Fully Lit

In this episode of Fully Lit Live, Felicity Castagna joins writer and producer Sheila Ngoc Pham for a wide‑ranging conversation about writing, class, place, and longevity in the arts.The evening opens with poetry by Lebanese Australian multidisciplinary artist Charnel Rizk, whose work reflects on heritage, land, and survival. What follows is an expansive discussion tracing Felicity Castagna’s journey from early short story writing to award‑winning novels, teaching, and cross‑disciplinary creative work.Together, Felicity and Sheila reflect on Australian literature, the decline of literary study in universities, and the changing role of reading communities outside academia. They explore the idea of “Western Sydney literature” — who it serves, where it falls short, and how writers can resist being pigeonholed while still honouring place and specificity.The conversation also touches on class mobility, migrant identity, writing in dark political times, adaptation for stage and screen, and what it means to sustain a creative life over decades. Felicity shares insights into her upcoming novel Peaches, as well as her approach to teaching, collaboration, and staying creatively engaged beyond the book industry alone.The event was hosted by writer Yumna Kassab.The episode concludes with audience Q&A, considering creativity across disciplines, writing through rage and despair, and the value of slow, sustained artistic work.This event was recorded at the Parramatta Literary Salon #4 on Wednesday 11 March, 2026, an Arts & Cultural Exchange, Parramatta event.VoicesFelicity Castagna is a Sydney novelist, essayist, critic and teacher of creative writing. Her essays on books, art, suburbia, home and place are published both here and internationally on platforms such as The Sydney Review of Books, Electric Literature, LitHub, and ABC radio and television. When she’s not writing she spends most of her time talking about books and helping other people to write them. She’s taught everywhere from schools to festivals, art galleries and correctional centres and she has helped to establish, promote and run many writing and storytelling programs, particularly in Western Sydney. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing with The Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University.Felicity has published four novels for adults and young adults including her most recent book, Girls In Boys’ Cars, which received The Victorian and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and is on its way to becoming a film. She is also the author of No More Boats, a finalist in the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Awards, and The Incredible Here and Now, which won a Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her next book, Peaches, will be released in 2027.Sheila Ngọc Phạm is an independent Sydney writer, producer and researcher. She writes for a wide range of Australian and international publications, and her work has been recognised with listings in the 2023 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, 2021 Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism and 2021 Woollahra Digital Literary Award. She has produced radio and podcasts for Monocle, ABC Radio National and SBS; worked on screen-based projects and series; and curated exhibitions for the State Library of NSW and Fairfield City Museum and Gallery. Sheila was the inaugural Imago Fellow at the State Library of NSW, examining Australian speculative fiction in the late 20th century, and is currently a researcher of refugee health at the University of Technology Sydney.Charnel Rizk is a Lebanese Australian multidisciplinary artist working across poetry, music, performance, theatre, and writing. She is the co‑owner of Parramatta Artists Studios and founder of the creative platform All The Rizk. Her writing has been featured on SBS and has received international attention. Charnelle is also a practicing speech therapist and is passionate about storytelling, identity, and community‑focused creative collaboration.CreditsFully Lit is made on the Gadigal lands of the Eora nation.Sevan Dermelkonian recorded this episode at the Parramatta Literary Salon #4 on Wednesday 11 March, 2026 and is an Arts & Cultural Exchange, Parramatta event.Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program.Producer: Regina BotrosExecutive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James JiangFind more episodes of Fully Lit wherever you get your podcasts.

What does it mean to write in a language that isn’t your first — and to transform it completely?Antigone Kefala arrived in Australia from war-torn Europe and went on to reshape Australian literature with prose that was spare, luminous and unflinching. In this episode of Fully Lit Live, recorded at Gleebooks, writers, scholars and close friends reflect on her life, her exile and her modernism — and on the fierce clarity of a voice that refused to belong neatly anywhere.For some of the speakers, Kefala was a literary influence. For others, she was a close friend — someone whose wit, irony and indomitable spirit they continue to miss deeply. Together, they consider her historical present, her multilingual musicality, and her lasting impact on Australian letters.Antigone was a literary original.VoicesHosted by publisher and friend of Antigone, Ivor Indyk, the event brought together:Mireille Juchau — award-winning novelist, essayist and critic, and Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney. Her novels include Machines for Feeling, Burning In, and The World Without Us, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. She wrote the introduction to Antigone Kefala: Collected Fiction.Anna Couani — writer, visual artist and co-director of The Shop Gallery in Glebe. A long-time friend of Kefala, she has written and spoken extensively about her life and work.Brigid Rooney — Professor of English at the University of New South Wales and co-editor (with Elizabeth McMahon) of Antigone Kefala: New Australian Modernities. Her biography of Shirley Hazzard was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Award for Non-Fiction.Lauren Aimee Curtis — novelist and short story writer, author of Dolores and Strangers at the Port, longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and selected for Granta’s Best of Young Australian Novelists.Nikos Papastergiadis - is the Director of the research unit in public cultures, and a Professor in the School of Culture and Communication at The University of Melbourne.Alex Wells — Berlin-based writer and editor, literary editor of The Berliner, whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Paris Review and elsewhere. A long-time advocate for Kefala’s international readership.Vrasidas Karalis — professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies at the University of Sydney, translator and scholar, and an early academic supporter of Kefala’s work.Jim Provencher — poet and long-time friend of Kefala, who reflects on her craft, musicality and uncompromising standards.CreditsFully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.This episode was recorded at Gleebooks in Sydney - for more literary events see the Gleebooks events page.Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.Edited and mixed by Regina Botros.Find more episodes of Fully Lit wherever you get your podcasts.Further readingFor those who can’t get enough of Kefala, we recommend Wells’ extended homage, ‘Alien Nation’, recently published in the Sydney Review of Books. Ranging across Kefala’s poetry and fiction, Wells argues for the lasting impact her writing left on Australian literature. Through its attunement to migrants’ sense of displacement, Kefala’s work brought new intensities of poetic vision as well as a heightened sensitivity to the alienating effects of time and language.

This episode of Fully Lit comes from our friends at the UTS Multicultural Women's Network, and features two poets, Anne Casey and Nadia Niaz, in conversation with host Elaine Laforteza.Both Anne and Nadia challenge the dominance of English in Australia by creating bold, multilingual poetry.What does embracing multilingualism sound like?How do these poets use language to disrupt, to heal, to remember, and to imagine a different, more ethical way of belonging in Australia?This is the second episode in a new series called 'My Language, My Country' - the first series on a new UTS podcast called Change the Story. The series explores the Australian tradition of acknowledging Country, and how that tradition might be enriched by embracing the hundreds of languages spoken in Australia.GuestsEsita Sogotubu hails from Fiji and is the Employability Manager at UTS Careers. Her traditional roots are in Vunuku, Moala, Lau with maternal links to Nayavu, Wainibuka, Tailevu. She is a former international student who has over 15 years experience as a career development practitioner.Nadia Niaz is the author of The Djinn Hunters and the founding editor of the Australian Multilingual Writing Project. Her work explores multilingual creative expression, translation, ‘belonging’ and relationships with place. She is a Lecturer in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Melbourne.Anne Casey is originally from the west of Ireland and now lives in Australia. She is the author of six poetry books. Her work is widely published and awarded internationally, ranking in The Irish Times’ Most Read. She has a PhD from UTS where she teaches creative writing.Prankqueans are an ensemble of artists inspired by ancient Celtic mythology to celebrate all things female and Irish Australian.CreditsThis series was produced on the Lands of the Gadigal People, the Cammeraygal People, the Darug People, and the Guringai People.Host: Elaine LafortezaProducer: Masako FukuiWith the support of Jane Curtis, Sarah Gilbert of UTS Impact StudiosTile artwork by Alexandra Morris.This podcast was created by the UTS Multicultural Women’s Network and is part of the broader UTS Acknowledgment of Country in Our Languages project.

Recorded live at the 2025 UTS Writers’ Festival, this episode of Fully Lit Live features novelists (and UTS writing alumni) Andrew Pippos and Gretchen Shirm in conversation with Delia Falconer.In The Transformations, Pippos sets a love story inside a newsroom on the brink of digital collapse. What happens to intimacy when the workplace becomes all-consuming? How do you hold onto care, or truth, in an institution built on speed?Shirm’s Out of the Woods, shaped by her time observing war-crimes trials in the Hague, turns to the ethics of witnessing. How is atrocity translated into legal language? What does it mean to listen to testimony day after day? And who carries its weight?From newsrooms to courtrooms, this is a sharp, humane discussion about work, power and the radical patience of long-form storytelling.Fully Lit is produced by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney.CreditsGretchen Shirm is the author of Having Cried Wolf, Where the Light Falls, The Crying Room and her latest, Out of the Woods. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the University of Queensland Fiction Award. Gretchen teaches in the UTS Writing and Publishing Program.Dr Andrew Pippos is a writer of fiction and narrative nonfiction. His first novel, LUCKY'S (Picador), was published in 2020 and shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin literary award. Transformations is published by Pan Macmillan. He teaches in the UTS Writing and Publishing Program.Dr Delia Falconer is the author of two novels (The Service of Clouds and The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers) and two works of nonfiction (Sydney and Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss), which have been shortlisted for national and international awards across the categories of fiction, nonfiction, innovation, biography, history and research. She is the editor of three cohort-defining collections: The Best Australian Stories 2008, The Best Australian Stories 2009 and The Penguin Book of the Road. Delia's short stories and essays have been widely anthologised, including in the landmark Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature and The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. She has received grants and residencies from the Australia Council, the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship, Varuna and Bundanon, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. Since 2010 Delia has specialised in writing and teaching creative nonfiction, and she is a senior Lecturer in the UTS Writing and Publishing Program.Series Producer: Regina Botros.Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James JiangFully Lit is an Impact Studios production, in collaboration with the Sydney Review of Books.Mixed by Siobhan Moylan.