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Through discussions and interviews with writers, artists and health professionals, author friends James McKenzie Watson and Ashley Kalagian Blunt explore the big questions: how do books get written? How do people navigate life with chronic illness? And just what are you reading?

Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the author of Dark Mode, an internationally published psychological thriller. Her earlier books are How to Be Australian, a memoir, and My Name Is Revenge, collected fiction and essays. Her writing appears in the Sydney Morning Herald, Overland, Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, and more. Ashley is an enthusiastic teacher of writing and creativity. Originally from Canada, she has lived and worked in South Korea, Peru and Mexico. Find her on Twitter and Instagram or visit her website.

James McKenzie Watson is the author of Denizen, which won the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize and was shortlisted in 2023 Ned Kelly Awards for Best Debut. His writing has appeared in The GuardianMeanjinKill Your Darlings and the Newtown Review of Books. He has appeared at events including the Sydney Writers Festival, Newcastle Writers Festival and BAD Crime Sydney. He works as a nurse. Find him on Twitter and Instagram or visit his website.

May 3, 2022

'If he wants to follow me, I can't stop him.' After a random encounter with poet and author Ellis Gunn at an auction, a stranger decides to stalk her. Years later, she sits down to write about the experience – and realises it's connected to a lifetime of gendered abuse, including surviving both sexual assault and domestic violence. In this wide-ranging and compelling interview, Ellis discusses what she learned through the experience of writing her debut memoir, Rattled, including the psychological impacts of stalking, the reactions of her family and friends, and the concepts of agency deletion and radical empathy. 

Ellis Gunn is a Scottish writer and poet who now lives in Australia. Her poetry, essays and reviews have been published widely in the UK and she has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh Book Festival and the British Embassy in Berlin. She lives near the beach with her partner, two children, a cat and some ants.

Learn more about Ellis on her website, and buy a copy of 'Rattled' from your local bookshopBooktopia or wherever else books are sold. 

Ashley is teaching in-person at Writing NSW! Crafting Memoir: An Introduction. Saturday 7 May 2022, 10am-4pm, in-person at Writing NSW, Callan Park, Sydney. Visit Writing NSW to learn more about their online course program

Books and authors discussed in this episode:

  • The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk;
  • 'Tribes and Traitors', Hidden Brain podcast from Shankar Vedantam;
  • Troll Hunting: Inside the World of Online Hate and Its Human Fallout by Ginger Gorman;
  • The Writing Life by Annie Dillard; 
  • The Luminous Solution by Charlotte Wood;
  • How to Be Australian by Ashley Kalagian Blunt;
  • Outline by Rachel Cusk;
  • The Break by Katherena Vermette

Get in touch!