Final Draft
Monday 6:00pm - 6:30pm
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's
too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
Final Draft is a weekly half-hour wander in the world of books, writing, publishing and spoken word. It is a forum for both established and lesser-known or self-published writers. Produced in the hope of inspiring generous, open-minded reading and
conversation, the show's emphasis is decidedly Australian, with a distinct Sydney flavour, but it includes a sprinkling of international goodies too.
Each week we serve up a mix of interviews with writers and industry figures, reviews of new, classic and cult titles, readings of original work, and news about literary events, trends, prizes and publishing opportunities.
Past guests include novelists, film-makers, journalists, historians, illustrators, publishers, critics, and poets. A few examples: Vikram Chandra, Tom Griffiths, Tristan Clark, Jennifer Mills, Ira Glass, Luke Davies, Richard J Frankland, L K Holt, Max Barry, Bernadette Brennan, Don Watson, Jane Gleeson-White, Alan Parkinson, Maria Tumarkin, Susanna Lobez, Alex Miller, John Hirst, David Stratton, Tina Matthews, Samantha Faulkner, Ben Garcia, Joe Bageant, Lollie Barr, Jonathan Balcombe, Jeanette Hoorn, Najaf Mazari, Robert Hillman etc, etc.
Click [HERE] for audio-on-demand, RSS feeds and podcasts
Our theme music:
'Trouble' by Price and Logan performed by Stanley Turrentine, from his
album,'Never Let Me Go' (Blue Note).
Past shows, books discussed, links etc:
5 May: Keeping Faith
Now known as 'The Bone Man of Kokoda', Kokichi Nishmura made a fateful promise to his dying comrades in PNG during the Second World War. Keeping up his end of the bargain meant spending 25 alone in the jungle digging for bones. This week on Final Draft it's all about keeping faith. We talk about Nishimura's pact with his biographer, Charles Happell; we follow Barack Obama's attempts to keep faith with his unusual family history and we unpick the consequences of a promise made to the future in Monica McInerney's latest novel.
Charles Happell, The Bone Man of Kokoda, Macmillan
Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, Text Publishing
Monica McInerney, Those Faraday Girls, Penguin
28 April: Lives and Stories
The lives of remarkable writers and the writing of remarkable lives are our subjects this week on Final Draft. We catch up with Luke Davies, and talk about his new novel, 'The God of Speed', in which an elderly Howard Hughes sits in a hotel room in London, unfolding his story of sex, money, speed and obsession. Najaf Mazari, an Afghan refugee and rugmaker, drops by with his friend, the Austalian writer, Robert Hillman, to talk about their new book, 'The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif', which tells Najaf's story of resilience and goodwill. And we learn how a very famous writer is at pains to have the last word on how his life's tales are remembered.
Luke Davies, The God of Speed, Allen and Unwin
J M Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year, Text Publishing
Najaf Mazari and Robert Hillman, The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif, Insight Publications
For more information about Najaf Mazari's Mazar Development Fund, click [HERE]
21 April 2008: Women/History
Women and history this week – women writing about it, making it, remembering it, and hiding it. Anna Clark reports the good, the bad and the unexpected from the chalkface about the way Aussie kids are being taught their history; we learn all about the elusive, enigmatic anthropologist Daisy Bates, and we dive into the hidden secrets in the pasts of both people and houses in Anne De Lisle's new novel.
Anna Clark, History's Children: History Wars in the Classroom, UNSW Press
Susanna De Vries, Desert Queen: The Many Lives and Loves of Daisy Bates, Harper Collins
Anne De Lisle, The Swim Club, Random House
14 April 2008: Colourful Characters
Ever heard of book pirates? No? Well tune into Final Draft this week, me hearties, and learn all about it. Plus: the latest from the 'Queen of the Airport Novel', and a repeat of our interview with Don Watson from last week (a technical problem meant that broadcast listeners missed it first time round).
Don Watson, American Journeys, Knopf
Judy Nunn, Floodtide, Random House
7 April 2008: Gentlemen
Join us as we talk with couple of charming veterans of Australian arts and letters. David Stratton reflects on a rich life lived in the cinema, recounted in his new memoir, and Don Watson joins us to talk about the marvellous paradoxes of the United States. We also find out about a charming idea: the PEN poem relay, a potent symbol of international co-operation in the name of freedom of expression, running parallel to the Olympic torch relay.
nb Due to a technical problem with the original broadcast of this edition of the show, the Don Watson interview will be re-broadcast on 14 April
David Stratton, I Peed on Fellini, William Heinemann
Don Watson, American Journeys, Knopf
31 May 2008: Adventures
Whether you agree with the famous Norweigan explorer, Roald Amundsen, who said that 'adventure is just bad planning' or you side with the British novelist, G K Chesterton, who claimed 'adventure is just inconvenience rightly considered', there's no denying the symbiotic relationship between writing and adventure. And this week on Final Draft, we get adventurous in all sorts of ways: we get up-to-date with the revamped version of Enid Blyton's five famous adventurers, with Dr Sue Page from the University of South Australia; we follow Spanish writer Arturo Perez-Reverte on a series of military and artistic adventures, and we listen into to an excerpt of Rachel Le Rossignol's adventure in fantasy.
Arturo Perez-Reverto, The Painter of Battles, Weidenfeld & Nicholson
Rachel Le Rosignol, 'Dream Players'
24 March 2008: Unsettling Stereotypes
Joe Bageant calls himself a 'socialist redneck'. With 'a foot in each ditch' he's written a fierce, funny, erudite and surprising book about life for the working poor in the United States. 'Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War' is a rollicking read and is a useful reminder that stereotypes are best checked at the door. And this week on Final Draft, we're all about unsettling stereotypes. We chat to Joe; inspired by Ursula Le Guin and Michael Chabon we lance the snobby distinction between 'literature' and 'genre fiction'; and the Sydney writer, Aden Rolfe, drops by to treat us to a reading of one of his intriguing new prose-poems.
Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War, Scribe
Ursula Le Guin, 'On Serious Literature'
Aden Rolfe, 'Precipitations'
17 March 2008: The Power of Words
'Words, words ... mere words,' said Polonius. Well, the silly old codger clearly didn't know what he was talking about. Words are full of power, as this week's Final Draft testifies. We meet Dylan Peek, a remarkable young author who demonstrates the power of words to change one life ... all ten years of it. With academic Bernadette Brennan, we chat about the power of words to carry the fight for justice and social change. We go to war with Charlie Wilson to find out how words can capture the workings of raw power, and we get to grips with the power of words to live on, and on, in the hearts of their readers.
Dylan Peek, X-Box Goes Crazy, Starlight Foundation
Bernadette Brennan, Just Words: Australian Authors Writing for Justice, University of Queensland Press
George Crile, Charlie Wilson's War, Atlantic Books
10 March 2008: Globe-Trotting
Like Shakespeare's Puck, we throw a girdle around the
world. As we go a-globe-trotting, we stop off in the underworld of
Bombay with Vikram Chandler, we delve in the shadows, secrecy and
espionage in ... Canberra, with Christopher Koch, and we touch base in
New York to talk about the best new nonfiction coming out of the United
States with Ira Glass.
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games, Harper Collins
Christoper Koch, The Memory Hole, Random House
Ira Glass (ed), The New Kings of Nonfiction, Penguin
3 March 2008: Awards Season
Awards season? Bah! Forget the Oscars and the Golden Globes; Final Draft dishes out the prizes that really matter. This week we roll out the red carpet and dish out the guernsies for the fabulous Australian novelist, Max Barry, the fiery, former Californian poet-laureate Al Young, the oddest book titles from last year, and the word of the year for 2007.
Max Barry, Syrup, Scribe
27 February 2008: The Lamb Enters the Dreaming
Nathanael Pepper, a Wotjobaluk man, was born in the Wimmera as the first pastoralists in Victoria were driving thousands and thousands of sheep and cattle into his homelands. In a world where everything - religion, land, law, life - was changed, Pepper sought to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable. This week on Final Draft we meet Pepper's biographer, Robert Kenny, and explore this man's extraordinary life, and what we can learn from it about world we have inherited.
Robert Kenny, The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathaniel Pepper and the Ruptured World, Scribe
24 December 2007: Merry Christmas!
In this, the final Final Draft for the year, we really get to grips with silly season. With local performance poets Benito DiFonzo and Bravo we dive into the mess Christmas makes in and of our lives. With Melbourne chefs, Greg and Lucy Malouf, we talk Turkish cuisine and find food from a Muslim coutry a mouthwatering alternative to the traditional Anglo-stodge of the pre-eminent Christian festival. We also get up-tempo with a marriage of poetry and dance music from Cooknkitch and Settle Down Sound System, and decidely down-tempo with poetry from Brisbane poet, Graham Nunn.
Greg and Lucy Malouf, Turquoise: A Chef's Travels in Turkey, Hardie Grant Books
17 December 2007: Man, Wolf, Man
Our centrepiece this week is a set of readings by L K Holt from her new collection of poems, 'Man Wolf Man'. On her recent visit to Sydney from her hometown of Melbourne, Holt stopped by the 2ser studios to read for us her poems, 'Two Women', 'The Botanist', 'Man is Wolf to Man' and 'The Muses'. Also this week, FD's Kimberley Forsyth chats to Australian entertainment icon Val Jellay about her new book, 'So You Want to Be in Show Business?' and we take in a couple of great new spoken word pieces from the latest 'Going Down Swinging' compilation. We hear Rob Walker's 'Leaving the School at Lunchtime' and 'Kites' by David Stavanger.
L K Holt, Man, Wolf, Man, John Leonard Press
Val Jellay, So You Want to be in Show Business, JoJo Publishing
10 December 2007: Angel of History
This week, like Walter Benjamin's angel of history, we find ourselves propelled relentlessly into the future, whilst facing the receding past. First up, FD's Shamin Fernando chats with Don Grover, CEO of the Dymocks Group about the brave new world of e-books, where we discover people who walk around with 150 books in their handbags and some of the ways in which the digital revolution actually helps preserve traditional print culture. Then the celebrated Australian novelist, Alex Miller joins Benedict Taylor in conversation about Miller's new novel, a beautifully wrought book about coming to terms with the places and histories that make us who we are.
Alex Miller, Landscape of Farewell, Allen and Unwin
Final Draft
Books, publishing and writing
Final Draft is 2ser’s weekly half-hour talks program concerning books, writing and publishing.
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