Token Skeptic Special Episode – The Perth Writers Festival Interviews

The Perth Writers Festival comes to town and it was a great chance to interview a range of talented authors taking part in the festivities.

My interviews are with:

• Ben Rawlence - his book City of Thorns is about Northern Kenya - the home of the world’s largest refugee camp, with half a million people. Opening Night speaker at the Perth International Arts Festival.

• Candice Fox - her first novel, Hades, won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014 from the Australian Crime Writers Association; she has since gone onto numerous books on crime and punishment.

• Hannah Kent - is the best-selling author of Burial Rites and the newly released The Good People - stories of culture, crime and history.

• Garth Nix -  is an award-winning sci-fi fantasy author with several series of fantasy and fiction; I asked him about his new book "Frogkisser" ahead of his appearances at the festival.

• Amy Stewart - an author of nonfiction books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world, including New York Times bestsellers with The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Bugs and Wicked Plants. However, her range has extended to the tales of a trio of turn-of-the-century sisters turned detectives, with the latest being Lady Cop Makes Trouble - the second book in an ongoing series.

• Chinelo Okparanta - this Nigerian-American author  writes stories of women and children, family life, migration, war and love; she first started with short stories, with the collection Happiness, Like Water and then her most recent novel Under the Udula Trees.

• Inua Ellams - London-based playwright and poet Inua Ellams' work explores the themes of identity, displacement and destiny – areas of life he’s intimately familiar with.

• Dan Box - the National Crime Reporter for The Australian and creator of crime podcast Bowraville.

• Marwa Al-Sabouni - Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni is battling to heal her home city of Homs, having remained there as bombs destroyed much of what she knew and loved. Her ideas to mend the city are now laid out in a visionary memoir, The Battle For Home. She is presenting the closing night address.

• Clementine Ford - Australian feminist columnist and author of the best selling book Fight Like A Girl.

• Lindy West - is a Seattle-based writer, editor and performer who’s work has appeared in a number of well-known publications - and the author of Shrill: Notes From A Loud Woman.

• Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa - a Perth performance poet, she’s a workshop facilitator, actor, artist and humanitarian. Her questions about notions of Australian national identity, got her to the finals of the national Australia poetry slam.

• Nathan Hill - short story author and author of The Nix; a tale of estrangement and displacement in both families and national politics.

• Adrian Todd Zuniga - creator of Literary Death Match -  touted as Def Poetry Jam meets American Idol, this competition sees four authors perform a short excerpt of their most electric work before a panel of judges.

• Omar Musa -  a Malaysian-Australian rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He is the winner of the Australian Poetry Slam and the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam and has released three hip-hop albums, two poetry books, and received a standing ovation at TEDx.

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Theme songs “Cosgrove” by Pogo, from http://pogomix.net and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of www.miltonmermikides.com. Additional ambient music from Jukedeck – create your own at jukedeck.com.

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