S6 Ep245: Live at Write Around the Murray with Kathryn Heyman, Irma Gold, T.R Napper & Kate Mildenhall

This episode is a Live recording of the First Time Publishing panel at the Write Around the Murray Festival on September 17, 2023.

Kate speaks with writers Kathryn Heyman, Irma Gold and Tim Napper about their first and subsequent publication experiences and what they have learned along the way.

Kathryn Heyman is the author of six novels including Storm and Grace and Captain Starlight's Apprentice which was serialised on BBC radio to an audience of two million and was published last year in a new edition. Her previous work has won the Wingate, Southern Arts and Arts Council of England Writing Awards in the UK and been nominated for awards including the Scottish Writer of the Year, the Orange Prize, the Edinburgh Fringe Critics Awards, the Kibble Prize and the West Australian Premier’s Literary Awards.Alongside her publishing career, she was for several years a frequent dramatist for stage and for BBC radio. Kathryn won the CAL Author Fellowship for her 2021 memoir Fury, which was one of the Guardian's 25 best books of the year. Fury was nominated for the international Folio Prize, shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and is in development as a feature film. Kathryn taught poetry and writing for the University of Oxford and is now the director of the Australian Writers Mentoring Program.

Irma Gold is a writer and full-time freelance book editor based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her debut novel, The Breaking, won the Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship and a Canberra Critics Circle Award, and was shortlisted for the ACT Notable Award for Fiction. Her short fiction has been widely published in literary journals, and her critically acclaimed collection of short stories is Two Steps Forward. She is also the author of five children’s picture books – including Where the Heart Is and Seree's Story and is co-host of the writing podcast, Secrets from the Green Room with author Karen Viggers.

T. R. Napper is a multi-award-winning speculative fiction author. His short fiction has appeared in annual 'Year's Best' anthologies, and he has been published in respected genre magazines in the US, the UK, Israel, Austria, Australia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Before turning to writing, T. R. Napper was a diplomat and aid worker, delivering humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia for a decade. During this period, he resided in the Old Quarter in Ha Noi for several years, the setting for his debut novel, 36 Streets. Napper earned his doctorate in creative writing for his thesis on Noir, Cyberpunk, and Asian Modernity. These days he has returned to his home country of Australia, where – in addition to writing – he works as a Dungeon Master, running campaigns for young people with autism for a local charity.

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