Fully Lit
Fully Lit
Podcast Description
Welcome, or welcome back, to Sydney Review of Books podcast - now known as Fully Lit: a podcast about Australian writing, presented by Anna Funder.
Over eight episodes, you'll hear the work of writers like Alexis Wright, Peter Carey, Patrick White, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Christina Stead and many more, with interviews and discussion from writers and critics like John Kinsella, Nicholas Jose, Jeanine Lane, Anita Heiss and others.
What is Australian literature today?
How does it connect to its roots in our recent and ancient pasts? Where is it headed?
Fully Lit is brought to you by Sydney Review of Books, Impact Studios, and the UTS Writing and Publishing program.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores themes of Australian literature, its connections to both recent and ancient histories, and its evolving nature. Notable episodes include discussions on prominent Australian authors like Alexis Wright and Patrick White, as well as critical commentaries on contemporary challenges in publishing and storytelling.
What is Australian literature today? How does it connect to its roots in our recent and ancient pasts? And where is it headed?
Welcome to Fully Lit: a podcast about Australian writing, where you’ll hear a new conversation between authors, critics and readers each fortnight.
Our original eight-part series, presented by Anna Funder, includes readings and conversations with John Kinsella, Nicholas Jose, Jeanine Leane, Anita Heiss and other luminaries of Australian letters as they dissect the work of Alexis Wright, Peter Carey, Patrick White, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Christina Stead and many more.
Fully Lit is brought to you by the Sydney Review of Books, Impact Studios, and the UTS Writing and Publishing program.
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?
Partly narrated by a sentient novel, Phantom Days follows a book as it moves between readers, witnessing intimate lives and uncovering secrets that its human characters cannot see. Along the way, the novel explores motherhood, memory, longing, truth and the strange relationship between writers, readers and the stories that connect them.
O’Keeffe reflects on the novel’s origins, the challenge of writing from a book’s perspective, and the experience of returning to the manuscript after a cancer diagnosis and treatment. The conversation also touches on Virginia Woolf, Dostoevsky, Mark Rothko, faith, creativity and the mystery of where stories come from.
Phantom Days is a novel about what survives after we let things go, and the lives books continue to live long after they leave their authors behind.
This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at Gleebooks on Gadigal land in Sydney.
Voices
Angela O’Keeffe is the author of Night Blue, The Sitter and Phantom Days, novels that blend art, imagination and storytelling in strikingly original ways.
Amy Sambrooke is CEO of Varuna, the National Writers’ House, and a passionate advocate for Australian writers and literature
Credits
Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.
Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.
Further Reading
Phantom Days by Angela O’Keeffe
The Sitter by Angela O’Keeffe
Night Blue by Angela O’Keeffe
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Selected writings of Virginia Woolf
Works by Mark Rothko referenced throughout the discussion.
Disclaimer
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