AustLit

Show notes

• Andrew brought a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing to the interview.

• Andrew read the Pocomoto series by Rex Dixon as a child, and also referenced Roald Dahl and the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder by as literature good to encourage young readers.

• Andrew references The Godfather, Reservoir Dogs, Goodfellas and The Sopranos, as well as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Helen Garner’s This House of Grief (about Farquharson).
• Andrew was influenced by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Beyond Belief by Emlyn Williams.
• Andrew mentions several Australian newspapers and magazines, including The Gippsland Times, The Age and The Good Weekend (run by Fairfax), and The Herald and The Australian Magazine (run by News Corp).
• Andrew wrote the authorised biography of Kerry Stokes, Kerry Stokes : The Boy from Nowhere. The unauthorised biography, Kerry Stokes : Self-Made Man ,was written by Margaret Simons.

• Graham Perkin, Les Carlyon and Greg Taylor were all editors of The Age. Andrew also looked up to sports journalists Peter McFarline and Geoff Slattery.

• Andrew wrote extensively on the murder of Jennifer Tanner, which remains unsolved.
• Andrew mentions Amanda Hooton’s award winning piece on Takeover Target.
• Andrew was the first to publish allegations against Geoff Clark on 14 June 2001, in ‘Geoff Clark: Power and Rape’ in The Age.
• Andrew admires the writing craft of Michael Lewis, who wrote Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, and Boomerang (among others), as well as admires Anson Cameron, and the writing of Lawrence Money and Gideon Haigh. He also references George V. Higgins’ reflections on his own writing and Martin Amis talking about the death of language.
• Andrew mentions cartoonists Ron Tandberg and Mark Knight.
• Nic references You Will Go To The Moon by Mae Blacker Freeman, first published in 1959.