Show Notes
In this episode of Fully Lit Live, we present The Critics Report, an event hosted by the Sydney Review of Books at the State Library of NSW in December 2025. Moderated by SRB deputy editor Tiffany Tsao, the conversation brings together critics, editors and scholars to assess a year that placed unprecedented pressure on Australian arts and cultural institutions — and on the artists and writers who depend upon them. Australia’s 2025 Venice Biennale entrants and Martu writer Karen Wyld, along with journalist Antionette Lattouf, all felt the impact of efforts to set the boundaries of acceptable expression. What are the longer-term effects of these cultural eruptions? And with “social cohesion” high on the political agenda, how might the arts respond? What can the arts tell us about what makes a society cohere in the first place? (Note that our panel took place before Adelaide Writers’ Week imploded, an event that suggests these questions remain urgent, and before the happy news that QUT had stepped up to rescue Meanjin.) The discussion ranges over other important questions, including the role of government and universities as cultural funders, the potential impacts of AI on the arts, and the strain placed on literary journals and critics asked to defend culture while also keeping it alive. Host Tiffany Tsao is Deputy Editor of the Sydney Review of Books. She is a novelist, translator and critic whose work has appeared in major Australian and international publications. Alongside her editorial work at the SRB, she has published multiple novels and is widely recognised for her literary translations from Indonesian to English. Guests Daniel Browning is a Bundjalung and Kullilli writer, journalist and radio broadcaster, and Professor of Indigenous Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Sydney — a newly established leadership role within the School of Art, Communication and English. He is a former presenter of The Art Show and Arts in 30 on ABC Radio National. Nicholas Croggan is an art historian and critic, and Public Programs Coordinator at the Power Institute at the University of Sydney. He completed his PhD in Art History at Columbia University, New York. Roanna Gonsalves is editor of Southerly, Australia’s oldest literary journal, and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW Sydney. She is the author of The Permanent Resident (UWAP), and her novel The Servants will be published in November 2026. James Jiang is Editor of the Sydney Review of Books. Prior to joining the SRB, he was Assistant Editor at Griffith Reviewand Australian Book Review. He holds a PhD in Modernist Literature from the University of Cambridge and has taught in the English and Theatre Studies Program at the University of Melbourne. Credits Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros. Executive Producer: Sarah Gilbert. Mixed by Siobhan Moylan. Find more episodes of Fully Lit wherever you get your podcasts.
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Has therapy come to define modern life? In this special episode of Fully Lit, Sydney Review of Books Editor James Jiang is joined by writer and scholar Christian Gelder and award-winning essayist Eda Gunaydin to probe the depths of contemporary therapeutic culture. Together, they consider how different therapeutic practices shape our ideas and language around identity, responsibility, and personal transformation, while also reflecting on the promises and limitations of therapy itself. The conversation offers perspectives from both the psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioural traditions, while touching on the best-selling book The Body Keeps the Score, the links between therapy and literature, and what our fascination with therapy tells us about our politics. At its psychic core, this episode asks how contemporary culture has come to understand itself through a therapeutic lens. Voices James Jiang is Editor of the Sydney Review of Books. Christian Gelder is an ARC DECRA Fellow in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioural therapy and the history of therapeutic culture. Eda Gunaydin is an award-winning essayist, a lecturer in politics at the University of Wollongong, and the author of Root and Branch: Essays on Inheritance. She is the current Parramatta Laureate in Literature. Credits Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros. Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang. Recorded and Edited by Regina Botros. Recorded at 2SER FM studios. Further Reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk Against Understanding by Bruce Fink What Is Madness? by Darian Leader "Self Unhelped" by Christian Gelder (Sydney Review of Books) "Where Have All the Addicts Gone?" by Christian Gelder and Rob Boncardo (Sydney Review of Books) Root and Branch: Essays on Inheritance by Eda Gunaydin For more conversations about literature, ideas and contemporary culture, explore the Fully Lit back catalogue.
What does home feel like when you've spent your life searching for it? And how do stories help us make sense of identity, belonging and displacement? In this special episode of Fully Lit, recorded live at the Addi Road Writers’ Festival, members of Dorr-e Dari present an evening of storytelling, poetry and conversation exploring Afghan Australian experiences. The event opens with a powerful personal story from Zeynab Noori about travelling to Afghanistan for the first time and confronting the realities of life under Taliban rule. Writer, director and producer Kobra Sayyadi shares original reflections on travel, courage, beauty and self-discovery, while the performance celebrates the richness and diversity of Afghan culture beyond the narratives that so often dominate public discussion. In conversation with writer and broadcaster Sheila Ngoc Pham, the group reflects on questions of home, migration, memory, identity and artistic practice. Together, they discuss what it means to belong across multiple countries and cultures, the challenges of representation, and the role of art in creating space for community voices. This is a conversation about storytelling and the many ways people carry home within them. Voices Kobra Sayyadi is a Hazara-Afghan theatre-maker, writer, and interdisciplinary artist blending theatre, poetry, film, and audio. Her work explores feeling, belonging, and the spaces in between. Zeynab Noori is an Afghan Hazara actor, born and raised in Iran, whose cross-cultural upbringing informs her artistic voice and perspective. Jawad runs a plastering business, providing his services on construction sites all over Sydney. He was a member of ensemble PYT Fairfield for three years and made his debut as a performer at Griffin Theatre in the premiere production of PYT’s Tribunal. Mahdi Mohammadi trained as a theatre director at Kabul University, where he co-founded Papyrus Theatre. Under his leadership, the company was awarded First Prize at the Afghan National Theatre Festival and toured internationally to India and Sweden. Sheila Ngoc Pham is a writer, editor, producer, curator and researcher. Sheila previously co-directed the Addi Road Writers' Festival (2021-2023), and her other curation work includes an exhibition of Đông Hồ paintings (2019) for the State Library of NSW, and most recently, MÌNH (2023) for Fairfield City Museum and Gallery. She is the 2025 Imago Fellow at the State Library of NSW. Credits This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at the Addi Road Writers’ Festival on Gadigal land in Sydney. Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros. Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang. Recorded and mixed by Daniel Wiggins.
What do we owe to the people we love? And how do we carry each other’s stories through time? In this episode of Fully Lit, Chinese-Australian writer Isabelle Li joins acclaimed novelist Gail Jones to discuss The Northern Tomb, a sweeping and deeply humane novel about family, memory, obligation and belonging. Set in northern China and spanning decades of personal and political history, the novel follows an ageing former government official, his family, and Sister Fu, the quiet carer whose compassion and attention bring their stories into focus. Together, Li and Jones explore kinship, care, ageing, grief, friendship and the responsibilities we hold towards one another. They discuss the power of storytelling, the role of memory in shaping identity, and the ways literature can deepen our understanding of lives beyond our own experience. At the centre of it all is a simple but profound question: how do we learn to care for one another? This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at Gleebooks on Gadigal land in Sydney. Voices Isabelle Li is a Chinese Australian writer and translator whose works include the short story collection A Chinese Affair and the novel The Northern Tomb. Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most acclaimed novelists, the author of eleven novels, whose work has been translated widely and recognised with numerous major literary awards. Credits This episode was recorded on Gadigal land at Sydney's Gleebooks - for more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page. Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros. Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang. Recorded by Gleebooks. Mixed by Regina Botros. Further Reading The Northern Tomb by Isabelle Li (Puncher & Wattman, 2026) A Chinese Affair by Isabelle Li (Margaret River Press, 2016) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez The Selected Stories of Lu Xun Gail Jones' latest novel is The Name of the Sister (Text, 2025) For more conversations about fiction, storytelling and contemporary Australian writing, explore the Fully Lit back catalogue.
What makes a literary reputation endure, and why do some writers disappear from view despite once standing at the centre of a nation's culture? In this episode biographer Susan Lever joins poet and critic Peter Kirkpatrick to discuss her major new biography, A.D. Hope, tracing the life of a writer whose career spanned almost the entire twentieth century. From rural Tasmania and Sydney University to Oxford, Canberra and the centre of Australian literary life, the conversation examines Hope's poetry, criticism and public intellectual role, as well as the literary debates that shaped his reputation. Along the way, Lever explores Hope's relationships with figures including James McAuley, Patrick White and Manning Clark, his attitudes to modernism, censorship and religion, and the tensions between his public persona and private life. The discussion also considers Hope's place in Australian literary history today. This conversation coincides with the publication of a review of Susan Lever’s A.D. Hope in the Sydney Review of Books, offering another perspective on Hope’s life, work and legacy. This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at Gleebooks on Gadigal land in Sydney. Voices Susan Lever is one of Australia’s leading literary critics and biographers, whose books include studies of Australian fiction and the acclaimed biography A.D. Hope. Peter Kirkpatrick is a poet, literary historian and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, whose work explores Australian poetry, popular culture and literary history. Credits This episode was recorded on Gadigal land at Sydney's Gleebooks - for more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page. Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros. Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang. Recorded by Gleebooks. Mixed by Regina Botros. Further Reading A.D. Hope by Susan Lever Damian Maher reviews Susan Lever’s biography of A.D. Hope, published in the Sydney Review of Books The Wandering Islands by A.D. Hope Collected Poems 1930–1970 by A.D. Hope The Cave and the Spring: Essays on Poetry by A.D. Hope The Best Australian Poems of A.D. Hope, edited by David Brooks The Wild Reciter: Poetry and Popular Culture in Australia, 1890–2020 by Peter Kirkpatrick
What remains after loss? How do we carry the people, places and versions of ourselves that are gone? And can art help us make sense of what endures? In this episode of Fully Lit, writer and broadcaster Sarah Runcie is joined by poet Vaughn Upward Garcia, musician Helen Franzmann, and writer and artist Judith Nangala Crispin for a wide-ranging conversation about grief, creativity and survival. Garcia reflects on recovery, reinvention and the journey behind his debut collection Poems from the Afterlife. Franzmann discusses the making of Jay Marie, Comfort Me, an album shaped by the death of her sister and the search for comfort in grief. And Crispin explores death, Country, memory and belonging through her remarkable verse novel Dingo’s Noctuary. Together, they consider what remains after loss, how art helps us navigate absence, and why love and grief are often inseparable. Along the way, they discuss sobriety, family, music, landscape, First Nations knowledge, and the stories we carry from one life into the next. At its heart, this is a conversation about transformation, and the ways creativity can help us make meaning from what endures. This episode was recorded live at the Addi Road Writers’ Festival. Voices Sarah Runcie is a writer, broadcaster and arts journalist whose work spans literature, music, theatre and cultural commentary. Judith Nangala Crispin is an award-winning poet, visual artist and conservationist, and the author of the verse novel Dingo’s Noctuary. Helen Franzmann is a singer-songwriter, musician and member of Mess Esque, whose work blends intimate lyricism with dreamlike, atmospheric soundscapes. Vaughn Upward Garcia is a Queanbeyan-based poet and performer whose debut collection, Poems from the Afterlife, explores class, recovery, mortality and belonging.