Listen to Sarah Firth and Elise Esther Hearst38:4316 October 2023

This week, we step inside the colourful, questioning and ecstatically wild mind of debut author and Melbourne-based cartoonist Sarah Firth, whose illustrated essay collection Eventually Everything Connects: Eight Essays On Uncertainty is out now through Joan Press. She swings by the studio to chat about seeking delight in the everyday, drawing in order to think, and the mating habits of tiger slugs – among other things. 

Plus, author and playwright Elise Esther Hearst dishes the dirt on her debut coming-of-age story One Day We’re All Going To Die: her character’s Saturn Returns era, why we’re all so eager to please, and how her Grandmother gives her permission to push for what she wants.

About this program

Championing stylish wordsmiths and sterling conversation, Literati Glitterati is a weekly book show that loves a good story, well told. 


LITERATI GLITTERATI SALON: A MONTHLY BOOK CLUB

Join Mel and a rotating roster of bookish conversationalists as they unpack Literati Glitterati’s book of the month.

Expect a spiriting assortment of cult classics, forgotten wonders, timeless treasures, zesty new releases and pulp fictions wrestled straight from the zeitgeist by Mel herself.

Each book will be announced a month out from the special, so that you can read along at home. On the last Wednesday of every month, tune into Literati Glitterati from midday till 1pm with your thoughts and feelings ready: we’ll be taking questions through the text line.

Literati Glitterati Salon: a monthly book club for folks who like a good story, well told.

Family Lexicon

NOVEMBER'S BOOK: Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg.

‘Autobiography crept up on me like a wolf,’ said Natalia Ginzburg of her charming and dynamic autofictional novel from 1963, Family Lexicon: a dancing love letter to memory, language and family, set against the backdrop of fascist Italy.

What do you do when you miss your home and your big raucous family? You summon them on the page in clean, supreme prose of course. You make them TALK. You like Cusk? Maggie Nelson? Tessa Hadley? You like to laugh? This one’s for you, cutie. Ginzburg’s dad called all his kids jackasses.

Tune in! Call your sister! Stick it to the fascists! Stop dropping bombs you fucking ghouls! Love and hugs to all.

Featuring an unbelievable panel of kaleidoscopic life force, of course: giant of publishing Hilary McPhee; songwriting storyteller of Orbweavers fame, and all-time great conversationalist Marita Dyson; and author of the electric The Degenerates, Raeden Richardson. Much to discuss!

Tune in Wednesday 27 November, 12pm.

Presenters