Susan Midalia, Donna Mazza, Emily Paull and Bindy Pritchard talk turning points and the long and short of fiction writing on this week's episode of Love to Read Local Radio with Fremantle Press

What happens when you conference call with four talented Western Australian writers who are equally committed to short fiction as to long? Loads! Hosted by Susan Midalia, this episode of Love to Read Local Radio will give you a wonderful insight into where the urge to write comes from – those turning points in life which compel writers to put words on the page. Susan is joined by Emily Paull (Well-behaved Women), Bindy Pritchard (Fabulous Lives) and Donna Mazza (Fauna) to discuss the experience of writing short stories as opposed to that of writing full-length novels. To an outsider, both formats sound terrifying and time-consuming in their own highly specific ways. What you may not know about short stories is they sometimes take longer than novels to write and they are easier to get early feedback on, but that writers may ultimately find short story readers less forgiving than the readers of novels. Add to this a raft of great reading recommendations which range from Randolph Stow to Carol Millner and from Jon Doust to Craig Silvey, and we can guarantee you a taller than usual TBR pile.

 

This episode is produced by Fremantle Press for Love to Read Local by WritingWA. Visit the Fremantle Press blog for the complete show notes.

 

Music: ‘Letter to a Daughter of St George’, from the Meat Lunch EP: Songs from Floaters. Written by Alan Fyfe. Performed by Trevor Bentley (guitar and vocals – @trevormb) and Chris Parkinson (harmonica). Produced by Blake Carnaby of Nuglife studios with impresario work by Benjamin P. Newton.

Producer: Claire Miller

Mastered and edited by: Aidan d’Adhemar

Sponsor: This show was made possible with a grant from the Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund