Ep 48 Building community after loss with author Shankari Chandran

January 17, 2022January 12, 2022 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

How do we build community and a sense of self after loss, especially the kind of loss that echoes for generations?

In episode 48, James and I talk to Australian author Shankari Chandran about her latest novel, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, and how her efforts to find connection in the writing community echo her Tamil family’s work to build community after being dispossessed from their homeland in the Sri Lankan civil war.

As she writes, ‘Possession of land is nine-tenths of the law. Possession of history is nine-tenths of the future.’

Shankari Chandran was raised in Canberra, Australia. She spent a decade in London, working as a lawyer in the social justice field, before returning to Australia, where she now lives with her husband and children. She is the author of two previous novels, Song of the Sun God, and The Barrier, and has been shortlisted for the Fairway National Literary Award and the Norma K Hemming Award for speculative fiction.

In this episode, we discuss the reshaping of historical narratives, how families live with the legacy of genocide and dispossession, and Shankari’s struggle to find a publisher for her novels in Australia, and how her writing has helped her find a sense of community and connection.

This episode connects to our conversations with previous guests Nardi Simpson (ep 18), Luke Stegemann (ep 26), David Heska Wanbli Weiden (ep 40), in which we explore the legacy of mass traumatic events on the health of communities and society.

Books and authors discussed in this episode
– A Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam
– Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
– Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson (from ep 18)
– Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
– They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall
– David Heska Wanbli Weiden (from ep 40)
– Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian translated by Mabel Lee
– Amnesia Road by Luke Stegemann (from ep 26)

Check out Shankari’s essay on writing and resilience published by Writing NSW, and get your copy of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens from Booktopia or your local bookshop or library.

Plus, join Ashley for her Laneway Learning online workshop, The Joy of Creative Writing (Monday 31 January, 7:45-9pm AEDT) and her upcoming online event with Anna Downes (Thursday 3 Feb, 11am AEDT).

Listen to episode 48 of James and Ashley Stay at Home here, or on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast app, and find out about past episodes here.

The top 10 most popular episodes of James and Ashley Stay at Home

January 17, 2022January 16, 2022 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

James and Ashley Stay at Home, the podcast I co-host with author James McKenzie Watson, is about to hit 50 episodes.

We’ve been exploring writing, creativity and health since way back in June 2020, and we’ve talked to an amazing variety of guests. If you live with chronic illness or have a writing or creative practice, we’re bringing you guests that we hope you’ll love and learn from, as we have.

To celebrate our (almost!) 50 eps, here are our all-time top 10 most popular episodes.

James and Ashley Stay at Home podcast yumiko kadota

10. Burning out with Yumiko Kadota, author of Emotional Female (ep 28)
Dr Kadota shares shares the devastating effects of burnout, the difficulties women of colour face in the public health system, and the possible future directions of chronic fatigue research. Her revealing memoir is a bestseller so it’s no surprise this ep is so popular.

Author Ruhi Lee on James and Ashley Stay at Home podcast

9. Recovering from childhood with Ruhi Lee, author of Good Indian Daughter (ep 30)
Ruhi Lee (who recently revealed her real name, Sneha Lees) discusses what it means to be a girl in a South Asian family, the notion of unconditional parental love, and how one generation avoids making the same mistakes as the last. Her memoir is raw and real, and full of unexpected laughs.

8. The healing power of creativity with Karin Foxwell, art therapist (ep 9)
In this fascinating interview, Karin describes the profound therapeutic power of art, as she’s observed in her work with military and emergency services personnel who’ve sustained PTSD in the course of their service. She also describes a ‘standard’ art therapy session, discusses the therapeutic power of writing, and explains why she thinks everyone should engage in some kind of art therapy.

This is an incredibly heartening episode, and I recommend it every time I teach about creativity.

7. Living with chronic illness: James and Ashley talk health (ep 10)
James and I discuss our own illnesses, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) respectively. We explain these conditions, discuss how they affect day to day life, and explore how illness has impacted our senses of self.

6. Where’s my Man Booker? James and Ashley share writing tips (ep 6)
It turns out we should all listen when James discusses writing tips, since he went on to witn the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize! He knows what he’s doing.

5. The year that almost killed Anna Downes, author of The Safe Place (ep 5)
Anna discusses the role motherhood and post-natal anxiety played in the development of her internationally bestselling debut The Safe Place, and how sacrificing one creative career helped pave the way for success in another. Anna’s second book, The Shadow House, is now in bookstores – and I’ll be in conversation with her about it for an online library event on Thursday 3 February. Join us!

4. Navigating creative anxiety with Kate Mildenhall, author of The Mother Fault (ep 13)
Kate generously discusses the craft of novel writing, the challenges of penning a second book, and the creative anxieties that plague creatives. This is another episode I recommend in every one of my creativity workshops.

3. Introduction episode! (ep 1)
If you’re new to James and Ashley Stay at Home, this is the place to start. (We hadn’t figured out how to write titles back then!)

michelle-tom-james-ashley-stay-home-podcast

2. How to survive an earthquake with Michelle Tom, author of Ten Thousand Aftershocks (ep 38)
We discuss the captivating and highly original structure of Michelle’s memoir, the strange parallels between childhood trauma and earthquakes, and the transformative power of owning your narrative. This was our most popular episode of 2021.

1. Living in different universes with Ada Palmer, author and historian (ep 16)
Ada Palmer is an historian, composer and author of the Terra Ignota sci-fi/fantasy book series. She’s also an incredible speaker who lives with invisible illness. Here, she discusses how she’s managed to achieve her astonishing body of work while living with chronic pain, and the relationship between identity and disability. Ada offers valuable advice to all creatives who experience illness, so it’s no wonder it our most popular episode yet.

Listen to all episodes of James and Ashley Stay at Home here, or on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast app, and find out about past episodes here.

An exceptionally generous gift you can give anyone

January 10, 2022January 8, 2022 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

Think of a book (or movie, album, whatever) that you really love. Now imagine someone says to you, ‘Let me take the time to read that book, and then let’s talk about it. For an hour.’

Which, if you think about it, is an incredibly generous thing to do.

This is the premise of Ben Hobson’s podcast, Burgers, Beers & Books. Or, part of the premise – the other bit is sitting around enjoying beers and burgers while talking about books. Clearly, Ben’s a genius. He’s also the author of Snake Island and To Become a Whale, and has a new novel forthcoming in 2022.

The chipotle burger I ate an hour before I spoke with Ben, because I forgot that Queensland doesn’t have daylight savings time.

When Ben invited me on his podcast, I knew exactly which book I wanted to talk about – John Sandford’s Certain Prey.

Since winning the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1986, Sandford has become the author of more than 50 books, most of them crime thrillers. His first book, Rules of Prey, introduced Minneapolis Police detective Lucas Davenport, one of my all-time favourite fictional characters.

There are now 31 books in Sandford’s Prey series. I’ve been reading it for over 20 years, since I worked in a secondhand bookshop in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and would hole up in the back stockroom listening to audiobooks on cassette.

(I’m also obsessed with the series’s narrator, Richard Ferrone, whose voice is synonymous with the characters for me.)

It was hard for me to pick a favourite for Ben to read. Ideally we would have read the whole series together and spent 31 hours talking about it, but I had a feeling Ben wasn’t going to go for that.

I ended up choosing Certain Prey because I love the antagonist, Clara Rinker. She’s a hit woman for the St Louis mob, and the novel centres around her burgeoning friendship with Minneapolis defense attorney and sociopath Carmel Loan.

I find this particularly interesting because not a lot of thrillers explore female friendship.

There were so many authors and books I could have chosen for this guest interview with Ben (a title from my list of great reads, for instance). I chose Sandford because I’ve recently realised that I don’t know anyone else who reads them, so I’ve never really had an opportunity to discuss them in depth. (So if you’re a Sandford fan, please email me!)

In this very fun interview, Ben and I discuss the different ways to approach a writing practice, the 10,000-hour theory of mastery, and Ben’s Nana’s reading preferences.

We talk a lot about Sandford, Davenport, and Certain Prey, and this is the only series I’ve loved for years.

I also get into the less-violent perpetrator strategy, which I used in my first book, My Name Is Revenge. I explain it in more detail here.

At the end, our conversation devolves into a Con Air love-in, although Ben and I disagree about the film’s fundamental brilliance. For Ben it’s Nicolas Cage and his Alabama accent, whereas I’d prefer a cut that was nothing but John Cusack as US Marshal Vince Larkin.

One correction to our chat: I said the original title for Winter Prey was The Iceman, but I’ve since learned that this was only true in the UK. In the US the title was always Winter Prey.

Books and authors discussed in this episode
– Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary
– Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
– Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
– Redemption Point by Candice Fox
– Will by Will Smith
– The Torrent by Dinuka McKenzie
– David Heska Wanbli Weiden
– Rachel Howzell Hall (check out my recommendation on this summer reading list)
– Anne Perry
– Patricia Cornwell
– Jane Harper
– Dervla McTiernan
– Lee Child
– James Patterson
– and My Name Is Revenge

Listen to episode 11 of Burgers, Beers & Books with Ben Hobson, a spinoff series from Words and Nerds with host Dani Vee.

My only resolution for 2022

January 1, 2022January 3, 2022 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

Happy New Year! This morning I woke up early and went for a swim, and while the ocean waves slapped me in the face, I resolved to not complain about anything.

Couple standing on the beach, holding takeaway coffees

To be clear, that was my resolution for the day, ie January 1. There’s no way I’m going all year without complaining. Have you seen the weather forecast?

On New Year’s Eve, I watched the 9pm fireworks and pretended they were the midnight fireworks (this is easy if you ignore all the small children running round), and thought about the year past and the year ahead and the 21,000 covid cases reported in NSW that day.

Since I was diagnosed with CFS, I’ve mostly given up making resolutions. Last year I planned to use the word absquatulate more (more than never) and then promptly forgot about it. I still like this plan, but it’s tough to leave abruptly when I no longer go anywhere thanks to covid.

Author Ashley Kalagian Blunt in Santa hat at the beach, holding a pomeranian in a santa outfit

In 2020 I made some earnest resolutions, which was a real joke. And in 2019 I made probably the best set of resolutions of my life.

The fatigue improved significantly in 2021, much more than in 2020. It’s still a major factor in my life though, and an unpredictable one. I spent most of Christmas Day so unwell that I could barely sit up. Trying to eat was miserable.

From left: me, Petronella McGovern, RWR McDonald, Anna Downes, Sarah Bailey, Dani Vee & Laura Elizabeth Woollett

On the other hand, at the start of December I attended the Bad Sydney Crime Writers Festival. I had a tremendous time with some of Australia’s most talented crime authors, and actually stayed awake until midnight for the first time since I got sick.

So, progress.

Between the CFS and covid (and my concerns about the possible combination of those two conditions for me personally), I think the only reasonable resolution I can make is to accept that the year ahead will be as capricious and unforeseeable as the previous five.

The motto of 2022: subject to change.

That said, I do have some fun and (thankfully!) online events coming up. In January, I’m teaching two more workshops with Laneway Learning.

Make 2022 the Year You Write Your Book
Monday 10 January 2022, 7:45-9pm AEDT

The Joy of Creative Writing
Monday 31 January 2022, 7:45-9pm AEDT

Both workshops are on Zoom, open to everyone, and are only $14 (or $9 if you get an early bird ticket)!

And in February, I’m doing a free online talk with author Anna Downes on Thursday 3 Feb, 11am AEDT, about her new novel, The Shadow House. (If you don’t know Anna, listen to episode 5 of James and Ashley Stay at Home to hear about her internationally acclaimed debut novel, The Safe Place.) RSVP here >>

So come and join me online sometime. I’d love to see you! You can ask me how 2022 is going.

Sandy pomeranian smiles with a double rainbow over the ocean in the background

Wishing you a year of double rainbows.
xo

Ep 45 Writing the book you need with Jacinta Dietrich, author of This Is Us Now

December 1, 2021December 1, 2021 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

When Jacinta Dietrich’s boyfriend was diagnosed with cancer, she turned to fiction to find this new terrain explored on the page.

Except she couldn’t find her story.

While there were lots of narratives involving cancer, Jacinta was looking for a story that involved a young couple involved in a newer – but crucially, established – relationship, who had to navigate the progression of their romance while one of them also went through cancer treatment.

Jacinta Dietrich is a writer and editor who holds a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. Her first book, This Is Us Now, was published in 2021 by Grattan Street Press.

In episode 45 of James and Ashley Stay at Home, Jacinta talks about fictionalising her story, writing confronting emotions, and telling her partner that the book she’d written based on their relationship was going to be published.

Plus, things go off the rails as we get into a heated and cryptic discussion of Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, and also exactly which co-host asked author Lyn Yeowart what she was wearing. (If you’re looking to give James a gift, maybe don’t go with a photo book.)

Books and authors discussed in this episode

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
Lee Kofman (featured in episode 3)
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Late Bloomer by Clem Bastow
Kay Kerr (featured in episode 37)
The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan
Tana French
Dinuka McKenzie
Andrew Solomon, of course
Ten Thousand Aftershocks by Michelle Tom (featured in episode 38)
Lyn Yeowart (featured in episode 39)

You can order This Is Us Now from Booktopia and bookshops across Australia.

Listen to episode 45 of James and Ashley Stay at Home here, or on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast app, and find out about past episodes here.

Ep 41 When you get it this young, you have it forever with author and editor Heather Taylor Johnson

October 25, 2021 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

When she was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease at age 25, one of the many things it meant for Heather was that she’d have to quit skydiving – though not until she’d injured herself trying to hold on the person she was before.

Heather Taylor Johnson is a writer and editor. Born in Minnesota and now living in South Australia, she has written novels and poetry collections, and is the editor of Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain. Her writing has been published in Meanjin, Southerly, Cordite, Westerly, Griffith Review, Island and TEXT. She lives with Ménière’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear.

In episode 41 of James and Ashley Stay at Home, she discusses how more than two decades of living with chronic illness have inspired her writing and led to the anthology Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of Illness and Chronic Pain.

She also shares Van Gogh’s misdiagnosis with her condition, describes how a year of studying art has changed her writing process, and tells us about her latest book, Rhymes with Hyenas.

Books and authors discussed in this episode
– Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability by Jennifer Bartlett (ed)
– Prosopagnosia by Sonia Hernandez
– No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer

Listen to episode 41 of James and Ashley Stay at Home here, or on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast app, and find out about past episodes here.

Ep 40 Vigilante justice with author David Heska Wanbli Weiden

October 6, 2021October 4, 2021 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

‘People come to me all the time and tell me about the metaphors I built in, and I tell them, “Man, I just threw it in there.”‘

David Heska Wanbli Weiden is an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation and the author of Winter Counts. His debut novel, Winter Counts was the winner of the 2021 Thriller Award for Best First Novel, the Spur Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and Best First Novel, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, the Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel, and the Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing. He lives in Colorado.

Winter Counts is the story of Virgil Wounded Horse, a hired vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Through a compelling crime story, David reveals the profoundly broken criminal justice system on American reservations.

In episode 40 of James and Ashley Stay at Home, we ask David what it means to be a Super Indian (and discuss the term ‘Indian’ in the American context), his starting place for the novel’s narrative, Lakota and Indigenous cuisine and food culture, and the surprising and heartening reader responses to the book.

Plus, if you’re ever in Nebraska, David recommends checking out Carhenge, a replica of Stonehenge made of out actual cars. Seriously.

Books and authors discussed in this episode:
– Jim Thompson, US noir author
– Don Becker, Denver comedian
– Razorblade Tears by SA Cosby
– These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall
– They Can’t Take Your Name by Robert Justice
– The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville
– The Shadow House by Anna Downes (our guest from episode 5)
– The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
– Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

Listen to episode 40 of James and Ashley Stay at Home here, or on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast app, and find out about past episodes here.

Big thanks to Craig Sisterton, author of Southern Cross Crime, for recommending Winter Counts.

Ep 39 Lying, naked, and under a doona with author Lyn Yeowart

September 20, 2021September 19, 2021 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

‘I always wanted to be a novelist,’ Lyn Yeowart says, ‘but here I am, 62 years old, with just novel number one out … because self-doubt (a long-lasting legacy of my father’s rule by fear, humiliation and oppression) is something I’ve lived with a long time and stopped me writing or, to be more accurate, stopped me presenting my work to anyone.

‘But once I did, an exhilarating journey began, and hopefully won’t stop till I can’t read or write any more.’

Lyn is a professional writer and editor with more than 25 years of experience in writing and editing everything from captions for artworks to speeches for executives. Her debut novel, The Silent Listener, is a gripping psychological thriller set in three timeframes, and is loosely based on events from her childhood in rural Victoria.

In episode 39 of James and Ashley Stay at Home, Lyn discusses living with the legacy of child abuse and revealing it to the world, hardship and isolation in rural Australia, and her main character’s experience with synesthesia.

She also shares why she didn’t feel she could write a novel until later in life, drawing on the Sylvia Plath quote, ‘The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.’

This episode also debuts out new segment #WhatAreYouWearing? And hopefully, based on James’s response, we never feature it again.

Books and authors discussed in this episode:
– The Spiral by Iain Ryan
– Humankind, a Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
– Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman
– How Fiction Works by James Woods
– The Important Things by Audrey Molloy
– The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
– Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary
– One Hundred Years of Dirt by Rick Morton

Listen to episode 39 of James and Ashley Stay at Home here, or on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast app, and find out about past episodes here.

And if you’re keen to follow Lyn’s advice, conquer your self-doubt, and connect with your creativity, my online workshop, The Joy of Creative Writing, is happening on Tuesday 5 October. Details here >>

Unleash your creative genius

September 14, 2021September 13, 2021 | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

Humans are creative creatures. Look at everything we’ve created, from the Eiffel Tower to competitive hot dog eating to this amphibious bicycle.

I’m always bursting with ideas (though none as great as that Floaty the Bubble Bike). And I’m sure you are too – even if you don’t know it.

This has been one of the delights of becoming an author. When I was writing my first book, one of my 8000 worries was that I only had this one idea. What if I wrote the book, and it got published, but then I couldn’t think of anything else to write about?

But learning to write meant, in part, learning to pay attention to my creativity. And the more I paid attention to it, the more I realised the problem wasn’t too few ideas.

It was too many.

Now I have a list of about a dozen ideas for books, some more far-fetched than others. I have ideas for essays scrawled all over the place, and no time to even start them.

More and more research is showing how creativity is a muscle, and that even if our adult selves have been conditioned to tune out our creative impulses, they’re still there. We just need to rebuild them, which basically means to start listening again.

Elizabeth Gilbert has lots of wonderful things to say about this in Big Magic. Do yourself a favour, listen to her narrate the audiobook. She advises having an affair with your creativity – sneak it into your life however you can manage, get excited, let it be joyful.

Elizabeth Gilbert on Big Magic - Vogue — Elizabeth Gilbert’s *Big Magic*

And creativity is worth pursuing, not just for the joy, but also because it can be healing! As art therapist Karin Foxwell explained in an interview, creativity can help people discover why they feel the way they do and how they express meaning in their lives.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that creativity is a practice – that means just sitting down and doing it. There’s incredible freedom in that. There’s no right or wrong way to be creative, whether you’re writing or dancing or gardening.

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss all of this with author, Story Room Aus host and positive ageing activist Karen Sander for her podcast, Ageing Fearlessly.

In my work at Writing NSW, I’ve met a lot of people who started writing later in life, often in retirement. They usually say that they always wanted to write, but that they never had the time. I always admire them for finally making time to reconnect with their creative selves.

In my interview with Karen, I talk about the process of developing my writing practice and prioritising creativity, and share tips and resources for doing the same.

Wishing you creative joy,
Ashley
xo