Episodes
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The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Katherine Johnson is the author of five novels including Matryoshka and Paris Savages. Katherine’s latest Every Wild Soul is the inaugural winner of The Australian Fiction Prize and Katherine is joining us to discuss today.
To the world Maria Island is a paradise; an ecological wonderland off the coast of Tasmania. At eighteen years old Maria is all she’s known for so much of her life. She loves the beauty and the chance to learn about biodiversity, but she’s also conscious her life doesn’t look like other girls and that maybe she’d like to change that.
Min’s father Piers has other ideas though. Ever since his wife left him he’s been determined to protect his daughter. Protection can look a lot like control though, so when a storm blows over Maria it promises more than a few ill winds for the residents.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Johanna is an award winning author of fiction, poetry and children’s books. She’s joining us today with her new novel Department of the Vanishing which won the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript.
For more than twenty years Ava has toiled away at the Department of Vanishing cataloguing species as they go extinct. The pace of the work has been increasing and as is always the case there’s never enough hands.
Birdsong is falling silent and people didn’t even notice. But now it’s Ava’s job to archive the remains, even as her personal life teeters.
But in her dying mother’s confused words Ava finds something. Maybe hope. Maybe a clue to the mystery of her father, long missing, and a song that contains more than any might assume…
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
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Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
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Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese diaspora author, screenwriter and award-winning social advocate. She has published six books, including essays in Talking About a Revolution and a series for younger readers, You must be Layla and Listen Layla. Today we’re going to be talking about her latest, literary fiction debut, At Sea.
Zainab has spent her life on oil rigs living the fly in fly out life. It’s meant missing out on a lot, including a relationship with her sister. Now she’s in Perth on a promise that she will see her sister through the birth of her first child. This could finally be the chance to repair their relationship.
When Zainab’s boss Bryce calls her back from leave to investigate strange goings on on the rig Clarissa Clyde, she knows this could be her big break. Zainab’s reluctant to leave Kareema but thrilled at the opportunity to take charge as a tool pusher.
Joining a rig near the end of a drill isn’t easy. As a woman on the rigs Zainab knows she won’t get an easy ride, let alone an open door to the mysteries plaguing the Clarissa Clyde. The rig is almost too perfect and the team are rough but nothing she hasn’t handled. She is determined though, and haunted by Bryce’s words, ‘Make sure everyone gets out alive’.
The hook for me with At Sea was Yassmin’s writing. I wouldn’t normally gravitate to a thriller set on the high seas but I know from experience Yassmin tackles big ideas. I also know she’s worked on rigs herself and so I was intrigued at how she would treat this world that seems so strange from the shore.
Immediately with Zainab we come to understand that this is a man’s world. Her position as a tool pusher should give her some authority but there are men on board who would still demean her as par for the course. The novel works to understand this dynamic as both a moral problem, but also a product of the hyper-real world of a perilous lifestyle. Zainab grapples as much with her own ability to answer disrespect and violence in kind, as she does with any absolute morality of the actions.
Life on the rigs is contrasted with the world Kareema offers; life on land, life with family. It’s the kind of world that Zainab has been avoiding. We see that Zainab, along with many of the men on the rig struggle with the demands of these separate lives. But why are these demands so disparate?
The plot and the action of At Sea is gripping and I found myself drawn into the claustrophobic spaces and the alien vocabulary of drilling. While I understood very little of the processes involved in these mammoth endeavours to pull oil out of the ocean, the storytelling is such that the precision and the danger is never far from the character's, and therefore the reader’s mind.
This is a mystery but not in the conventional sense. While Zainab is tasked with uncovering some sort of conspiracy or coverup, it is tantalisingly obtuse and she is never sure if the danger is real. Within the cauldron of life on a floating petrol bomb she must grapple with whether it is better to continually rock the boat in the name of safety, or to maintain an unexamined conformity for the sake of group cohesion. The trick is knowing and the wrong choice may not be discovered till too late.
The twinned tensions of Zainab’s role as a woman with authority, and the possibility of impending catastrophe are constantly stoked. Zainab feels obligated to speak up but cursed not to be believed. Much like Cassandra, Zainab can only watch on as her situation deteriorates.
At Sea sets out to achieve a lot, and broadly meets this aim being smart and pacey, technical and philosophical. It asks a lot more questions than it answers but that’s perhaps more a reflection on the world which also refuses to listen when it doesn’t want to hear. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Mary Colussi’s debut novel Touch Grass won the 2025 Penguin Literary Prize. She is joining us today as Touch Grass prepares to launch itself into the world…
Charlie’s soul occasionally leaves her body, at least she thinks that’s what’s happening. It’s probably not astral projection.
In her job she helps people’s digital selves to leave the internet. Not their physical selves but people seem to forget anyway.
Charlie’s housemate Ian won’t leave their apartment. But his twin will.
And there’s a an immortal animal that won’t leave anywhere. Ever. At least that’s the theory.
It’s all a bit confusing, but then that’s life
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Charlotte McConaghy is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations.
She is joining us fresh from winning the Literary Fiction Book of the Year at THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS 2026 for Wild Dark Shore
Rowan has risked everything to get to Shearwater Island.
When she is dragged lifeless from the water she wakes to find herself in the middle of the Salt family, the last residents of the island. Dominic and his children are racing against the ocean to rescue the contents of Shearwater’s Seed Vault. It’s a noble mission but Rowan questions why the scientists and researchers would abandon it to a caretaker and his children.
Everyone on Shearwater has secrets and Rowan must decide quickly whether hers are in direct conflict with Dominic and whatever he is keeping from her.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
Brendan Colley’s first novel was the much feted The Signal Line and introduced us to his wild and wonderful world within a world of Hobart. Brendan’s new novel The Season for Flying Saucers promises to deliver just as much of a ride.
When the lights appear on the first night of summer Hobart is abuzz. Locals and paranormal pundits alike agree, it’s shaping up to be a good season.
Noah is skeptical. His life is spiraling more than a little; estranged from his family, his wife has left and he’s just been fired from his job. Noah’s sure if he can make payments on the family home he’s bought back and not sure if there’s much of a family to fill it with. Truthfully there’s really nothing to leave behind if they do come to get him.
Weird has followed Noah ever since the night twelve years ago when his father disappeared in the lights. Since then he’s been infamous, inseparable from the lights and this Season for Flying Saucers is shaping up to be a doozy.
Of course with the lights comes the scrutiny. Now Noah is thrown into a too close for comfort version of his childhood as both his mother and sister move in and try to sort out the mystery and their fraught family dynamic.
Brendan Colley has crafted a wickedly fun and far out exploration of the lengths we will go to for family. Within the double brick of Hobart’s northern suburbs we are shown the possibility of a universe much larger than we imagine and yet still not big enough to escape your mum's disapproval.
Noah has hung on to the possibility of his father being a part of something bigger. That his disappearance might have some meaning. It’s coloured his world and now his family must come together and try to figure out all the things they left unsaid all those years ago.
The novel plays with our own need to discover and to believe by dangling hooks and misdirection as we watch the world watch Noah and the lights that seem to be fixed on his house. While we wonder at the possibility of the impossible we see a group of people coming together and working their way through a different type of impossible.
I really loved both Brendan’s first novel and now The Season for Flying Saucers. Both novels understand that our need to believe moves in both directions and even as we look out to the fantastical in the world there is so much about our inner lives that is equally surprising when we take the time to pay it the attention it’s due.
This is the kind of sci-fi and spec-fic that is exciting me in Australian writing today. It understands that as we continue to live in a world that might generously be described as sub-optimal we are looking for answers large and small. I won’t tell you if the lights in the sky turn out to be real but I can tell you that in The Season for Flying Saucers, the time spent looking for them is well worth your while. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Antoun Issa is a Lebanese-Australian journalist and co-founder of Deepcut News.
Antoun has a new book out entitled Rebirth it’s described as a “Love Story from the depths of war.” and chronicles Antoun’s mothers experiences of the beginnings of the Lebanese civil war and her migration to Australia.
This is a deeply personal and tremendously affecting novel. Antoun takes his interviews with his mother and his time in Beirut and transforms it into a vibrant story.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
Charlotte McConaghy is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations.
Wild Dark Shore is the Literary Fiction Book of the Year at THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS 2026.
Shearwater Island has a dark history. Pillaged for its natural resources, the island saw the massacre of hundreds of thousands of whales, seals and penguins to prop up the energy needs of industrialising countries. Since those dark days the island has become a miracle of environmental renewal only to see itself threatened again by rising sea levels that could see it vanish forever.
Rowan has risked everything to get to Shearwater Island, and the wildest storm in years may just claim that price.
When she is dragged lifeless from the water she wakes to find herself in the middle of the Salt family, the last residents of the island. Dominic and his children are racing against the ocean to rescue the contents of Shearwater’s Seed Vault. It’s a noble mission but Rowan questions why the scientists and researchers would abandon it to a caretaker and his children.
Everyone on Shearwater has secrets and trust is in short supply but Rowan must decide quickly whether hers are in direct conflict with Dominic and whatever he is keeping from her.
Wild Dark Shore is a novel that confronts us with our humanity in the face of climate destruction. When Rowan arrives on Shearwater she finds a family fully immersed in the ecosystem of the island. Dom keeps the infrastructure running against all odds, much in the same way he desperately tries to keep his kids around him as a single dad. His eldest Raff struggles to understand how to be a man after living the last eight years on the island. Fen is more at home in the water and Orly has known nothing but the wilds of Shearwater his whole life.
As Rowan struggles to know who to trust she must reconcile herself to the fact she is at their mercy. Can she discover the secret of Shearwater before it’s all too late.
Wild Dark Shore makes much of its Gothic set up and wild setting. We are give a narrowed cast of characters in extremis and watch as they circle each other warily. With suspicion as a guiding principle we are offered the possibility of a dark heart whilst also shown the love and attention they carry for the island and it’s welfare.
Even as the human drama plays out we are confronted with the broader ecological catastrophe that plagues not only the central characters but the wider world they are only superficially separated from. The grievances they carry against each other start to pale in comparison to the challenges they must face as the weather continues to change.
I found this a satisfying read both for its central mystery but also for its dealing with feelings of hopelessness and climate grief. As we see more frequent and worsening natural disasters we are going to need books like Wild Dark Shore to help us work through how we might possibly understand our place in it all -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Melissa Manning’s debut story collection, Smokehouse, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction.
Melissa joins us today with her new novel Frogsong.
Caro and Danny have always been a pair, from their earliest years by the waterhole. And so it is no surprise they become a couple and plan a life through uni and beyond. But life is rarely that simple and Caro finds herself wondering what happened to the young man she fell in love with.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Sam Elliott is a writer and podcaster. He’s the host of ‘The Write Way’, and joins us today with his debut novel Haze.
The fires ringing the town of Broughlet should be Constable Dahlia Turner’s main concern as she drives from house to house warning residents to evacuate.
Instead the town’s people are threatening their own destruction as a local industrialist clashes with a secretive church in the hills.
Now Dahlia has found the bodies of her two closest friends in the wreckage of their home, murdered. Their child is missing and the fires are drawing closer.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Emily has worked in the children’s book industry for over 25 years. Her writing includes I Am Out With Lanterns (2018), Elsewhere Girls (2021) and Outlaw Girls (2024).
Emily is joining us with her new novel The Wild Unknown
Eddie’s not looking forward to the changes that will come in the lead up to high school.
When a local boy goes missing it’s the perfect distraction as Eddie and his best friend Kit decide they could succeed where the police haven’t and start their own investigation.
Despite finding some clues and a weird fossil down by the river their investigation is going nowhere. Except now Kit’s fallen ill and strange things are happening with Eddie’s body…
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Brendan Colley’s first novel The Signal Line won the Unpublished Manuscript Prize in the 2019 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and The Age Book of the Year. Today Brendan joins us with his new novel The Season for Flying Saucers.
When the lights appear on the first night of summer Hobart is abuzz. It’s shaping up to be a good season.
Noah is skeptical. Life is spiraling more than a little for him; estranged from his family, his wife has left and he’s just been fired from his job. There’s really nothing to leave behind if they do come to get him.
But weird has followed Noah ever since that night twelve years ago when they took his father, and this Season for Flying Saucers is shaping up to be a doozy.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement, the author of four novels, including The Lebs (2018) and The Other Half of You (2021), both shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. He’s also perhaps the most welcomed guest on Final Draft, where we first welcomed him around twelve years ago and have had many chats since.
Today's show has a Content Warning for discussion of sexual abuse
Lifeline's 24-hour telephone crisis line is available on 13 11 14
Bugger follows a day in the life of ten-year-old Hamoodi and explores the intersections of his vulnerability; within his school, within his family and within his own developing conception of self.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Tim Ayliffe is a journalist and author. Tim is the author of the standalone novel, Dark Desert Road, and the ‘John Bailey’ series.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Alan Fyfe is a maker of stories and poems who lives on unceded Noongar country.
Alan’s joining us today with his new novel The Cross Thieves
When his brother punched a wall and stalked off with a pair of scissors, Pell knew nothing good was coming but he followed Gark anyway.
Now the brothers are on the run, hungry and carrying the metal cross of a man they’d sworn to kill.
And the night is still young…
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, whose young adult novels, The Boy from the Mish, We Didn't Think It Through, and I'm Not Really Here have been shortlisted for numerous awards.
Gary’s latest novel is Good Young Men.
Carraway’s Point is an idyllic coastal destination. Kallum, Jordy, Dylan and Brandon grew up together on Chopin Drive, a ready made friendship group.
Fast forward eight years. The boys are staring down the end of high school. Well not all of them. Brandon was shot and killed by police and the upcoming trial has them all on edge because they know the public think this is just another death of an Aboriginal person in custody, but the boys know their friend better than that.
While the community braces for the trial, the boys must deal not only with the possibility that Brandon might not receive justice, but what that means for themselves and their lives moving forward. They are no strangers to racism but now it is becoming as ugly and as dangerous as they have ever experienced it.
Kallum only just returned to Carrway’s Point. He’s been expelled from his fancy Sydney boarding school and lost his football scholarship. There’s something more though. Kallum isn’t sure if he can trust anyone with the real reason he was expelled.
Jordy’s happier since he’s come out but that doesn’t mean his whole life is easy. Since his mum died his dad has seemed lost and so Jordy’s had to act more like a dad to his little brother and sister.
Dylan’s just struggling. He was the only witness when Brandon was killed. He’s missing his mate and scared to death of what it might mean if he testifies. It’s barely left him any time to think about life beyond high school, but he’s got dreams just like everyone else.
Good Young Men is told across three narrative arcs; one for each of the boys. This allows the story of each character to build, while mingling the competing visions each of the boys has of the other. While we are assured the boys were fast friends in primary school we can see how they have grown apart, trading mateship for belonging as cliques become as important as closeness.
The novel works carefully to balance the boys' experiences of high school, home life, and the future. We are given each boy, and their family through multiple lenses and our understanding of the community is deeper for it. For example we see Kallum’s fraught relationship with his family since losing his footy scholarship. His dad’s taking it hard, redoubling his efforts to get Kallum a first grade trial, while his mum wants to welcome her son back home. Kallum’s mum is also police though and so her character within the family looks very different when seen through Dylan whose trauma runs deep.
This is a tremendous ensemble cast and it manages well the everyday world of teenage identity against the backdrop of racism and the broader sense that the trial of Brandon’s killer offers no long term solution for the racism the boys face.
I’d heard a lot of good things about Gary Lonesborough’s writing and now that I’ve had a read I can confidently say it’s all true. -
The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Emily Lighezzolo is a publishing industry professional. She has won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the Queensland Literary Awards and is joining us today with her debut novel, Life Drawing.
Charlie’s moved to Brisbane for uni. He barely knows anyone and it’s not helping that one of his new housemates is the model he’s been sketching in his life drawing class.
Maisie’s the heart of the house. People like to think they know her. Maybe too many people think they know her too well. But the parts Maisie keeps hidden are so deep most don’t even suspect they’re there.
As Maisie and Charlie circle each other’s worlds they will try to understand whether, hypothetically, they might go well together…
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
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Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
Dr Liz Allan is an Australian writer and teacher living in the United Kingdom. Her debut novel is IN BLOOM.
Content note for references of sexual assault…
In coastal Australian towns around the country tourists come and go every summer, often oblivious to the locals and their lives outside their two week picture perfect holidays.
The Bastards disagree with this halcyon view of their home town. Vincent is a place to escape and winning the Battle of the Bands is the way to do it. They were on track to do it too, until their lead singer Lily quit the band and accuses their music teacher of sexual assault.
The Bastards know it can’t be true though. They’ve got a list of suspects a mile long. Their main job is to narrow down which of the likely culprits really did it.
As summer holidays end and the Battle of the Bands approaches The Bastards will sacrifice everything; school, family, friendships to find the truth. They know this is their big shot and nothing can stop them taking it.
You think you know the story of The Bastards. I did.
Moreover you hope you know the story of The Bastards because if you’re wrong the alternative is almost too horrible to contemplate.
Liz Allen’s In Bloom takes the familiar coming of age, artist shooting for the big time then darkens the edges.
The Bastards are so named because each of the girls comes from a single mother family. The girls openly disdain their mothers and the men that come and go in the role of ‘father’ in their life. As a group they have committed to escape and music seems like the best way.
Set in the early nineties, In Bloom makes full use of the rise of grunge and its associated cultural nihilism. The Bastards recognise their dearth of talent. Lily is the only one who can sing. They see this as a strength and frequently invoke their idols' approach to music and appeal to a kind of artistic purity in their commitment and drive.
That this is a thin hope is revealed before the novel’s opening. Lily’s departure from the band leaves The Bastards scrambling. They fear their dreams may be over and it’s telling that the girls turn against Lily rather than seek to understand what she is going through.
In Bloom is cleverly and disconcertingly crafted around the chorused voices of The Bastards. Each chapter chimes with their shared voice creating a surreal sense of hive mind. The girls are so in sync they need only their band name and their vision. Thought and action blur as the group’s attempts to escape become increasingly desperate but also subsumed within the collective, with no one person seemingly taking any of the actions.
In Bloom will hook you before you realise that the story might just be spiraling. While you think you are investigating a mystery, the journey towards the truth creeps achingly slowly towards you. The Bastards never doubt their friend has been hurt and their seeming indifference to her plight is telling.
I won’t say any more, other than to note the overall devastation In Bloom wreaks even as it draws you into its darkness. This is an incredibly effective look into a terrible subject and well worth your time in the reading.
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The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.
These are the stories that make us who we are.
Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, whose young adult novels, The Boy from the Mish, We Didn't Think It Through, and I'm Not Really Here have been shortlisted for numerous awards.
Gary’s joining us today with his new novel Good Young Men.
Four Aboriginal boys growing up together on the same street in a coastal village. It’s a ready made friendship group.
Fast forward eight years and the boys are staring down the end of high school.
Kallum’s been expelled from his fancy Sydney boarding school and lost his football scholarship.
Jordy’s happier since he’s come out but that doesn’t mean his whole life is easy.
Dylan’s struggling. He was the only witness when Brandon was shot and killed by police. He’s missing his mate and scared to death of what it might mean if he testifies.
Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople
Want more great conversations with Australian authors?
Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week. -
Maria van Neerven reads from her acclaimed debut collection Two Tongues.
Maria van Neerven is a Mununjali poet from the Yugambeh nation living in Meanjin. Maria was the winner of the David Unaipon Award in 2023 and was a Next Chapter Fellow in 2024. Two Tongues is her first poetry collection. - Show more
