Books and Ideas at Montalto

"Exercise is like a vacuum cleaner for aging tissue and renews your tissue. You can look at the biopsy of muscle and your muscle is frail and old. After you've done weight training, your muscle is indistinguishable from a young person's." Norman Swan With a career spanning over thirty years as a radio and television presenter, health journalist Norman Swan is a stalwart of the Australian media landscape. Over lunch at Montalto Winery, Swan discussed his career as a medical professional in the public eye and his latest book So You Want To Live Younger Longer? Combining wellbeing and health tips with scientific insights, the book provides a practical and factual perspective, sans sensationalism, about how to live a healthy and positive life – at any age. Join one of Australia’s most trusted medical voices for a conversation about lifelong health and communicating in a crisis. Hosted by Sally Warhaft. Presented in partnership with Montalto. This event was recorded on Thursday 29 September 2022 at Montalto. Featured music is Flyin - New Location

"Mark Twain said, fiction must be plausible, truth needn't be, or words to that effect. And truth is, it's so much more unlikely. And so everything in this book that seems unlikely, those are the true things." – Geraldine Brooks. Geraldine Brooks is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist behind works such as March, Year of Wonders and Foreign Correspondence. Her latest release, Horse, is a sweeping narrative that weaves together three encounters with Lexington, the greatest racehorse in US history, to explore the legacy of racism and slavery in America. Over a warming wintry lunch at Montalto, with produce straight from the kitchen garden, Brooks joined Santilla Chingaipe for a discussion about Horse, what drew her to the story of Lexington, as well as her own illustrious career. Presented in partnership with Montalto. This event was recorded on Friday 22 July 2022 at Montalto

What better way to celebrate Stephanie Alexander’s latest cookbook, Home, than with an intimate conversation at award-winning restaurant and winery Montalto. Hear Alexander reflect on her unparalleled five-decade career as a cook, writer and restaurateur, and the legacy she has built for generations of professionals and amateurs in kitchens around the country. This event was recorded on Thursday 21 April 2022. Presented in partnership with Montalto. The bookseller for this event was Antipodes Bookshop and Gallery Featured music is Living in a Fantasy by Pulsed.

How do we maintain friendships as we age? How do these friendships impact who we are – or who we become? And … exactly how should we grow old? Charlotte Wood asks these questions of aging and friendship in her highly-anticipated new novel, The Weekend – about three women in their 70s who gather to clean out the house of their friend Sylvie after her death.  The lives and stories of women are at the core of Wood’s writing. The author of six novels and one book of non-fiction, Wood won the 2016 Stella Prize for her extraordinary novel The Natural Way of Things. She has been longlisted and shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, and was recently awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to literature. At Montalto with host Elizabeth McCarthy, Wood discusses mortality, female friendship and the dilemmas that face women as they age. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do we become estranged from ourselves – and from the people and places that have moulded us? What’s the way back? And how can we begin again? These questions are at the heart of the new book from award-winning writer Andrea Goldsmith. Invented Lives is about a young Russian-Jewish woman who arrives in Australia in the mid-1980s as a refugee. It’s an affectionate portrait of 1980s Melbourne, and a sophisticated and engrossing novel of ideas – about exile, about multicultural Australia, and about the social, political and technological tides that impact our personal lives. Invented Lives is Goldsmith’s eighth novel. Best known for her 2015 Melbourne Prize-winning novel, The Memory Trap, and for the Miles Franklin-shortlisted 2003 novel, The Prosperous Thief, Goldsmith is also an accomplished essayist and superb short-story writer. At Montalto with Michael Williams, Goldsmith discusses her latest novel and her body of work. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tony Birch is among Australia’s finest living writers. A poet, activist and academic, as well as an acclaimed novelist and short-story writer, Birch’s writing is concerned with Australians, especially Indigenous Australians, living life on the fringes. He writes, too, about the dark shadow cast by the state in the everyday lives of marginalised people. In 2017, he became the first Aboriginal writer to win the Patrick White Award, in recognition of his invaluable body of work, including the novels Blood and Ghost River and the short-story collections, Common People and The Promise. His new book, The White Girl, is about the Stolen Generations, set in 1960s rural Australia. It’s the story of Odette, and her fair-skinned granddaughter, who she must protect from authorities at all costs. At Montalto, he joins Michael Williams for a conversation about writing, research and the politics of prejudice – then and now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Simon Schama is a familiar figure on the BBC as well as a professor at Columbia University, and he’s produced multi-volume histories of Britain, documentaries with momentous names like The American Futureand a TV series called Simon Schama’s Power of Art. He's a heavyweight scholar, best known for in-depth works on French history, Jewish history, art history and Dutch history. But he’s also a writer of great versatility who has concerned himself – through his columns for the New Yorker and the Financial Times –with a dizzying array of topics, from poetry and baseball to Tom Waits and ice-cream. At Montalto, in conversation with David Hansen, he draws from his new BBC series, Civilisations – which explores the origins of human creativity, and its universal importance – and from … well, millenia of artworks and ideas. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One Hundred Years of Dirt – Rick Morton’s unflinching memoir – tells of growing up on a cattle station in Queensland: of witnessing a horrific accident befall his brother; his father’s alcoholism; his mother’s strength. It’s a story of poverty, drug addiction, cruelty, anger and tragedy; of love and endurance. The Age praised its ‘exquisite detail’; Christos Tsiolkas has described it as ‘honest and harsh and beautiful and loving’.  At the heart of the book is the question of social mobility – and it’s a question asked in a time of unfavourable odds. Wealth inequality in Australia is growing. The highest 20% of income earners make five times as much of those in the lowest 20%. In this lowest 20%, we’re most likely to see people who are unemployed, single parents, those aged over 65, migrants from non-English speaking countries, and those living in rural and regional Australia.  For many years, Morton was the social affairs writer for the Australian. One Hundred Years of Dirt blends Morton’s own story with reportage and social commentary on how these issues and stories play out every day across Australia. It is both a story of one man and one family, and a story of this country.  In this discussion with Elizabeth McCarthy at Montalto, Morton shares the process of living and writing his story. Tune in for a discussion about hope and celebrating survival; the lessons we can learn about Australia, and the work we could do to challenge and change inequality. Presented in partnership with Montalto. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom and Meg Keneally are an unlikely crack novel-writing team who write about an unlikely crack murder-investigation team. Tom Keneally is an icon of Australian literature: a Booker Prize-winner, a Miles Franklin-winner, and the author of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Schindler’s Ark and other classics. Meg Keneally is a former journalist and PR specialist turned crime writer. The father-daughter pair have now co-written four books in the Monsarrat historical crime-novel series, about a convict and his trusted housekeeper who travel between Australian penal colonies cracking murder cases. Their latest book, The Ink Stain, sees Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney travel to Sydney to investigate a corruption case that might extend all the way to the governor. How did the Keneally collaboration come about? What are their creative similarities and differences as writers? Hear from this pair of gifted storytellers as they answer these questions, and many more, at Montalto with Elizabeth McCarthy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jock Serong is known as an author of gripping books about crime and catastrophe. His stories spark and seethe with tense emotional and political detail, often drawing on his other skills – in law, and in surf writing. He’s won wide critical acclaim for Quota, On the Java Ridge and The Rules of Backyard Cricket. Serong’s latest, Preservation, takes readers through a different kind of crime writing – this time set in 1797, and based on the true story of the shipwrecked Sydney Cove. It follows Lieutenant Joshua Grayling’s investigation of the wreck, its three terribly injured survivors, and their encounters with an unfamiliar land. At Montalto, Jock Serong chats with Elizabeth McCarthy about Preservation, human misdeeds, and the search for truth amid conflicting accounts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘In fairytales, the characters who look different are often cast as the villain or monsters. It's only when they shed their unconventional skin that they are seen as "good" or less frightening.’ Carly Findlay looks different. She’s an award-winning writer, appearance activist and speaker who lives with ichthyosis – a rare, severe skin condition. Say Hello is her new memoir, filled with anecdotes and observations on her life to date, and on ableism, representation and beauty privilege. Of its name, she explains it’s ‘what I want people to do, instead of ignoring me, looking shocked or scared, or making a rude comment about my face’. Findlay’s book serves as a confident manifesto on disability and appearance diversity. Also recently announced as the editor of a forthcoming collection, Growing Up Disabled in Australia, she joins us at Montalto for a chat about disability-led literature, difference and telling your story on your own terms. Presented in partnership with Montalto. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the long-running and trusted ‘Brain Food’ columnist for Fairfax, Richard Cornish tackles food and cooking questions from readers around Australia. He responds to practical queries (‘How much is an American ‘stick of butter’?), experimental queries (‘Can I make mayonnaise using the juice from a jar of pickled cucumbers?), scientific queries (‘What is the difference between taste and flavour?’) and even paranormal queries (‘My grandmother claimed she could "hear" when her cakes were ready. Is there any science in this?’). Richard’s blend of humour and warmth and his broad knowledge of culinary culture are reflected not just in his ‘Brain Food’ columns, but in his journalism and recipe books. He is the author of My Year Without Meat, about his experiment in vegetarianism, and he’s the co-author of several recipe books, with chefs Frank Camorra and Phillippa Grogan. At Montalto, Richard discusses his book, a collection of his ‘Brain Food’columns, and his career writing about food and culinary culture. Hosted by Lindy Burns. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you like your cartoon hairstyles sharp and your comic observations sharper, Judy Horacek is your cartoonist. One of Australia’s most successful cartoonists (and one of our few female professionals in the business), her work ranges from wry political commentary to children’s picture books. Her nine cartoon books include children’s classics such as Where is the Green Sheep? and Good Night, Sleep Tight – both produced with long-term collaborator Mem Fox. Random Life is the latest of Horacek’s cartoon books for adults. It’s a crowdfunded collection of her recent cartoons – most first published in the Age – and many of which riff colourfully and reflectively on themes of labour and fairness, feminism and everyday life. For Books and Ideas at Montalto, Horacek talks with broadcaster Serpil Senelmis about Random Life, her career in cartoons, and her uniquely pointy take on contemporary society. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tony Jones is best known as the host of ABC TV’s tightly controlled, agenda-setting and sometimes combative political panel programme, Q&A. Having presented the programme for almost ten years, Jones has learned a few things about tension, intrigue, complex plots and surprise attacks. Those years of experience – not to mention the preceding decades as an ABC investigative reporter and foreign correspondent – have prepared Jones perfectly for his latest incarnation as a thriller writer. His debut novel, The Twentieth Man, tells an electrifying tale of crime, terror and international conspiracy and is set between the corridors of power in 1970s Canberra and the harsh mountain ranges of former Yugoslavia. Jones has a long-standing interest in the Balkans, having covered the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s during his stint as the ABC’s Europe correspondent. In conversation with Jason Steger at Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove, this veteran of Australian journalism discusses his foray into fiction and the experiences in Australia and overseas that have inspired it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Set in a rural farming community, Jane Harper’s debut novel, The Dry, is a tightly-spun and suspenseful thriller. It tells the story of a Federal Police investigator who returns to his hometown after two decades of urban exile – tasked with examining the apparent murder-suicide of his childhood friend’s family. As he works his way through the drought-stricken settlement, a horrific truth begins to reveal itself. The book has met with a sensational response from readers worldwide – as well as the attention of Hollywood, with film rights snapped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Pacific Standard production company. Critics have praised its sustained tension and unsettlingly vivid evocation of the Australian landscape’s most unforgiving traits. Born in Manchester, Harper has moved back-and-forth between the UK and Australia, working as a journalist before developing her skills in fiction. A short story published in the Big Issue’s 2014 Fiction Edition provided a spark – but it was winning the 2015 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript that truly lit the fuse for Harper’s writing career. Over dinner and drinks at Montalto, Harper speaks with Louise Swinn about the genesis of the novel, her creative path through different kinds of writing, and how she’s dealt with the joy (and pressure) of The Dry’s break-out success. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In previous Quarterly Essays, David Marr has turned his merciless pen to powerful men of the establishment: George Pell, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten. In his new biographical essay, however, Marr’s subject is a self-styled populist outlier and a woman: Pauline Hanson. As Australian political figures go, they don’t come much more colourful than Hanson. Her divisive speeches and curious catchphrases are etched into the memories of many Australians, from the maiden speech to Parliament (‘we are in danger of being swamped by Asians’) to the famous response to the question of xenophobia on 60 Minutes (‘Please explain?’). Then there was the prison stint, the Dancing with the Stars stint, and the extraordinary recent comeback. The former fish-and-chips shop owner is both loved and loathed. And she’s a serious threat to both major parties, with climbing national approval figures. Today, Hanson has much in common with other anti-immigration, protectionist and populist political figures gaining traction across the world. At Montalto, David Marr joins Sally Warhaft to discuss Pauline Hanson and the uniquely Australian strain of the politics of resentment.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Author, ecologist, historian, dyslexic and honourary wombat (part time)’ – that’s Jackie French’s job title, according to her own website. Jackie French writes novels and non-fiction; fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction and ecology; for adults and for kids. Over the course of her career, she’s written a dizzying 140 books. Loved by Australian kids for picture books including the Diary of a Wombat series and Queen Victoria’s Underpants, she’s a passionate advocate for dyslexics and children’s literature and has served as the Australian Children’s Laureate. Jackie has won countless awards across various genres, including the NSW Premier’s History Award. Her latest novel, Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies, is about a secret finishing school for young women during World War I. At Montalto Vineyard, Jackie French joins host Wendy Orr to discuss historical fiction, children’s literacy and an extraordinary life in literature. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The qualities that endear Australian audiences to William McInnes as an actor are the same that endear him as a writer. It’s that wry, laconic voice and the affectionate, authentic take on Australian life. Loved for his iconic TV roles in Blue Heelers, Sea Change and The Time of Our Lives, McInnes has also won acclaim for film roles including Unfinished Sky and My Brother Jack. In recent years, he’s devoted increasing attention to writing. He’s the author of several works of memoir and the novel Cricket Kings. His latest book, Full Bore, is about Australian artefacts and memorabilia and offers a very funny and perceptive take on Australia’s popular culture and sporting obsessions. At Montalto Vineyard, William discusses his career and creative endeavours with Melbourne author John Harms. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alexis Wright is an author of dazzling energy, ambition and imagination. The publication of her exhilarating 2006 novel, Carpentaria, was a major event in Australian literary history. It won the Miles Franklin Award and became a huge critical and commercial sensation. That epic novel, and Wright’s two other novels – Plains of Promise (1997)and The Swan Book (2013) – begin in the author’s ancestral country, the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. A Waanyi woman, Wright elevates Indigenous experience, knowledge and forms of storytelling in all her work. A long-time activist as well as a storyteller, Wright is concerned with Aboriginal resistance and achievement in her non-fiction writing. Her latest book, the critically acclaimed Tracker, is a ‘collective memoir’ about the late charismatic Arrernte elder, Leigh Bruce ‘Tracker’ Tilmouth. In conversation with Elizabeth McCarthy, Wright talks story, legacy, legend and the life of Tracker. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is a writer whose novels explore Australia’s smouldering tribalism – found as much within its communities as between them – eschewing clichés and easy, feel-good conclusions. His first novel, The Tribe, introduced readers to the complex family life of protagonist Bani Adam, a young boy from a religious Lebanese Muslim family in western Sydney. In The Lebs, Bani is a teenager grappling with a different set of conflicts – about superiority, sexuality, violence and faith – played out against the backdrop of high school and graduation. Ahmad’s writing stings and sparks; it’s tense, insistent and unsettling, deploying a hungry, confrontational vernacular. Bani’s narration doesn’t present a worthy, heartwarming model of Lebanese Australian-ness. Instead, we’re offered a provocative, complex and sometimes brutal portrait – take or leave it. In conversation with host Elizabeth McCarthy, Michael Mohammed Ahmad discusses multicultural identities, coming of age and the disorienting power of language. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is guilt – and how can we escape the grip of the past? Ceridwen Dovey is the author of the award-winning 2014 short story collection Only the Animals, and the novel Blood Kin. Lately, she’s also been making her mark as a regular essayist for the New Yorker and the Monthly. In her highly anticipated second novel, In the Garden of the Fugitives, Dovey tells a spellbinding story of obsession, loss, repression and atonement. The narrative unfolds through a series of letters between Royce and Vita – an estranged benefactor and his protégé, each now trying to wriggle free from the astonishing weight of their histories. In conversation with Elizabeth McCarthy, Dovey talks about our human connections and failings, ideas of guilt and shame, the role of art in coming to terms with the past – and who has a right to bear witness. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Small-town secrets, police politics and catastrophic loss – all loomed large in Chloe Hooper’s groundbreaking 2008 narrative non-fiction book, The Tall Man, about tragedy on Palm Island in Queensland. Her new book treads similar thematic ground – but in the drastically different landscape of Gippsland, Victoria, at the time of the February 2009 Black Saturday fires. With The Arsonist, Hooper takes readers inside the hunt for the man whose actions caused devastation throughout the Latrobe Valley during the deadliest bushfire disaster in Australia’s history. It’s a gripping and insightful investigation from one of Australia’s brightest talents. What motivates a person to start a fire? How does fear of bushfire play out in our national psyche? At Montalto, Hooper discusses disaster and deadly mischief with host Elizabeth McCarthy. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Krissy Kneen is a writer of lavish imagination. Over seven books – including five novels, one volume of poetry and a memoir – she's invented bizarre fictional technologies, conjured extravagant sexual escapades, and speculated about consciousness-fusing with jellyfish. Female sexual adventure is front and centre in much of Kneen's work, but her writing twists and traverses several genres including literary fiction, erotica and sci-fi. Her 2017 book, An Uncertain Grace, explored ideas of posthumanism, morality and identity. It was shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize. Kneen’s new book, Wintering, is a gothic thriller set in the Tasmanian wilderness. At Montalto, Kneen discusses her latest work with Elizabeth McCarthy. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bri Lee’s Eggshell Skull is about our justice system; its deep-rooted tenets and its disastrous shortcomings. The book is Lee’s first-person account of her year as a judge’s associate in the District Court of Queensland, during which she watched endless cases of sexual assault and child abuse. Herself a survivor of childhood sexual assault, Lee was ultimately moved to bring her own case to court as a complainant. Her own journey through the justice system called for tremendous reserves of resilience and courage. Praised by Helen Garner and Clementine Ford, Eggshell Skull is a meditation on power, abuse and institutional bias. It’s a clear-eyed examination of the toll our justice system takes on women and all survivors of abuse. At Montalto, she joins Elizabeth McCarthy for a talk about power, justice and survival. Note: This event includes discussion of sexual assault. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since his 2009 debut, Things We Didn’t See Coming, Steven Amsterdam has established himself as a writer who startles and surprises. His first book – an apocalyptic work fusing literary and climate-change fiction – earned him comparisons to Cormac McCarthy. His follow-up book, What the Family Needed, also frustrated conventions of form and genre, but diverged dramatically from its precursor on subject matter: from ecological disaster to family dynamics. Amsterdam is an author with an unusual combination of qualities. His writing is warm, playful … and ominous. Perhaps this is partly because Amsterdam moves between parallel lives. Aside from writing, he works in an entirely different field – as a palliative care nurse. His new novel, The Easy Way Out, draws heavily from this line of work, tackling the big subjects: death, personal morality and assisted suicide. This singular writer joins his former publisher, Louise Swinn, for a discussion about double lives, family dynamics and matters of life and death. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A writer of novels, short fiction and essays, Mireille Juchau has quietly emerged as one of Australia’s most accomplished literary voices. Her first two novels, Machines for Feeling and Burning In, won critical acclaim and appearances on the Vogel’s and Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists. Her third novel, The World Without Us, is very much the book of the moment – winning this year’s prestigious Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Juchau’s work deals with big personal and political subjects – from grief and abandonment to climate change. The World Without Us centres on a family who has lost a child, and a community adrift after a calamitous fire; it’s the kind of territory that can veer lesser writers into melodrama. But reviews of Juchau’s work, both in Australia and internationally, have stressed the subtlety and restraint of her prose as well as its vivid imagery. The Times Literary Supplement called The World Without Us ‘elegantly poised and controlled’. Independent on Sunday called it ‘understated and calm, and yet thoroughly captivating’. In conversation with Michael Williams, Juchau discusses writing the intimate, the political and The World Without Us. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there’s one thing that can rival Stephanie Alexander’s enthusiasm for food and cooking, it’s her delight in good conversation. In fact, conversation has been front and centre in choosing recipes for her book, The Cook’s Table. ‘I want to be away from the table as little as possible, so I have kept last minute stovetop cooking to a minimum,’ Alexander has said. ‘I don’t want to miss the best stories. I am hungry for the latest news and opinions.’ The Cook’s Table is an especially personal collection of recipes and reflections, with Alexander revisiting memorable meals from her own life and travels in each chapter. There’s plenty there to draw from; over the course of 50 years, Alexander’s career has seen her open several celebrated restaurants as owner-chef, write 14 books including the modern-day cooking bible The Cook’s Companion and launch the pioneering Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, which has seen food education take off in school gardens across Australia. In conversation with writer and food critic Larissa Dubecki, Alexander talks about her food, foundation and five-decade career.  Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Myths about the lives of pre-colonial Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have proven deeply entrenched. But in his 2014 book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe struck a grievous blow to one of the most widely accepted assumptions of Australian pre-settlement history. He argued, and presented robust evidence drawn from the journals of European explorers, that Indigenous people were not hunter-gatherers at the time of colonisation. ‘The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag,’ he has said. Dark Emu, which won Book of the Year at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, also challenges existing narratives around housing construction, cooking and clothing prior to European settlement. In conversation with Tony Birch, Pascoe discusses the writing, research and reception of his groundbreaking book. What does challenging the past of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mean for the present? Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since 2013, with the international success of her debut novel, Burial Rites, Hannah Kent’s name is often mentioned in the same breath as that of Hilary Mantel or Geraldine Brooks; masters of literary historical fiction. Burial Rites, about a woman executed for murder in Iceland in 1830, was translated into 20 languages and won a swag of prestigious awards, including the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist Award. As the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal, Kill Your Darlings, Kent has worked hard to champion the work of new literary voices and continues to do so. Geraldine Brooks mentored Kent through the development of the Burial Rites manuscript; now Kent mentors emerging writers herself. In her second book, The Good People, Kent returns to the 1800s, and to the northern hemisphere. The action is set in south-western Ireland and is again inspired by a true story. In conversation with Kate Forsyth, Hannah discusses the revival of historical fiction, Australia’s literary landscape and her fascination with troubled women in cold climes. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a media environment crowded with polemicists and opinionators, George Megalogenis is something of an outlier. His commentary is relentlessly, rigorously – and somehow compellingly – even-handed. An award-winning, veteran journalist who served for many years as a senior feature writer at News Ltd, his analysis of Australian political, economic and demographic history is indispensable. Megalogenis has been described by Annabel Crabb as ‘Australia’s best explainer’ and in recent years he’s applied that gift to the medium of documentary, writing and presenting two acclaimed ABC productions: Making Australia Great and Life Wasn’t Meant to Be Easy. Megalogenis is still writing books, too. For his most recent, Australia’s Second Chance, he looked back to 1788, tracing our political and economic history and crunching the numbers to present a narrative of resilience, missed opportunity and latent potential. Megalogenis joins Sally Warhaft to discuss his latest book, his body of work and the challenges and freedoms of working across television and print media. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Romantic love is the subject of squillions of songs, sonnets and stories. Is there a single new thing to say about it? If Shakespeare was growing weary of the cliches back in the 1600s (‘My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun’), where does that leave writers striving to write fresh romance in the 21st century?  Toni Jordan — Photo: James Penlidis These are good questions to ask Australia’s star romantic-comedy writer Toni Jordan. Starting with her 2008 debut novel, Addition, and following up with Fall Girl and Nine Days, Jordan has built a reputation for romantic comedies that are smart, sexy, surprising and hilarious. Her fourth novel, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, is an uproarious farce set in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. With an acerbic wit and an eagle eye for the absurd, Jordan’s brand of comic writing incorporates incisive social commentary. Join her for a conversation about screwball humour and the enduring popularity of romantic comedy, hosted by Hilary Harper. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Malcolm Knox is a writer of remarkable range. In his non-fiction, he’s investigated the history of mining in Australia, the jury system, the ice epidemic, Australia’s supermarket duopoly and Greg Chappell. As a novelist, his award-winning books have explored surfing, celebrity, mental illness and male friendship. He is a Walkley award-winning journalist who has served as both literary editor and chief cricket correspondent at different stages of his career at the Sydney Morning Herald. His latest book is another work of fiction. The Wonder Lover, the story of John Wonder, a man with three secret families, is as audacious as it is original and as joyful as it is accomplished. In conversation with Christos Tsiolkas, Knox talks about his many and varied fascinations from surfing to supermarket giants to secret lives – before the pair consider the question of writing as work. Malcolm Knox Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Family, literature, Papua New Guinea and the complicated lives of creative women –  these are the themes to which Drusilla Modjeska has repeatedly returned in her impressive body of work. As a memoirist, essayist, novelist (and master of combining and confounding literary forms), Modjeska is among Australia’s most celebrated writers. Most recently, she has added a memoir, Second Half First, to an already substantial list of literary accomplishments, including Exiles at Home, Poppy, Stravinsky’s Lunch and The Mountain. That book reflects on the books, people and journeys that have most profoundly affected her in the second part of her life. At Montalto, Modjeska discusses travel, reading and the intersection of life and work with Andrea Goldsmith. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘A political career is not a bad training ground for writing fiction,’ Lindsay Tanner has said.  Since leaving the chamber in 2010, the former federal politician has devoted much of his time to the printed page – though it’s only recently that fiction has become his focus. His first book, Sideshow, critiqued the Australian media environment, arguing that spin doctors and tightening news cycles were ‘dumbing down democracy’.  With his debut novel, Comfort Zone, Tanner is again engaging with a hot topic in Australian political discourse, multiculturalism, however he tackles the theme from a markedly different perspective. His story’s protagonist is not a former finance minister, but a pot-bellied cabbie who finds himself drawn into a vortex of drug-dealing and criminal violence. Tanner is not your average ex-politician and certainly not your average author. Join him for a unique discussion on writing, life after politics … and the job of lying for a living. In conversation with Emily Sexton. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Simon Winchester is a giant of narrative non-fiction. Across four decades of working as a journalist and author, Winchester’s reverence for the natural world and love of adventure have defined his extraordinary career. This is a man, after all, who has travelled on a Russian tramp steamer from Antarctica to England and seen the inside of an Argentine jail cell. As a foreign correspondent during the 1970s and 1980s, Winchester covered major international events including the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Watergate scandal and the Falklands War, and is the author of books on a dizzying array of subjects. He’s written about the history of the Yangtze River, the eruption of Krakatoa and, perhaps most famously, the making of the Oxford English Dictionary in the bestselling The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Winchester’s timely new book, Pacific, profiles the world’s largest ocean and considers its crucial role in the planet’s present and future. From the Bikini atoll hydrogen bomb tests of the 1950s to the rise of China as a global economic superpower, Winchester explores the history of the Pacific – and the countries that border it. Join us for a conversation with one of the most prolific, polymathic writers of our time, hosted by Sophie Black. Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Teacher, theatre critic, playwright, academic – Steven Carroll can list all of the above on his CV, though he’s best known as an acclaimed novelist. Carroll has been shortlisted three times for the Miles Franklin and, in 2008, he won the award for The Time We Have Taken. In 2014, Carroll was named joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction for A World of Other People. The novel is set during the London Blitz and is cinematic in scope and bold in its embrace of the big themes: love, war and poetry. In conversation with Michael Williams, Steven discusses that book, his celebrated career and some of the recurring subjects in his work, including literature, romantic love and T.S. Eliot. More from this seriesPodcast seriesBooks and Ideas at Montalto  /  Australian stories Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Subscribe to the seriesPodcast seriesBooks and Ideas at Montalto  /  Australian stories Gideon Haigh is one of the most widely recognised names in Australian freelance journalism. Celebrated for his diverse interests and enthusiasms (he’s written on everything from digital media to Shane Warne to office architecture) and his impressively regular output (including 30 books and contributions to more than 100 different newspapers and magazines), Haigh’s latest work ventures into the world of true crime. In Certain Admissions: A Beach, A Body and a Lifetime of Secrets he explores the extraordinary story of John Bryan Kerr, the commercial radio star accused – and sentenced to hang – for the 1949 murder of typist Beth Williams. Gideon Haigh and Tony Wilson in conversation In conversation with Tony Wilson, Gideon Haigh discusses his new book, his wonderfully varied career, his versatility across genre – and, of course, his well-documented obsession with cricket. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Subscribe to the seriesPodcast seriesBooks and Ideas at Montalto  /  Australian stories Ramona Koval is one of Australia’s most loved literary figures, thanks to her many years ruling the Radio National airwaves as the host of The Book Show. She’s famous for shining the spotlight on her bookish guests, at the ABC and as the host of The Monthly’s book club. In her new book, Bloodhound, the interviewer extraordinaire gets personal, inviting us on an intimate journey to track down her father. Ramona’s parents were Holocaust survivors who resettled in Melbourne. As a child, she suspected that the man who raised her was not her biological father. In the 1990s, long after her mother’s death, she decided to discover the truth – and a phone call led to a photograph in the mail, tea with strangers, and travel that spanned a meeting with a horse whisperer in tropical Queensland, rural Poland, and a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. In conversation with Arnold Zable, discover how Ramona uncovered the truth, why it was so important to her. Arnold Zable and Ramona Koval (photo: Oren Gerassi) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most treasured writers. Her novels are internationally acclaimed: The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize in 2001 and her breakout bestseller The Secret River fired up debates on the uses of historical fiction – and the role novelists can play – in highlighting past injustices. The New York Times called it ‘exuberant, cruel, surprising, a triumphant evocation of a period and a people filled with both courage and ugliness’. Her latest book combines her interest in the past with an enquiry into the personal: an intimate account of her mother’s life, drawing on the fragments of memoir she left behind. In many ways, Nance’s story echoes that of many mothers and grandmothers, for whom the spectacular shifts of the twentieth century offered a path to new freedoms and choices. In other ways, her story was exceptional: in an era when women were expected to have no ambitions beyond the domestic, she ran successful businesses as a registered pharmacist, laid the bricks for the family home, and discovered her husband’s secret life as a revolutionary. Join Grenville in conversation with fellow writer Melissa Lucashenko as they explore the personal history of one of our most popular – and acclaimed – historical novelists, and reflect on how the life and times of this one woman both mirrored and defied what was happening for Australian women. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Playwright Hannie Rayson is a much-loved Australian institution. She made history when her stage hit Life After George became the first play to be shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, and her first major success, Hotel Sorrento was made into a feature film and is a staple of VCE reading lists. She has also written for television, including popular hit Sea Change. In her long-awaited memoir, Hello Beautiful, Hannie presents scenes from her own life, with all the insight, wit and narrative flair she has perfected in her plays. In this conversation with writer, director and broadcaster Lorin Clarke, she shares insights from this hilarious (and often dramatic) behind-the-scenes look at the life of an Australian success story. In partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hannah Kent’s debut novel Burial Rites has been shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Bailey Women’s Prize for Fiction. Featuring the curious case of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be hanged in Iceland, it was one of the international success stories of 2013. Join her as she recounts how she came to write the story of this misunderstood woman, in conversation with Jo Case. Presented in partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Favel Parrett burst onto the Australian literary scene in a flood of well-deserved praise (and comparisons to Tim Winton) with her darkly beautiful debut, Past the Shallows, shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. Her much-anticipated second novel is When the Night Comes – an evocative story about the power that fear and kindness have to change lives. In partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Carrie Tiffany is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers – her two novels, Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living and Mateship with Birds, have won a swag of awards, including the inaugural Stella Prize for the latter. She writes about regional Australia with a sharp eye, fine wit and polished storytelling acumen. Join her to hear about her brilliant career, and explore the world of her novels. In partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Night Guest, Fiona McFarlane’s striking debut novel, has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and was the winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards' 2014 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. It’s a gripping story of love, dependence, fear and the end of a life. Join Fiona for an evening of dinner, drinks and great literary company, as she talks about the inspiration behind her latest work –and her thoughts on its sensational reception - with Melbourne Writers Festival director Lisa Dempster. Presented in partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publication of Stiff, the very first Murray Whelan tale, Shane Maloney will be our latest guest at Montalto. Covering the breadth of his career, Shane will delve into the screen adaptations of Stiff and The Brush-Off and give us the low-down on what our Victorian hero is up to these days. Shane will be in conversation with Mary Delahunty. Presented in partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elliot Perlman’s first novel, Three Dollars, won the Age Book of the Year Award – an auspicious start to what has been an extraordinary international career. His second novel, Seven Types of Ambiguity, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. With The Street Sweeper, Perlman cemented his reputation as a novelist who explores the burning social and political issues of our time. ‘Epic is a word that one must use carefully,’ wrote the Guardian, reviewing the book. ‘But this is an epic, in scope and moral seriousness.’ Presented in partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alex Miller is the author of an astounding ten novels – and the owner of a swag of literary awards, including two Miles Franklins (for Journey to the Stone Country and The Ancestor Game). His beautifully wrought, intricately thoughtful, novels excavate the heart of the Australian psyche, including the complex relationship between indigenous and settler Australia. Miller’s work is often informed by his early experience working and travelling in outback Australia, as a stockman and various other jobs, after emigrating from England at the age of 16. Coal Creek, his much-praised latest novel, sprang directly from that time. Miller inhabits the inarticulate character of Bobby Blue, a stockman’s son who becomes deputy to the local constable – an outsider with cosmopolitan views that don’t fit with the land he has arrived in. It’s a novel of love, betrayal, and what happens when cultures clash and lines are crossed. Presented in partnership with Montalto Vineyard & Olive Grove. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.