We’re very excited to be bringing you our first ever podcast. This is something we’ve been intending to do for a while: to record our wonderful Talking Writing evenings, to both archive them and to make their diverse and innovative programs accessible to audiences outside of Sydney who cannot make the nights.

In this podcast, Sam Twyford-Moore hosts a discussion between Geordie Williamson, the chief literary critic of The Australian newspaper, and Astrid Lorange, a poet, teacher and editor. Sam, Geordie and Astrid look at a range of questions: What is a ‘literary archive’? Who are the underrepresented writers in Australian writing? How do we right this cultural forgetting? In this exciting talk, two of Australia’s most engaged literary activists come together to discuss their ongoing projects.

Part 1: TalkingWriting1 (33:52)

Part 2: TalkingWriting2 (33:43)

About The Speakers

Geordie Williamson is chief literary critic of the Australian, a position he has held since 2008. His essays and reviews have been appearing in newspapers and magazines here and in the UK for over a decade. In 2011, he won the Pascall Prize for criticism.

Astrid Lorange is a poet, teacher, editor, and book indexer from Sydney. She is currently working on a doctoral thesis focused on Gertrude Stein, philosophy of science, and contemporary poetics. She was recently the guest-editor for the Sydney-themed issue of Cordite Poetry Review, and last year she was a guest commentator for Jacket2, where she wrote a regular column on obscure literary objects from Sydney’s past. Her books include Eating and Speaking and Minor Dogs, both published in 2011.

Sam Twyford-Moore is a writer, host of The Rereaders podcast and a Project Officer at the NSW Writers’ Centre.