This week in Love to Read Local we talk to Westerly Magazine editors Catherine Noske and Josephine Taylor about their own novels, the writing they love and the good, the bad and the brilliant parts of their day jobs as literary editors

Just days before COVID-19 sent us all home, Josephine Taylor and Catherine Noske jumped into the studio with Fremantle Press for an episode of Love To Read Local Radio. The two friends are best known in Western Australia’s literary community as editors of the journal Westerly and as academics and mentors, but this episode provided an opportunity to celebrate the release of Catherine’s debut book The Salt Madonna and to anticipate Josephine’s forthcoming novel Eye of a Rook.

The pair discuss the complex structure of The Salt Madonna and how Catherine equated the rhythm of the writing process with her own experiences riding horses. In writing about unresolved violence in Australia, Catherine shares her struggle to lean in to uncertainty, holding multiple truths, untruths, impossible, unresolved and projected truths in a web of tension while creating a nuanced and compassionate work of fiction.

How do two writers of this calibre maintain energy for their day jobs? The enthusiasm of these two colleagues and friends is readily apparent as they describe their work at Westerly, helping Western Australian writers to learn their craft and earn their place on national and international stages. The only downside, they say, is rejecting the works submitted – something they offset by providing writers with meaningful feedback.

For the full show notes including how to download a free digital edition of Westerly, go to www.fremantlepress.com.au.

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

Show Notes

Other Episodes

Episode 5

Introducing Alan Fyfe, shortlisted for the 2018 City of Fremantle T.A.G. Hungerford Award

Episode 9

Poet Nandi Chinna speaks to Holden Sheppard about peripatetic creativity and the seeds of the future

Episode 0

Helen Milroy presents: Kathryn Lefroy on how ‘vomit drafting’ before learning how to write can be useful