:00&nbsp;Intro
Introduction
00:00:00&nbsp;SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:03:01&nbsp;Doug Reed and Kylie Mildwaters
Kadina in the 1970s, as Doug Reed (Germein Reed) remembers it, was a proper provincial town: half its current size, built around farming, animated by fierce rivalry between Kadina, Moonta, and Wallaroo, and populated on Fridays by farmers&rsquo; wives dressed to the nines for their weekly shopping. Small Woolworths. No McDonald&rsquo;s. Three pubs per town, and a pub meal was a night out. The frictions, factions, and fictions of small-town life, as Steve puts it, drawing on a line from The Carpathians, were very much in evidence, including, as Doug notes with some amusement, two rival Methodist churches in Kadina alone.
Kylie Mildwaters (<a href="https://mildwatersbyrth.com.au/">Mildwaters Byrth Lawyers &amp; Conveyancers</a>) grew up on the other side of that rivalry, as a Moonta girl who had nothing to do with Kadina. The inter-town competition, she and Doug agree, has mellowed considerably since council amalgamation, though not, they hasten to add, on the sporting field. The footy rivalry remains entirely intact.
It is when the conversation turns to trust that the episode finds its real heart. Doug is direct: you cannot advertise trust. You earn it through your work, your community involvement, and your reputation, and when you make a misstep in a town this size, it spreads like wildfire. Kylie&rsquo;s version of the same lesson is more pragmatic: word of mouth on the Yorke Peninsula is the best advertising you could possibly have, which means looking after every client, every time, without exception. Her additional piece of hard-won wisdom for any country lawyer? Do your Woolworths shopping online.
Doug reflects on one of the quieter privileges of rural legal practice: the moment you realise you are sitting across the desk from the grandchild of a client you first helped decades ago. He calls it a privilege, and it is hard to disagree. That kind of continuity is particularly characteristic of rural practice. The corporate memory you carry about a family, built across generations, is something a city firm simply cannot replicate. It is also a responsibility, and one reason why Doug&rsquo;s decision to transition the bulk of his client base to Kylie&rsquo;s firm, Mildwaters Birth Lawyers, has clearly not been taken lightly.
The conversation takes a sharper turn when farm succession enters the picture. The number of farming families on the Yorke Peninsula, one of Australia&rsquo;s premier cropping regions, is now a fraction of what it was when Doug first arrived. Farms have grown dramatically, consuming neighbouring holdings, and with that growth has come a corresponding rise in what is at stake when a family asks who gets what. Kylie, who practises in estate and family law as well as holding membership of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), paints a vivid picture of the legal tensions this creates: promises made about farm transfers, falling-outs between parents and children, and the litigation that follows. The old assumption that the farming son gets the farm and off-farm assets go to everyone else is, she notes, increasingly being questioned. Doug raises another pressure on modern legal practice: the Google-armed client. He recalls a family arriving having looked up the rule against perpetuities the night before. A little knowledge, he observes drily, can be a dangerous thing. Kylie adds that this is precisely why careful, unhurried thinking remains essential, a lesson Doug drummed into her when she first started, back when her instinct was to get everything done as quickly as possible.
The episode closes with one of its most enjoyable exchanges: Steve asks about fictional lawyers. Doug nominates Perry Mason and, with considerably more warmth, Dennis Denuto from The Castle, a man whose grasp of the law was limited but whose faith in the vibe of it was unshakeable. Kylie, more practically, notes that films have given clients thoroughly incorrect expectations about everything from courtroom procedure to the formal reading of the will (there is no such legal requirement) to the idea that marriage automatically entitles each party to half of everything. As for Steve&rsquo;s elaborate video will, he has just learned it will never be shown. He is very sorry to hear it.
Here are links to a few of Kylie&rsquo;s blog posts about farm succession, referenced in the discussion:
<a href="https://mildwatersbyrth.com.au/kangaroo-island-what-a-movie-about-two-sisters-can-teach-you-about-estate-planning/">Kangaroo Island: What a Movie About Two Sisters Can Teach You About Estate Planning</a>
<a href="https://mildwatersbyrth.com.au/what-troy-cassar-daleys-family-farm-teaches-about-succession-planning-on-yorke-peninsula/">What Troy Cassar-Daley&rsquo;s &lsquo;Family Farm&rsquo; Teaches About Succession Planning On Yorke Peninsula</a>
<a href="https://mildwatersbyrth.com.au/why-the-most-well-intentioned-promise-about-your-will-might-not-help-your-children/">Why the Most Well-Intentioned Promise About Your Will Might Not Help Your Children</a>
00:38:09&nbsp;Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mycheriemusic.com/">My Ch&eacute;rie</a>&lsquo;s new song, released today,&nbsp;Stuck Inside My Head.
Adelaide is buzzing this week.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.womadelaide.com.au/lineup/season-2026/my-cherie">WOMADelaide</a>&nbsp;is upon us, and right in the thick of it is local artist My Ch&eacute;rie, whose brand new single&nbsp;Stuck Inside My Head&nbsp;drops today. Written and performed entirely by My Ch&eacute;rie, with additional production, mixing, and mastering by Mario Spate, it is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence, spiritual longing, and the very human challenge of quieting a restless mind. My Ch&eacute;rie has described wanting the production to feel like summoning an inner power: a moment of connection with something bigger, almost like nature answering back. For fans of Soccer Mommy, Samia, and Wolf Alice, and for anyone who has ever lain awake with their thoughts looping at full volume, this one will feel like a hand on the shoulder.

Doug Reed celebrates 50 years of Kadina legal practice as he prepares to retire, while former protégé Kylie Mildwaters reveals what rural law really looks like when you run into your clients at the footy, navigate farm succession battles, and do your Woolworths shopping online.

Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law

Writing The Great Australian Novel Highlights

111 Romance South Australian Style Highlights

The white marquees are not going up in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden this year. Adelaide Writers’ Week, a festival that has graced this city since 1960, was cancelled following a sequence of events set in motion by a disinvitation that drew international condemnation, triggered the resignation of director Louise Adler and nearly the entire board, and ultimately prompted an unreserved apology from a newly constituted board. Community alternatives, including Constellations at the Adelaide Town Hall, have stepped forward to keep the spirit of the festival alive. The Adelaide Show is doing the same, in its own way.

There is no SA Drink of the Week in this episode.

The Musical Pilgrimage closes the episode with an original composition, “Uncomfortable Ideas,” written by Steve Davis and performed by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos. More than a few people have suggested it deserves to be the unofficial anthem of this year’s festival.

You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve!

The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.

And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au

If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it.

And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concise
page.

Running Sheet: Adelaide Writers’ Week in Absentia

00:00:00 Intro

Introduction

00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week

There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.

00:06:25 Adelaide Writers’ Week In Absentia

Steve Davis opens by acknowledging the cancellation of Adelaide Writers’ Week and the circumstances behind it, without dwelling on controversy for its own sake. The spirit of the festival, he argues, cannot be legislated out of existence, and The Adelaide Show is here to prove it.

Before the archive episodes begin, Steve offers a handful of literary touchstones. Patrick White observed that writing a novel is like an illness from which one is trying to recover, and that the artist’s role is to make sense of a world becoming increasingly nonsensical. Clive James described great books as voices that speak across the centuries, telling you that you are not alone. Vonnegut reminded us that we must be careful about what we pretend to be, and that reading leads to a life more grand, more empathetic, more civilised. And Douglas Adams, who loved deadlines for the whooshing noise they make as they go by, gives us a fitting frame for a festival that simply did not happen.

Two archive episodes follow, chosen for what they reveal about the real work of writing and the underappreciated world of genre fiction.

Segment One: Writing, Publishing, and Resetting Expectations, Episode 308
The pandemic was supposed to be the great gift to aspiring novelists. Time, solitude, and the vague sense that history was being made. What actually happened, for most people, was considerably less cinematic.

In this 2020 recording, four people who know the industry from the inside cut through the life-coach optimism that surrounded the period. Authors Jane Ainslie and Michelle Prak bring the writing perspective. Publishers Michael Bollen of Wakefield Press and Rommie Corso of Hardshell Publishing bring the business view. Together they create an unusually candid picture of what it actually takes to turn a manuscript into a book that someone buys.

The moment that sets the tone comes early. Jane Ainslie addresses the idea that everyone has a book inside them with the sort of directness that suggests she has been asked this at a lot of dinner parties: not every story the world has inside it is a story the world is waiting to read. Michelle Prak, who has put herself through five, six, sometimes seven drafts before a manuscript goes anywhere near an editor, adds that writing is a deeply enjoyable, deeply expensive hobby that tends to crowd out a great deal of everything else.

Michael Bollen introduces a concept that most aspiring authors have not quite faced: a book’s shelf life, for literary fiction, sits somewhere between milk and yoga. He describes the editorial process as a dance, with the editor standing in for the general reader, keeping an ego-free eye on whether the character who died on page seven has somehow reappeared at the party on page 86. Rommie Corso explains that self-published authors often resist the very commercial adjustments that would help their books find readers, wanting independence and viability at the same time. These do not always coexist.

There is a fine moment around the ethics of drawing real people into fiction. Michelle Prak describes her novel Goodbye Newsroom, set against the backdrop of shrinking newsrooms, as inspired by rather than transcribed from real events. Jane Ainslie explains that fictionalising her nursing experiences allowed her to treat them with more dignity than a straight memoir would permit. Steve raises the precedent of a Wakefield Press novel about South Australian politics whose characters bore a striking resemblance to identifiable figures (that was a reference to The novel you’re thinking of is Never A True Word by Michael McGuire, a former journalist and long‑time political writer for The Australian and The Advertiser – his interview was in episode 198). Michael Bollen confirms, diplomatically, that some adjustments were made.

Segment Two: The Art and Heart of Romance, Episode 111
The candles are on the table. There is a fire going. The Scenic Hotel has given this conversation a room of its own, and three romance authors have settled in to make a serious case for a genre that represents the largest slice of fiction sales on the planet, and which continues to be treated by the literary world as something slightly embarrassing.

Trish Morey, Victoria Purman, and Bronwyn Stuart are completely clear-eyed about what they do and why it matters. Romance, Trish explains, is not a “whodunit” but a “howdunit.” You know who ends up together. The pleasure is in the journey, and in not being able to work out how on earth these two people are going to find their way through all the obstacles between them. Victoria adds that romance readers were among the earliest adopters of digital books, and that the genre has long sustained a community of writers who support one another in ways other literary communities have not managed to replicate.

The conversation turns, as it always does in the best episodes, on a moment of genuine revelation. Victoria puts it plainly: the deepest appeal of romance fiction is that the heroine is truly seen by the hero. Trish confirms it. Steve, in what he describes as his second light bulb moment of the evening, sits with this for a beat before acknowledging that this is not a small thing.

Steve is also pressed into service reading from one of the novels in the voice of a cowboy hero. He brings considerable commitment to the performance. The authors’ response is warm, specific, and entirely at his expense.

The episode closes with the “Is It News?” quiz, hosted by Nigel Dobson, which draws on historical romance headlines from 1923 South Australia and, against all odds, confirms that the real thing was considerably more scandalous than anything currently on the romance shelf.

02:15:32 Musical Pilgrimage

In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Uncomfortable Ideas (The Adelaide Writers’ Week Song) by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos.

Writers’ festivals exist, at their best, to put uncomfortable ideas into a room and let people sit with them. Adelaide Writers’ Week found itself this year at the centre of a very public argument about whether that is still something institutions are willing to do.

The festival has been here before. Germaine Greer being Germaine Greer. The exposure of fabricated Holocaust revisionism behind the Helen Demidenko affair. Patrick White in 1986 urging writers to ignore critics if they wanted to avoid producing work that was safe and uninspiring and pleasing to nobody. Writers’ festivals are unsettling because they surface ideas people would often prefer to leave alone. They are necessary because a society that cannot examine uncomfortable thinking out loud gradually loses the capacity to protect itself from thinking that goes unexamined.

“Uncomfortable Ideas” was written by Steve Davis to speak directly to that tension. It addresses the short-sightedness of those who believe audiences need to be shielded from difficult thoughts, and it takes seriously Patrick White’s case for artistic courage that does not stop to ask permission. Listen for the bridge, which captures the specific feeling of an invitation to speak in the open air being overshadowed by voices that underestimated what a well-read audience is capable of holding.

The white marquees are not going up in the Pioneer Women&rsquo;s Memorial Garden this year. Adelaide Writers&rsquo; Week, a festival that has graced this city since 1960, was cancelled following a sequence of events set in motion by a disinvitation that drew international condemnation, triggered the resignation of director Louise Adler and nearly the entire board, and ultimately prompted an unreserved apology from a newly constituted board. Community alternatives, including Constellations at the Adelaide Town Hall, have stepped forward to keep the spirit of the festival alive. The Adelaide Show is doing the same, in its own way.
There is no SA Drink of the Week in this episode.
The Musical Pilgrimage closes the episode with an original composition, &ldquo;Uncomfortable Ideas,&rdquo; written by Steve Davis and performed by Steve Davis &amp; The Virtualosos. More than a few people have suggested it deserves to be the unofficial anthem of this year&rsquo;s festival.
You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We&rsquo;re here to serve!
The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for&nbsp;Best Interview Podcast in Australia&nbsp;at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for&nbsp;Best News and Current Affairs Podcast&nbsp;in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.
And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It&rsquo;s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we&rsquo;ll add you to the list:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au">podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au</a>
If you enjoy the show, please&nbsp;<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/another-boring-thursday-night/id696302138">leave us a 5-star review&nbsp;</a>in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.redbubble.com/people/theadelaideshow/shop?asc=u">The Adelaide Show Shop</a>. We&rsquo;d greatly appreciate it.
And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/complete-list-adelaide-show-episodes/">our index of all episode in one concise page.</a>
Running Sheet: Adelaide Writers&rsquo; Week in Absentia
00:00:00&nbsp;Intro
Introduction
00:00:00&nbsp;SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:06:25&nbsp;Adelaide Writers&rsquo; Week In Absentia
Steve Davis opens by acknowledging the cancellation of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/about/about-writers-week">Adelaide Writers&rsquo; Wee</a>k and the circumstances behind it, without dwelling on controversy for its own sake. The spirit of the festival, he argues, cannot be legislated out of existence, and The Adelaide Show is here to prove it.
Before the archive episodes begin, Steve offers a handful of literary touchstones. Patrick White observed that writing a novel is like an illness from which one is trying to recover, and that the artist&rsquo;s role is to make sense of a world becoming increasingly nonsensical. Clive James described great books as voices that speak across the centuries, telling you that you are not alone. Vonnegut reminded us that we must be careful about what we pretend to be, and that reading leads to a life more grand, more empathetic, more civilised. And Douglas Adams, who loved deadlines for the whooshing noise they make as they go by, gives us a fitting frame for a festival that simply did not happen.
Two archive episodes follow, chosen for what they reveal about the real work of writing and the underappreciated world of genre fiction.
Segment One: Writing, Publishing, and Resetting Expectations, Episode 308 The pandemic was supposed to be the great gift to aspiring novelists. Time, solitude, and the vague sense that history was being made. What actually happened, for most people, was considerably less cinematic.
In this 2020 recording, four people who know the industry from the inside cut through the life-coach optimism that surrounded the period. Authors&nbsp;<a href="https://janeainslie.com/blog/">Jane Ainslie</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://michelleprak.com/">Michelle Prak</a>&nbsp;bring the writing perspective. Publishers Michael Bollen of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/">Wakefield Press</a>&nbsp;and Rommie Corso of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hardshellpublishing.com/">Hardshell Publishing</a>&nbsp;bring the business view. Together they create an unusually candid picture of what it actually takes to turn a manuscript into a book that someone buys.
The moment that sets the tone comes early. Jane Ainslie addresses the idea that everyone has a book inside them with the sort of directness that suggests she has been asked this at a lot of dinner parties: not every story the world has inside it is a story the world is waiting to read. Michelle Prak, who has put herself through five, six, sometimes seven drafts before a manuscript goes anywhere near an editor, adds that writing is a deeply enjoyable, deeply expensive hobby that tends to crowd out a great deal of everything else.
Michael Bollen introduces a concept that most aspiring authors have not quite faced: a book&rsquo;s shelf life, for literary fiction, sits somewhere between milk and yoga. He describes the editorial process as a dance, with the editor standing in for the general reader, keeping an ego-free eye on whether the character who died on page seven has somehow reappeared at the party on page 86. Rommie Corso explains that self-published authors often resist the very commercial adjustments that would help their books find readers, wanting independence and viability at the same time. These do not always coexist.
There is a fine moment around the ethics of drawing real people into fiction. Michelle Prak describes her novel&nbsp;Goodbye Newsroom, set against the backdrop of shrinking newsrooms, as inspired by rather than transcribed from real events. Jane Ainslie explains that fictionalising her nursing experiences allowed her to treat them with more dignity than a straight memoir would permit. Steve raises the precedent of a Wakefield Press novel about South Australian politics whose characters bore a striking resemblance to identifiable figures (that was a reference to The novel you&rsquo;re thinking of is&nbsp;Never A True Word&nbsp;by Michael McGuire, a former journalist and long‑time political writer for&nbsp;The Australian&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Advertiser&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/podcast-episodes/198-never-a-true-word/">his interview was in episode 198</a>). Michael Bollen confirms, diplomatically, that some adjustments were made.
Segment Two: The Art and Heart of Romance, Episode 111 The candles are on the table. There is a fire going. The Scenic Hotel has given this conversation a room of its own, and three romance authors have settled in to make a serious case for a genre that represents the largest slice of fiction sales on the planet, and which continues to be treated by the literary world as something slightly embarrassing.
<a href="http://www.trishmorey.com/">Trish Morey</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.victoriapurman.com/">Victoria Purman</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bronwynstuart.com/">Bronwyn Stuart</a>&nbsp;are completely clear-eyed about what they do and why it matters. Romance, Trish explains, is not a &ldquo;whodunit&rdquo; but a &ldquo;howdunit.&rdquo; You know who ends up together. The pleasure is in the journey, and in not being able to work out how on earth these two people are going to find their way through all the obstacles between them. Victoria adds that romance readers were among the earliest adopters of digital books, and that the genre has long sustained a community of writers who support one another in ways other literary communities have not managed to replicate.
The conversation turns, as it always does in the best episodes, on a moment of genuine revelation. Victoria puts it plainly: the deepest appeal of romance fiction is that the heroine is truly seen by the hero. Trish confirms it. Steve, in what he describes as his second light bulb moment of the evening, sits with this for a beat before acknowledging that this is not a small thing.
Steve is also pressed into service reading from one of the novels in the voice of a cowboy hero. He brings considerable commitment to the performance. The authors&rsquo; response is warm, specific, and entirely at his expense.
The episode closes with the &ldquo;Is It News?&rdquo; quiz, hosted by Nigel Dobson, which draws on historical romance headlines from 1923 South Australia and, against all odds, confirms that the real thing was considerably more scandalous than anything currently on the romance shelf.
02:15:32&nbsp;Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature&nbsp;<a href="https://stevedavis.com.au/blog/uncomfortable-ideas-the-adelaide-writers-week-song/">Uncomfortable Ideas (The Adelaide Writers&rsquo; Week Song)&nbsp;by Steve Davis &amp; The Virtualosos</a>.
Writers&rsquo; festivals exist, at their best, to put uncomfortable ideas into a room and let people sit with them. Adelaide Writers&rsquo; Week found itself this year at the centre of a very public argument about whether that is still something institutions are willing to do.
The festival has been here before. Germaine Greer being Germaine Greer. The exposure of fabricated Holocaust revisionism behind the Helen Demidenko affair. Patrick White in 1986 urging writers to ignore critics if they wanted to avoid producing work that was safe and uninspiring and pleasing to nobody. Writers&rsquo; festivals are unsettling because they surface ideas people would often prefer to leave alone. They are necessary because a society that cannot examine uncomfortable thinking out loud gradually loses the capacity to protect itself from thinking that goes unexamined.
&ldquo;Uncomfortable Ideas&rdquo; was written by Steve Davis to speak directly to that tension. It addresses the short-sightedness of those who believe audiences need to be shielded from difficult thoughts, and it takes seriously Patrick White&rsquo;s case for artistic courage that does not stop to ask permission. Listen for the bridge, which captures the specific feeling of an invitation to speak in the open air being overshadowed by voices that underestimated what a well-read audience is capable of holding.

In the wake of Adelaide Writers’ Week’s cancellation, Steve Davis revisits two beloved archive episodes, celebrating the craft and commerce of storytelling through the voices of South Australian authors, publishers, and romance writers, closing with an original song written for this particular moment in our cultural life.

428 - Adelaide Writers' Week In Absentia

Rob Newman

After 25+ years of reviewing Adelaide Fringe shows, Steve takes a sabbatical this year. But there’s one show he can’t help spotlighting: Rob Newman’s debut solo performance “Don’t Die Wondering”. Newman’s story offers something rare, a comedian willing to be deeply reflective about the journey that brought him to the stage at 60, shaped by a decade of hospitals and life-or-death moments.

This episode contains no SA Drink of the Week segment.

The Musical Pilgrimage features Steve’s own song about the Adelaide Fringe. Through “Centre Stage”, performed by Steve Davis and The Virtuosos, he offers a bittersweet love letter to a festival he’s watched change over decades. The segment includes his conversation with FiveAA’s Richard Pascoe about reviewing standards, five-star review inflation, and why the Fringe remains a jewel in South Australia’s crown.

You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve!

The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.

And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au

If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it.

And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concise
page.

Running Sheet: This Adelaide Fringe Don’t Die Wondering

00:00:00 Intro

Introduction

00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week

There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.

00:03:17 Rob Newman

Rob Newman appears on screen in full purple surgical scrubs against a hospital backdrop. It’s not a gimmick. Over the past decade, he’s spent considerable time in hospitals and operating theatres, told more than once to gather his family and say goodbye. These experiences form the bedrock of Don’t Die Wondering.

The path to standup wasn’t part of Newman’s original plan. He traces it back to a coffee conversation with Steve 10 to 12 years ago. “Your suggestion at the time was, come and try standup,” Newman recalls. “It’s a great way to get the confidence to do public speaking.” What began as preparation for property market speaking tours became something much deeper.

Steve shares his own early standup experience, driving across Adelaide to work with Glynn Nicholas, heart palpitating so strongly he could feel his pulse under his eyebrows. Newman agrees about the terror, offering perhaps the most vivid description of pre-show nerves: “It’s the best cure for constipation you’ll ever get in your life.”

But the terror serves a purpose. Newman describes managing the fear of judgment. “Not so much to lose it, but control it in the sense of embracing the fear of it,” he explains. That fear never entirely disappears. What changes is the ability to handle surprises, to relax into improvisation, to step away from verbatim scripts.

The conversation explores performing as yourself versus hiding behind characters. Steve admits he gravitated toward characters partly because “anything negative feedback that might happen is water off a duck’s back. In some ways it’s the cheat’s way out.” Newman has stuck with vulnerability. “Be yourself,” he says. “Basically unzip yourself and be vulnerable.”

Steve’s immediate response: “What’s your show rated?” Newman confirms it’s R-rated, though the rating speaks more to emotional honesty than shock value.

Newman’s been running around Adelaide dressed as a surgeon, offering free medical checks as promotion for the show. It’s playful promotion, but also a way of inhabiting the hospital world that shaped his perspective.

Newman’s journey through the comedy ranks has been patient and methodical. Starting in his early fifties, he’s spent years developing his craft before attempting a solo Fringe show at 60. The title “Don’t Die Wondering” carries weight when spoken by someone who’s genuinely faced that possibility.

Rob Newman was a grant recipient through the Adelaide Fringe Foundation.

00:38:30 Musical Pilgrimage

In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Centre Stage (The Adelaide Fringe Song) by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos.

After 25+ years of reviewing Adelaide Fringe shows, often two to three per night, Steve presents his own song about the festival. “Centre Stage” is what he describes as “still a love song to the Fringe and just a cheeky fringe type, steampunk, gothic reflection on the state of play.” The lyrics trace the festival’s shift from experimental counterculture to celebrity-driven programming: “You were fringe to me / You did not need celebrities / But now a household name comes and cash in on fame / And crowds out smaller shows that have more soul.” His reviewing experience infuses the verses, cataloguing years spent in theatres, on blankets in parks, and sweltering in church halls without air vents, always writing reviews “to help all thinking people choose emerging art in our town.”

The conversation with FiveAA’s Richard Pascoe addresses reviewing standards and the proliferation of five-star reviews. “There are some reviewers who are promised critics, et cetera, but there’s a lot of light dusting out there,” Steve observes. “They have become cheapened, like the money in Argentina during their inflation.” Steve’s reviewing philosophy was always accountability: “I had to write them knowing that you would go and buy a ticket and you need to be able to look me in the eye and say, yep, that was accurate.” Despite his criticisms of how the Fringe has changed, Steve’s message remains clear: attend the Fringe, take chances on weird and experimental shows, support artists attempting something genuinely different. “Enjoy the Fringe. We should, no matter how we do it. It’s an absolute jewel in our crown.”

After 25+ years of reviewing Adelaide Fringe shows, Steve takes a sabbatical this year. But there&rsquo;s one show he can&rsquo;t help spotlighting: Rob Newman&rsquo;s debut solo performance &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t Die Wondering&rdquo;. Newman&rsquo;s story offers something rare, a comedian willing to be deeply reflective about the journey that brought him to the stage at 60, shaped by a decade of hospitals and life-or-death moments.
This episode contains no SA Drink of the Week segment.
The Musical Pilgrimage features Steve&rsquo;s own song about the Adelaide Fringe. Through &ldquo;Centre Stage&rdquo;, performed by Steve Davis and The Virtuosos, he offers a bittersweet love letter to a festival he&rsquo;s watched change over decades. The segment includes his conversation with FiveAA&rsquo;s Richard Pascoe about reviewing standards, five-star review inflation, and why the Fringe remains a jewel in South Australia&rsquo;s crown.
You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We&rsquo;re here to serve!
The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for&nbsp;Best Interview Podcast in Australia&nbsp;at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for&nbsp;Best News and Current Affairs Podcast&nbsp;in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.
And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It&rsquo;s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we&rsquo;ll add you to the list:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au">podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au</a>
If you enjoy the show, please&nbsp;<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/another-boring-thursday-night/id696302138">leave us a 5-star review&nbsp;</a>in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.redbubble.com/people/theadelaideshow/shop?asc=u">The Adelaide Show Shop</a>. We&rsquo;d greatly appreciate it.
And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/complete-list-adelaide-show-episodes/">our index of all episode in one concise page.</a>
Running Sheet: This Adelaide Fringe Don&rsquo;t Die Wondering
00:00:00&nbsp;Intro
Introduction
00:00:00&nbsp;SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:03:17&nbsp;Rob Newman
Rob Newman appears on screen in full purple surgical scrubs against a hospital backdrop. It&rsquo;s not a gimmick. Over the past decade, he&rsquo;s spent considerable time in hospitals and operating theatres, told more than once to gather his family and say goodbye. These experiences form the bedrock of&nbsp;<a href="https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/rob-newman-in-don-t-die-wondering-af2026">Don&rsquo;t Die Wondering</a>.
The path to standup wasn&rsquo;t part of Newman&rsquo;s original plan. He traces it back to a coffee conversation with Steve 10 to 12 years ago. &ldquo;Your suggestion at the time was, come and try standup,&rdquo; Newman recalls. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great way to get the confidence to do public speaking.&rdquo; What began as preparation for property market speaking tours became something much deeper.
Steve shares his own early standup experience, driving across Adelaide to work with Glynn Nicholas, heart palpitating so strongly he could feel his pulse under his eyebrows. Newman agrees about the terror, offering perhaps the most vivid description of pre-show nerves: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the best cure for constipation you&rsquo;ll ever get in your life.&rdquo;
But the terror serves a purpose. Newman describes managing the fear of judgment. &ldquo;Not so much to lose it, but control it in the sense of embracing the fear of it,&rdquo; he explains. That fear never entirely disappears. What changes is the ability to handle surprises, to relax into improvisation, to step away from verbatim scripts.
The conversation explores performing as yourself versus hiding behind characters. Steve admits he gravitated toward characters partly because &ldquo;anything negative feedback that might happen is water off a duck&rsquo;s back. In some ways it&rsquo;s the cheat&rsquo;s way out.&rdquo; Newman has stuck with vulnerability. &ldquo;Be yourself,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Basically unzip yourself and be vulnerable.&rdquo;
Steve&rsquo;s immediate response: &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your show rated?&rdquo; Newman confirms it&rsquo;s R-rated, though the rating speaks more to emotional honesty than shock value.
Newman&rsquo;s been running around Adelaide dressed as a surgeon, offering free medical checks as promotion for the show. It&rsquo;s playful promotion, but also a way of inhabiting the hospital world that shaped his perspective.
Newman&rsquo;s journey through the comedy ranks has been patient and methodical. Starting in his early fifties, he&rsquo;s spent years developing his craft before attempting a solo Fringe show at 60. The title &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t Die Wondering&rdquo; carries weight when spoken by someone who&rsquo;s genuinely faced that possibility.
Rob Newman was a grant recipient through the Adelaide Fringe Foundation.
00:38:30&nbsp;Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature&nbsp;<a href="https://stevedavis.com.au/blog/centre-stage-the-adelaide-fringe-song/">Centre Stage (The Adelaide Fringe Song)&nbsp;by Steve Davis &amp; The Virtualosos</a>.
After 25+ years of reviewing Adelaide Fringe shows, often two to three per night, Steve presents his own song about the festival. &ldquo;Centre Stage&rdquo; is what he describes as &ldquo;still a love song to the Fringe and just a cheeky fringe type, steampunk, gothic reflection on the state of play.&rdquo; The lyrics trace the festival&rsquo;s shift from experimental counterculture to celebrity-driven programming: &ldquo;You were fringe to me / You did not need celebrities / But now a household name comes and cash in on fame / And crowds out smaller shows that have more soul.&rdquo; His reviewing experience infuses the verses, cataloguing years spent in theatres, on blankets in parks, and sweltering in church halls without air vents, always writing reviews &ldquo;to help all thinking people choose emerging art in our town.&rdquo;
The conversation with FiveAA&rsquo;s Richard Pascoe addresses reviewing standards and the proliferation of five-star reviews. &ldquo;There are some reviewers who are promised critics, et cetera, but there&rsquo;s a lot of light dusting out there,&rdquo; Steve observes. &ldquo;They have become cheapened, like the money in Argentina during their inflation.&rdquo; Steve&rsquo;s reviewing philosophy was always accountability: &ldquo;I had to write them knowing that you would go and buy a ticket and you need to be able to look me in the eye and say, yep, that was accurate.&rdquo; Despite his criticisms of how the Fringe has changed, Steve&rsquo;s message remains clear: attend the Fringe, take chances on weird and experimental shows, support artists attempting something genuinely different. &ldquo;Enjoy the Fringe. We should, no matter how we do it. It&rsquo;s an absolute jewel in our crown.&rdquo;

Standup comedian Rob Newman discusses starting his comedy career at 60, turning multiple near-death hospital experiences into the foundation for his debut solo Adelaide Fringe show "Don't Die Wondering", while Steve shares his musical reflection on the changing Adelaide Fringe through his song "Centre Stage".

286 - The Kilsby Sinkhole

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