Secrets & Lies: Finding the truth when history hides it
'Every author of historical fiction faces the same question: is it OK if I make things up? Whether it’s wondering about the worries of Henry VIII for Wolf Hall or investigating an emperor’s ailment for I, Claudius, eventually the archive will come up short. The gaps are even greater when you’re writing about events and people that mainstream society would rather forget. Did a lesbian collective really get pregnant without men? Did a First Nations ancestor honestly turn outlaw? Keely Jobe and Julie Janson tell Neika Lehman how they answered the question: when you’re faced with untrustworthy history, what story do you tell?'
The Great Debate - only literature can save us!
'AI, climate change, Trump’s America, a housing crisis, free speech battles, genocide, the rise of One Nation, a global paedophile conspiracy, war in the Middle East and Europe rearming itself with nuclear weapons – there’s a lot going on and it’s hard not to feel like everything is getting worse. Politicians, pundits and the media don’t seem to be able to fix it. Lucky we’ve got literature! Two teams of poets and novelists go head-to-head to discover whether the pen really is mightier than the sword, whether imagination can build a better future, or whether writing a book is a waste of time that could be better spent prepping for the apocalypse.'
