(photograph by Alexis Jabour)Caro Llewellyn is the author of four works of non-fiction, including her Stella Prize-shortlisted memoir, Diving into Glass (2019).  For more than three decades, she has worked with writers variously in publishing and as a festival director and human rights advocate in Australia, France, and the United States, where she lives. Love Unedited, her first novel, is published this month.

If you could go anywhere tomorrow, where would it be?

Somewhere where people are put above profits and greed, and where those fleeing persecution are welcomed and supported, not treated like criminals.

What’s your idea of hell?

The United States in 2025 and the many other countries dangerously following the playbook that got us here.

What do you consider the most specious virtue?

Sentimentality. As a practical person, I dislike sentimentality’s ability to crowd out reason.

What’s your favourite film?

A French movie from 2012 called De rouille et d’os or Rust and Bone in English, directed by Jacques Audiard. The script combined two unconnected short stories by Canadian author Craig Davidson: ‘Rust and Bone’ and ‘Rocket Ride’.

And your favourite book?

I find it impossible to walk to a shelf, pick one out of so many and say, ‘This is it, this is my favourite!’ Gilead by Marilynne Robinson would be one, What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt another, Tiger’s Eye by Inga Clendinnen, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett …

Name the three people with whom you would most like to dine.

In 2011, I was invited to the White House as the guest of Philip Roth, who was being awarded the National Humanities Medal by then President Barack Obama. Unfortunately, I was overseas and couldn’t attend, but I would really have liked to be at that dinner with Philip, and Barack and Michelle Obama.

Which word do you most dislike, and which one would you like to see back in public usage?

The word ‘that’ has quietly crept into overuse. When we say it in a spoken sentence, it’s not so annoying, but nine times out of ten when you read the word that in a sentence, you could lose it and lose none of the meaning. Once you start looking for it, you see it’s everywhere and, in most cases, superfluous and supremely annoying. I’m all for a little cussing every now and then.

Who is your favourite author?

Since I first read her astonishing book Nine Parts of Desire many decades ago now, Geraldine Brooks has been a writer whose next book I await eagerly. I’m very much looking forward to her new memoir. Like Joan Didion, Geraldine will make something beautiful and lasting from loss and pain.

And your favourite literary hero or heroine?

Scout and her father Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Which qualities do you most admire in a writer?

An unflinching view of the world, plus deep empathy for human frailty.

Which book influenced you most in your youth?

My father had polio, so reading Alan Marshall’s I Can Jump Puddles was something of a revelation. No one much talked about polio back then; reading a book whose protaganist had polio was wonderful.

Name an early literary idol or influence whom you no longer admire – or vice versa.

I have been very disturbed to learn about what happened to Alice Munro’s daughter and find myself unable to reconcile the choices Alice made. I won’t be rereading any of her stories again.

Do you have a favourite podcast?

I confess I am not an avid podcast listener – apologies to the devotees!

What, if anything, impedes your writing?

Work! Last year, I received a grant from Creative Australia, which enabled me to leave my role as CEO of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas and focus on finishing my first novel, Love Unedited. It was the greatest gift!

What qualities do you look for in critics?

Fierce intelligence and brutal honesty.

How do you find working with editors?

Editors are the magic makers. I often feel my editors should be acknowledged on the front cover with me. A good editor makes everything I write so much better – clearer, cleaner, more accurate.

What do you think of writers’ festivals?

As a former festival director, I’m an avid fan of well-curated and thoughtful programs that free writers to talk about their work. As a writer, I’m also a fan because a festival allows you to speak to and meet a lot of readers all in one place!

Are artists valued in our society?

No, not nearly enough. We often measure worth by monetary remuneration. Most writers in Australia earn less than $20,000 a year for their work, which speaks volumes about how much we value writers and their contribution.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just started toying with a seed of an idea about tyrants, but it’s no more than a sketch right now. Although I think I have a title: The Party.

For a creature born to life as a small songbird, days and nights can be treacherous. At any moment, a goshawk, a cat, or a goanna may be lurking, waiting to turn the songbird into supper. So these pretty little prey objects – scrubwrens and lorikeets and honeyeaters and the like – have developed an astute group behaviour. One bird spots the predator and issues an alarm call. Others hear it and zip out from behind branch and leaf to surround the threat, all of them twitting and hissing and flitting about, a mixed-species hullabaloo that together harasses the predator into pitiful retreat. This behaviour, known as a ‘mobbing flock’, is an evolutionary survival response. It is beautiful in its ingenuity, and the conviction it displays in the power of the collective. It is, to draw a metaphor from the literary ecosystem, an anthological act, a communal relay of meaning born of a shared inner urgency.

For much of the nineteenth century, John Gould (1804-81) was known internationally as ‘the bird man’. His fame derived from two main sources: first, as the author and publisher of a series of sumptuous, folio-sized books featuring beautiful, hand-coloured lithographs of birds from particular regions or spectacular bird families; secondly, by using his position as an ornithologist at the Zoological Society of London to amass an unequalled collection of stuffed birds to use as reference material. Such was his fame that collectors and natural scientists from Charles Darwin down sought his advice about species identities and relationships. In a local context, Gould is rightfully regarded as a giant of Australian ornithology. He described and named over 400 species of birds and mammals collected in Australia.

(photograph by Travis De Vries)Eileen Chong is an award-winning poet of Hakka, Hokkien and Peranakan descent. She is the author of eleven books. Her most recent book is We Speak of Flowers. She lives and works on unceded Gadigal land of the Eora Nation.

Which poets have influenced you most?

Philip Levine, Li Young-Lee, Rainer Maria Rilke, Alice Oswald, Li Qingzhao.

Are poems chiefly inspired or crafted?

Poems can and often do arise from inspiration, but for me it is in the crafting that they inch towards the truest versions of themselves.

What prompts a new poem?

A hunger, a humming, a desire for wholeness, or for breaking something open.

What circumstances are ideal for writing poetry?

When the bills are paid, food is on the table, and the housework done. When the days and nights are quiet and filled with peace and contentment. Conversely, some of the best poetry is written when one is thrust into uncertain territory and must write to make sense of it.

Roughly how many drafts do you produce before ‘finishing’ a poem?

It depends on the poem. Some of my poems have come into being fully formed and seemingly in a flash; others have needed as many as thirty drafts over a number of years.

Which poet would you most like to talk to – and why?

Gabriela Mistral, because of what she saw and lived through, and how she made an incredible life despite very poor odds.

Do you have a favourite Australian poetry collection?

Currently, it’s a three-way tie between Judith Beveridge’s Tintinnabulum, Jordie Albiston’s Fifteeners, and Boey Kim Cheng’s The Singer.

What do poets need most: solitude or a coterie?

Solitude – but maybe enjoyed alongside one’s beloved, and several cats.

Who are the poetry critics you most admire?

She is more of a cultural critic than a poetry critic, but I always learn something new from reading the thoughtful essays of Eda Gunaydin. I also feel most immersed in my craft reading the essays and lectures of poet-teachers Jane Hirshfield, Mary Oliver, Eavan Boland, Linda Gregg, and Mary Ruefle.

If Plato allowed you to keep one poem or poetry collection in his Republic, what would it be?

One book? I can’t choose. It’s an impossible task. Do you go deep or go wide? I’d probably say the Norton Anthology of Poetry, because it was the first broad anthology of poetry I ever owned. I loved being able to read many different poets across the centuries in the one book, and it helped me to understand tone, voice, and perspective, and to form my own ideas on what kind of poetry might remain eternal (which is to say, none of it).

What is your favourite line of poetry (or couplet)?

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror,
which we are still just able to endure.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies, Part 1 (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

How can we inspire greater regard for poetry among readers?

As a poet-teacher: I think we grow them! We can infect others with our love and enthusiasm for poetry. Normalise sharing poetry with friends, family, colleagues, and strangers; talk about poetry with your doctors and plumbers, with students and children. Poetry is for everybody!