Show Notes
Damien Levi is in Naarm for the Melbourne Writers Festival and seizes the rare chance to sit down and chat with essayist and sewist Maddie Ballard (because he's staying at her house). Their conversation touches on topics such as the festival itself, unpopular literary opinions, reading—or not reading—Australian literature, moving to Melbourne, and a small disagreement about novellas. You can read Maddie's book as Bound in the United Kingdom and New Zealand from The Emma Press right now, and as Patchwork in the United States from Tin House on 21 October 2025. Follow Maddie on Instagram for updates and on Substack for more writing. Find Damien on Instagram or Substack. local loser's theme song is by Karen Hu.
More from local loser
Multi-hyphenate poetic talent Jackson McCarthy streams in to local loser from Wellington to talk about his new book Portrait.
Joseph Trinidad joins the local loser family as he visits Tāmaki Makaurau for the Auckland Writers Festival.
Damien Levi and local loser are back for a second season! Is the audio still unreliable? Yes! Should you still listen anyway? Please! For the first episode of season two, Damien chats with playwright/zinemaker/artiste Nuanzhi Zheng about receiving Creative New Zealand money for something unexpected, the role of Head Girls in society, art schools, eating disrespectfully, and more. As always, we can only hope the guest's audio improves across the season, but we thank you nonetheless for listening. You may want to find Nuanzhi on Instagram or Substack, by a copy of her play Yang/Young/杨 (cowritten with Sherry Zhang) in Traces, or look at her website. Damien can be found on Instagram or at his website. The local loser theme song is composed by Karen Hu.
Damien is solo in the local loser studio today, recording a round-up/recap of reading in 2025, thanks to voice notes from past guests.
It's a surprise Friday episode from Damien Levi to coincide with the official publication date of Hoods Landing, the debut novel from his guest, Laura Vincent.