New Voices on 2RPH

Maria Issaris presents a feast for the senses. Swaga Mahapatra, an Indian born software developer delivers rolling chasms of poetry and crime, critiqued by eminent literacy academic, Dr Bill Cope, now Professor of Education at the University of Illinois. And balancing out the heady liquor of academic analysis is actress Caroline George, and our own Technical Manager at 2RPH, Peter Worthington.

To surprise our shy young writer Shanti, the Governor of New South Wales, Her Excellency the Honorable Margaret Beazley, drops by to critique her wry short story, detailing her humble waitressing job in Perth. Maria discusses Australian identity and the importance of storytelling with both, on this powerful episode of New Voices.

Kylie Attwell has used her own experience with chronic depression to create a unique and challenging series of guide books, along with an immersive website and upcoming audiobooks. Critiquing her in this episode, Adam Norris is a seasoned writer and interviewer, and organiser of this year's Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival. What does he think of our reluctant memoirist and self-help curator?

Today we shine a spotlight on Susan Mimram, an extraordinary writer who didn’t seriously pick up a book until she was 25. She has crafted a marvelous story about a young New Zealand girl trying to solve the mystery of why her mother ran away when she was a small child. So how did Susan get to write so beautifully? Our guest critic intends to find out: Alan Ventress, who worked for 8 years as head of Sydney's prestigious Mitchell Library.

This episode features Robyn Edwards, a social worker who took a year off to ‘explore her creative side’ and ended up writing a magic-realism novel set in Bondi. Blue Wave Bondi luxuriates in descriptions of bright sun, glinting sands, and surf.

She's critiqued by Joel Dickens, an established artist born in Britain who explores the darker equation of the human condition in his startling abstract works. Is there common ground between these two creative strangers?

Young Lara Harriman, at 23, is our youngest writer so far, and she writes like a dream - plunging us into her soft-science-fiction, young-adult novel. Think supernatural powers, mystery murders and a heroic police duo patrolling the night...

She is critiqued by Stephen O’Doherty, a man who has a stellar career in journalism and parliament, and crosses so many creative and professional boundaries it is hard to put a fix on him.

Editor in Chief of crikey.com.au, Peter Fray, reviews our first playwright, Tim O’Hare

Welcome to New Voices, Season 2, and in this very first Episode we heard the work of young playwright Tim O’Hare who fearlessly explores violence, truth, power-play and politics, all in the context of one of those darker ironies of life, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Is Tim’s play Tarantino-esque or is it a hypnotically twisted version of Australian life?

Critiquing him is a man who is no stranger to fearless writing. Power, Politics and Truth-seeking? He probably stirs them in his morning coffee to add flavour. Peter Fray is Editor-in Chief of crikey.com.au, but has presided over most of the major news publication of this fair land. And was also a Professor of Journalism at UTS. He knows a thing or two about writing.

What does he think of Tim's work? Well, confessions, revelations and plot twists abound in this episode. Including Tim’s angst about being raised in a middle class family with loving parents who supported his ambitions and dreams. Poor Tim. What kind of background is that he laments, for a writer determined to explore the dark shadows of nefarious criminal minds. Nevertheless, he courageously forges on, and we hear excerpts from his play in which, Peter Fray points out, dissects capitalism with a very sharp comedic carving knife.

Due caution to listeners - there are drug references and swear words in this content. Naturally I've blanked most out so as not to offend tender sensibilities (I’ll leave that to Tim).

Don’t miss out on this episode and interviews with two exceptional men who share their gusto for life and writing.

Original broadcast date 08.03.2021

In this episode, Jesse Hawley, young scientist-turned-writer, admits he fits into the ‘mad scientist’ category.... but it wasn’t his intensive research into the eating habits of spiders and flies that drove him crazy - but the long travail of writing a novel. Compelled, obsessed, and driven by a desire to express what ‘being a human being is all about’, he breaks every code of decency by asking strangers in cafes what they think of his writing (a good hypothesis he says, but ultimately not a good method for feedback).

His critiquer is the powerful writer Joanne Fedler, an author of 13 books and a writing mentor with a legal background in trauma, domestic abuse and human rights advocacy. Would she find much to engage her in a strange young man’s work. O yes, she did. And she found much in common with Jesse. Well could she relate to the compulsive insanity to write. Ah yes, she says, writing is a madness, but there is a method to it - and she loves Jesse’s method. Join me in this episode ofNew Voices to learn some subtle arts about writing, and listen in to a couple of writers who are revelling in the craziness of trying to craft out life, and hope, and healing in words.

Original broadcast date: 14 December 2020

Presenter Maria Issaris talks with Vanessa Lee-AhMat and Aurora Liddle-Christie about the pastand the present, of poetry and policy. And then, with passionate generosity share their fierce pride and optimism for a healed future. So, get ready to be transformed and broken open in the best possible way, by poetry and passion.

Vanessa Lee-AhMat is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman born on Thursday island, who grew up to become a highly respected epidemiologist. She has appeared on news programsThe PointandThe Drum, and is, she says, someone who can translate data and graphs into policy - can see the stories they tell.

But there came a point where the stories needed to be expressed in different ways - and she broke out into poetry - and break out she did! Her poems are vivid stories wrapped in the natural and the supernatural, doling out compassion and culture.

Her critiquer is Arrernte woman Aurora Liddle-Christie, an established Brisbane poet and theatre maker, who is immersed in exploring her own background which includes Jamaica, Ireland, Scotland and the Northern Territory (where her Arrernte grandfather comes from). It is the Indigenous and coloured parts of her history which form the basis of her own beautiful poetry and theatre. This is where this episode becomes transformational - it deals with the haunting aspects of the past - and shows us how delicately these two women hold the present in their hands; that under their gaze the future is infused with hope, optimism, and healing.

Original broadcast date: 30 November 2020

This episode takes a young philosophy blogger, Sashin ofwww.sashinexists.com- hell bent on making a living out of translating and reinterpreting the great thinkers of the world - and places his interview under the gaze of that highly esteemed publishing world luminary, Sarah Runcie, who recently was appointed as CEO of the Brisbane Writers Festival.He starts off with a treatise on Lying by Sam Harris, then wades into deeper waters by looking at Alan Watts’ the meaning of work, dumps us into the deep end by looking at the dark and light sides of Stephen Pinker’s the Negativity Bias - before finally letting us splash around in the shallows with The Fun Criterion by David Deutsche. Or is it shallow? Sarah Runcie doesn’t even blink - and as it turns out is a bit of a philosophy nerd herself, referencing Plato and Heraclitus, and surmising that blogging is really an extension of the philosophical tradition of refining thought through dialogue.

The problem of running a festival during COVID? No problem says Sarah. It expands the audience participation, and opens new possibilities. Sashin would quote Marie Kondo’s philosophy - concluding that Sarah is doing what sparks her joy. Or Karl Popper on problem solving. ‘Birds fly, fish swim, humans solve problems,’ says Sashin. Listen in to this surprisingly fun episode which sees Sashin share his fascination with the human mind and its propensity for compassion; and the wonderful Sarah Runcie whose Fun Criterion is well in place when she gives access to storytelling - including the great oral traditions of our indigenous people.

Original broadcast date: 16 November 2020