This episode’s featured book is Marshmallow, the second novel from Victoria Hannan. This segment is brought to you by Hachette.
Victoria Hannan is a writer and photographer. Her first novel, Kokomo was the 2019 winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and her second novel Marshmallow is out now. We spoke to Victoria in Season 4 and you can find out more about her initial path to publication in that convo (https://thefirsttimepodcast.com/2021/05/04/victoria-hannan-on-the-highs-and-lows/)
- Advice: If you don’t enjoy it, you don’t have to do it.
- Debut recommendation: Sunbathing Isobel Beech
- Victoria Hannan and Isobel Beech will be in conversation at the upcoming Melbourne Writers Festival and Victoria will be at (her childhood) Matilda bookshop in South Australia on September 14. Keep an eye on Victoria’s instagram for more event details.
Our main interview is with writer and critic Kylie Maslen. Kylie’s work has appeared in The Guardian, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Adelaide Review, Crikey and Junkee, among other outlets.
In 2018 she was the recipient of the Kill Your Darlings New Critics Award, and her essay ‘I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Not Okay’ was longlisted for the Lifted Brow & RMIT non/fiction Lab Prize for Experimental Non-fiction.
Kylie’s first book, ‘Show me Where it Hurts’ was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Non Fiction award in 2021. She contributed to the recently released MELBOURNE ON FILM collection with Black Inc. Kylie lives in Adelaide on Kaurna Country.
Katherine and Kylie discuss:
- How she got into writing
- Essay writing and how essay ideas evolve
- Kylie’s writing process, what it looks like from a disabled perspective
- Editing and this quote from the Uses This website:
My own editing while I’m still in the drafting stages is done in an extremely analogue way. I struggle to focus on a screen so I try to I save that energy wherever possible, so I print drafts as a hard copy that I can mark up with pencil. I’m also a huge fan of editing using the extremely technical Crafternoon method, where pages are printed single-side, the segments cut up with scissors and then taped together with scribbles all over them, before coming back to the computer and hoping it all makes sense. My entire book was constructed using this technique.
- How she balances being vulnerable and writing about difficult experiences with the personal cost or impact of potentially inflicting further trauma
- Advice: Don’t see other writers as competition
- Debut book recommendation: Hysteria: A Memoir of Illness, Strength and Women’s Stories Throughout History by Katerina Bryant
- Check out Kylie’s instagram here (memes!!)
ID: back background tile featuring the cover of Marshmallow (a woman lying down with her arm back, resting her forehead. She is not smiling, doesn’t appear to have a top on but you can’t see anything. It has a sensual vibe) and an author photo of a woman sitting at a table with a map behind her. Her face is resting on her fist. She had a small smile on her face. Text reads: introducing Marshmallow, Victoria Hannan
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