Back in May 2017, Jesse Mulligan kicked off a new weekly feature on his weekday afternoon show on Radio New Zealand: Short Story Club. The idea for Short Story Club first came up, if I’m not mistaken, one afternoon a few weeks earlier when Jesse had frequent bookish guest and LitCrawl Queen Claire Mabey on the show. It works like this: every … Read more…
About Tracy Farr
Short Story Book Club Live at LitCrawl Wellington
I’ve been enjoying heading in to the RNZ studio now and again this year (here, here, here and here) to take part in Short Story Club, a weekly feature on Jesse Mulligan’s afternoon show. One of my stories, ‘Once had me’, has even been the story for discussion (not, obviously, a week I took part in the discussion; … Read more…
After Mattie’s
This time two weeks ago I was getting towards the end of my 28-hour journey from Perth, home to Wellington (driving from Perth to Busselton; coaching from Busselton to Perth airport; waiting, waiting; flying from Perth to Auckland to Wellington; don’t ask, it’s a long and not very interesting story), after finishing my month-long stay … Read more…
AFTERGLOW: Regrets and other events
On their website, the folks at Unity Books in Wellington recap events they hold in-store with blog posts titled AFTERGLOW. So, stealing from Unity (this is, I promise, the only manner in which I steal from Unity), I’d like to look back at the gleaming afterglow of events I took part in while I was … Read more…
‘7 Australian novels you should read’ by Lucy Treloar
Australian novelist Lucy Treloar, author of the wonderful Miles Franklin and Walter Scott shortlisted Salt Creek (published this year in hardback in the UK and US by Aardvark Bureau), recently listed ‘some of her favourite Australian novels’ for Reader’s Digest UK. Here are a few books that I’ve read and loved; their styles, genres, and settings as rich … Read more…
‘Author in Residence: Tracy Farr’ interview on RTRFM
On Friday 13 October, the last day of my writing residency at Fellowship of Australian Writers WA, I joined presenter James Hall on Artbeat, the weekly arts programme on Perth’s RTRFM, to talk about how my month as Established Writer-in-residence has gone. This was a follow-up to my interview with James a month earlier, at the beginning of my residency. Listen to … Read more…
Tell it Slant workshop, FAWWA, Perth
After a quarter of a century in research science, sticking with the facts, the biggest kick I get from writing fiction is the freedom it gives me to invent, to make stuff up (to lie?). I love working at the interface, too – the space where fact and fiction blend or join or mix, or where … Read more…
Author talk at The Grove library, Perth
I’m heading back to my reading roots on 4 October, to The Grove Library in Cottesloe, to talk about ‘writing, reading and everything in between’. I grew up in North Cottesloe in the 1960s and early 70s, and the little old library that was then on the site of the fabulous shiny current Grove Library was my … Read more…
The Bad Diaries Salon Volume 3, Perth
Melbourne literary phenomenon The Bad Diaries Salon (BDS) is coming to Perth this month, in its first outing beyond Melbourne. The Bad Diaries Salon Volume 3 Perth: Regrets features Brooke Davis, Laurie Steed, Annabel Smith, Jenny Ackland and me reading from our early, unedited works, on the theme of REGRET. The BDS is a salon series where writers read from … Read more…
State of Origin workshop, FAWWA, Perth
‘Where’s home for you?’ is a question that I (Melbourne-born, Perth-raised, New Zealand-based) often find hard to answer. As I settle in for a month as FAWWA CAL Established Writer in Residence (on the edge of Allen Park, just around the corner from where I grew up), join me for a workshop exploring State of Origin. Workshop: State of Origin … Read more…









