Episodes

  • The winning competition entry that took 20 years to write

    The winning competition entry that took 20 years to write
    Dec 8 2022
    Tessa Piper shares the incredible story behind her winning SBS Emerging Writers' Competition entry, and how she mustered the courage to share the ‘heaviest of secrets’. Find out why judge Alice Pung described Tessa’s story as 'like a punch to the face and guts with a stolen, diamond-studded glove'. Also joining her is competition runner up Monikka Eliah, who reveals how digging deep took her writing to new places.
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    31 mins
  • Writing from pain: the whys and the hows

    Writing from pain: the whys and the hows
    Dec 8 2022
    How do you write about mental health and class in a way that is tempered by time but still raw? Should you even go there? SBS Writers' Competition highly commended winners Gemma Tamock, Sidney Norris and Alexander Burton discuss how the competition theme of 'emergence' led them to unpack real life experiences in a way that was both cathartic and compelling.
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    35 mins
  • Listen to our Sydney Writers' Festival panel, 'What If My Mum Reads This?'

    Listen to our Sydney Writers' Festival panel, 'What If My Mum Reads This?'
    Aug 16 2022
    In a special episode of The New Writer's Room, listen to an exclusive stream of our memoir panel from Sydney Writers' Festival. Co-hosted by Sarah Malik and Benjamin Law, the panel, called 'What If My Mum Reads This?', discusses the perils and pitfalls of using your life as a literary canvas. Listeners will also hear from SBS Emerging Writers' Competition alumni Cat Yen, Alana Hicks and Jackie Bailey. Yen and Hicks are the 2021 and 2020 competition winners, respectively, while Bailey's shortlisted entry was developed into her debut novel The Eulogy.
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    58 mins
  • The New Writer's Room: Being published and the writer-editor relationship

    The New Writer's Room: Being published and the writer-editor relationship
    Aug 9 2022
    The latest episode of The New Writer’s Room looks at what it’s like being published in a book and the writer-editor relationship. Listeners will hear from Emily Hart, an editor at publisher Hardie Grant, and Nancy Huang, a 2021 SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition entrant whose memoir piece, ‘Mini Moke’, was featured in Between Two Worlds: 30 Power Voices from the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition.
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    29 mins
  • Alice Pung: 'My published output is a small fraction of what I write'

    Alice Pung: 'My published output is a small fraction of what I write'
    Aug 2 2022
    In this episode of The New Writer's Room, author and SBS Emerging Writers' Competition judge Alice Pung shares her best advice for competition hopefuls and speaks to Caitlin and Sarah about how she started her writing career.
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    32 mins
  • Christos Tsiolkas: The act of writing itself teaches you how to write

    Christos Tsiolkas: The act of writing itself teaches you how to write
    Jul 27 2022
    In the first episode of season two of The New Writer's Room, Caitlin and Sarah speak to Australian author and SBS Emerging Writers' Competition judge Christos Tsiolkas about his creative process and his best pieces of advice for aspiring writers.
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    34 mins
  • Teaser: The New Writer's Room Season 2

    Teaser: The New Writer's Room Season 2
    Jul 27 2022
    The New Writer's Room is back for its second season. If you're thinking of entering the 2022 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition, consider this your cheat sheet. You will hear from our competition judges Christos Tsiolkas and Alice Pung, and some of the best pieces of advice to inspire you to write your story.
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    3 mins
  • The New Writer's Room: Dr Larissa Behrendt and Jazz Money

    The New Writer's Room: Dr Larissa Behrendt and Jazz Money
    Jul 3 2022
    In this special NAIDOC edition of the New Writer's Room exploring 'Literature as Resistance', Dr Larissa Behrendt and Jazz Money discuss how literature can be used to re-centre Black experiences, capture forgotten histories, assert sovereignty, and how writing and truth telling is such a vital part of their work. The episode will also take a deep dive into their latest literary works, Dr Behrendt's After Story and Jazz Money's how to make a basket, and features a special poetry reading from Money.
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    35 mins