In conversation with Amy Sambrooke, Angela O’Keeffe discusses a book that asks an unusual and beguiling question: what if a book could think, feel and observe the world around it?

In this episode of Fully Lit, we bring you a live recording from the Sydney Writers’ Festival in Parramatta.

In this episode of Fully Lit, we bring you a live recording from Melbourne with two poets in conversation, Lisa Gorton and Bella Li.

This NAIDOC Week, Fully Lit revisits some of the standout conversations in our back catalogue with First Nations writers, critics and publishers.

In this episode of Fully Lit, recorded live at the Addison Road Writers’ Festival, we explore the richness and diversity of contemporary Latin American literature.

In this episode of Fully Lit, Erin Vincent, in conversation with writer and academic Sarah Attfield, reflects on returning to a subject she once believed she had left behind in her verse novel, 14 Ways of Looking.

In this episode of Fully Lit, we head to the Addi Road Writers’ Festival for a wide‑ranging conversation on masculinity, vulnerability, and the inner lives of men.

Scholar, insomniac, and accidental romantasy expert Olivia Murphy joins us to talk about the wildly popular adults-only genre that blends Mills & Boon-style romance with Game of Thrones-style world-building, and explore its cultural significance.

In this episode of Fully Lit, recorded live at Gleebooks in Sydney, we turn to one of the most formidable figures in Australian literature — Patrick White.

In this episode of Fully Lit Live, UTS alumni Judi Morison and Verity Borthwick join writer and academic Dr Claire Corbett to discuss their debut novels at the 2025 UTS Writers’ Festival.

In this episode of Fully Lit Live, Felicity Castagna joins writer and producer Sheila Ngoc Pham for a wide‑ranging conversation about writing, class, place, and longevity in the arts.

What does it mean to write in a language that isn’t your first — and to transform it completely?

This episode of Fully Lit comes from our friends at the UTS Multicultural Women’s Network, and features two poets, Anne Casey and Nadia Niaz, in conversation with host Elaine Laforteza.

Recorded live at the 2025 UTS Writers’ Festival, this episode of Fully Lit Live features novelists (and UTS writing alumni) Andrew Pippos and Gretchen Shirm in conversation with Delia Falconer.

In this episode of Fully Lit Live, we present The Critics Report, an event hosted by the Sydney Review of Books at the State Library of NSW in December 2025.

In this episode of Fully Lit Live, we bring you a panel discussion recorded at the Blue Mountains Writers Festival in November 2025.

Alexis Wright’s novels are often thought of as “difficult,” but this episode of Fully Lit Live challenges that label, and asks what that word is really doing.

In this episode, we return to Roland Barthes’ famous 1967 essay, The Death of the Author. This influential text is often taught as an anti-authoritarian gesture, shifting the power of meaning from the author to the reader. But what happens when we consider Barthes’ ideas alongside the voices of anticolonial writers who, at the same historical moment, were mobilising literature to galvanise communities against oppression?

Recorded at the UTS Writers’ Festival on Friday, 7 November 2025, this episode of Fully Lit Live brings you Rebel Daughters, where you’ll hear acclaimed poet Anne Casey share readings from her latest collection, followed by a Q&A with award-winning poet and critic Sarah Holland-Batt, newly appointed Professor and Head of Creative Writing at UTS. Together, they explore themes of resilience, heritage, feminism, and the rebellious spirit that shapes contemporary Australian writing.

In December 2023, the Sydney Review of Books  and Western Sydney University’s Writing and Society Research Centre were delighted to announce renowned fiction writer, Yumna Kassab, as the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature, a program delivered in partnership with the City of Parramatta.

In this episode, we’re bringing you a story from our friends at History Lab.

In this special live episode of Fully Lit, we head to Parramatta for The Poets Speak, an evening of powerful readings and conversation presented by Giramondo Publishing.

Explore the poetic, philosophical, and genre-defying world of Gail Jones’s latest novel, The Name of the Sister, in this episode of Fully Lit Live. 

In this spirited discussion, three critics—Max Easton, Eda Gunaydin, and Lucy Van—join Sydney Review of Books editor, James Jiang, to explore the evolving role of the critic. Together, they delve into how they each came to criticism, the influences that shaped their voices, the ethics and implications of writing negative reviews, and whether we are truly living in a post-literate culture.

Poetry month has been and gone, but we have plenty more to say about poetry and poetry criticism!

Hear what poet and critic Sarah Holland-Batt has to say about Australia’s as-yet-uncrowned Poet Laureate. She takes a close look at the tradition and explores poetry’s relationship to power, highlighting the potential pitfalls and possible benefits of such a figure.

This special edition of Fully Lit Live was recorded at the Abercrombie Hotel in Sydney, on beautiful Gadigal land.

On this episode Teela Reid and Merinda Dutton, the co-founders of Blackfulla Bookclub, talk about the online community they’ve built around First Nations storytelling and discuss their experiences of reading Fire Front, an anthology of poetry and essays curated by Alison Whittaker. It’s about seeing, and hearing, and reading the world through powerful First Nations perspectives. Listen up. 

In an engaging, though-provoking and moving conversation, Winnie Dunn, Julie Janson and Siang Lu – all shortlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award – discuss their nominated works, the ideas that shaped them, and the questions they raise about Australian life, literature and identity today, with writer and broadcaster Sunil Badami.  

Writer, editor and producer Charle Malycon (Penguin Random House and Overland literary journal) and co-founder and director of Amplify bookstore, Jing Xuan Teo, join Alice Grundy to dissect the current state of the industry. What goes on behind the scenes? What is the work of publishing today and who is doing it? Our guests share their personal experiences in publishing and bookselling, taking the listener through the complex process of getting a book from manuscript to reader and highlighting the many hands that shape the reader’s experience.

Anita Heiss, Wiradjuri woman, author and editor at large at Bundyi, a First Nations imprint at Simon & Schuster, shares her insights into the Australian publishing industry with Alice Grundy, managing editor at Australia Institute Press. They take a close look at the way First Nations writing has affected and been affected by the prevailing practices in the industry, from author-editor relationships to marketing. What would sovereign publishing look like for First Nations writers in Australia?

How can poetry act upon the world? Hear John Kinsella hold up a bulldozer with a poem, and take a tour through his life as a reader, poet and activist as he and Lisa Gorton delve into the people and poets who influenced him. They discuss the challenges and responsibilities of being a poet, reflecting on the growing threats to our ecosystems and long-postponed colonial reckonings. In this context, what can poetry do, and what are the possibilities and limitations of a future Australian poet laureate?

Award-winning poets Bella Li and Ellen Van Neerven join fellow poet Lisa Gorton for a discussion on poetry, responsibility and poetry’s place in Australian public life. With readings from each poet’s work, along with other poems from Australia and beyond, our panelists explore the balance between poetry as a private practice and its public impact, attending to the ways in which poetry can unsettle language, shaping and reshaping our sense of history.

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Who gets to critique First Nations literature — and how should it be taught?

What does it really take to read and review First Nations writing with integrity?

What is the Australian novel today? Is it even a novel?

What makes a novel uniquely Australian? How do our stories stack up on the world stage?

What is Australian literature today? How does it connect to its roots in our recent and ancient pasts? And where is it headed? 

On this episode Teela Reid and Merinda Dutton, the co-founders of Blackfulla Bookclub,

In this episode, graphic novelist Pat Grant explains what happened during the seven years it took him to make his second book, The Grot. We’ll also hear about the challenge of getting hard copies of your own book in the midst of a global pandemic.

This episode of the SRB podcast is an audio essay: ‘Climbing the Hill’ by Eileen Chong. We are fascinated by the ways the places we live shape the poems, books and essays we write. When poet Eileen Chong was invited take up this theme she wrote an essay with roots in three places:  Singapore, where she was born, Sydney, where she now lives, and Scotland, the country her husband is from.

‘It’s not a document that anyone can see or get hold of, rather, it’s the way I’ve broken things down to guide me and my anxiety along. The extroverts are a loud, 25-strong Lebanese clan – all of us living in three houses side-by-side on the same street in Punchbowl, south western Sydney, roaming freely onto each other’s properties, with detached fences and no clear borders.’

In recent years there’s been a trend of writers publicly giving away prize money to charity or sharing it with other shortlisted writers.

Welcome to the Sydney Review of Books podcast, a show about Australian books and writers.