What do we owe to the people we love? And how do we carry each other’s stories through time?

In this episode of Fully Lit, Chinese-Australian writer Isabelle Li joins acclaimed novelist Gail Jones to discuss The Northern Tomb, a sweeping and deeply humane novel about family, memory, obligation and belonging.

Set in northern China and spanning decades of personal and political history, the novel follows an ageing former government official, his family, and Sister Fu, the quiet carer whose compassion and attention bring their stories into focus.

Together, Li and Jones explore kinship, care, ageing, grief, friendship and the responsibilities we hold towards one another. They discuss the power of storytelling, the role of memory in shaping identity, and the ways literature can deepen our understanding of lives beyond our own experience.

At the centre of it all is a simple but profound question: how do we learn to care for one another?

This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at Gleebooks on Gadigal land in Sydney.

Voices

Isabelle Li is a Chinese Australian writer and translator whose works include the short story collection A Chinese Affair and the novel The Northern Tomb.

Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most acclaimed novelists, the author of eleven novels, whose work has been translated widely and recognised with numerous major literary awards.

Credits

This episode was recorded on Gadigal land at Sydney's Gleebooks - for more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page.

Fully 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.

Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.

Recorded by Gleebooks.

Mixed by Regina Botros.

Further Reading

The Northern Tomb by Isabelle Li (Puncher & Wattman, 2026)

A Chinese Affair by Isabelle Li (Margaret River Press, 2016)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The Selected Stories of Lu Xun

Gail Jones' latest novel is The Name of the Sister (Text, 2025)

For more conversations about fiction, storytelling and contemporary Australian writing, explore the Fully Lit back catalogue.

What makes a literary reputation endure, and why do some writers disappear from view despite once standing at the centre of a nation's culture?

In this episode biographer Susan Lever joins poet and critic Peter Kirkpatrick to discuss her major new biography, A.D. Hope, tracing the life of a writer whose career spanned almost the entire twentieth century.

From rural Tasmania and Sydney University to Oxford, Canberra and the centre of Australian literary life, the conversation examines Hope's poetry, criticism and public intellectual role, as well as the literary debates that shaped his reputation. Along the way, Lever explores Hope's relationships with figures including James McAuley, Patrick White and Manning Clark, his attitudes to modernism, censorship and religion, and the tensions between his public persona and private life.

The discussion also considers Hope's place in Australian literary history today.

This conversation coincides with the publication of a review of Susan Lever’s A.D. Hope in the Sydney Review of Books, offering another perspective on Hope’s life, work and legacy.

This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at Gleebooks on Gadigal land in Sydney.

Voices

Susan Lever is one of Australia’s leading literary critics and biographers, whose books include studies of Australian fiction and the acclaimed biography A.D. Hope.

Peter Kirkpatrick is a poet, literary historian and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, whose work explores Australian poetry, popular culture and literary history.

Credits

This episode was recorded on Gadigal land at Sydney's Gleebooks - for more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page.

Fully 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.

Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.

Recorded by Gleebooks.

Mixed by Regina Botros.

Further Reading

A.D. Hope by Susan Lever

Damian Maher reviews Susan Lever’s biography of A.D. Hope, published in the Sydney Review of Books

The Wandering Islands by A.D. Hope

Collected Poems 1930–1970 by A.D. Hope

The Cave and the Spring: Essays on Poetry by A.D. Hope

The Best Australian Poems of A.D. Hope, edited by David Brooks

The Wild Reciter: Poetry and Popular Culture in Australia, 1890–2020 by Peter Kirkpatrick

What remains after loss? How do we carry the people, places and versions of ourselves that are gone? And can art help us make sense of what endures?

In this episode of Fully Lit, writer and broadcaster Sarah Runcie is joined by poet Vaughn Upward Garcia, musician Helen Franzmann, and writer and artist Judith Nangala Crispin for a wide-ranging conversation about grief, creativity and survival.

Garcia reflects on recovery, reinvention and the journey behind his debut collection Poems from the Afterlife. Franzmann discusses the making of Jay Marie, Comfort Me, an album shaped by the death of her sister and the search for comfort in grief. And Crispin explores death, Country, memory and belonging through her remarkable verse novel Dingo’s Noctuary.

Together, they consider what remains after loss, how art helps us navigate absence, and why love and grief are often inseparable. Along the way, they discuss sobriety, family, music, landscape, First Nations knowledge, and the stories we carry from one life into the next.

At its heart, this is a conversation about transformation, and the ways creativity can help us make meaning from what endures.

This episode was recorded live at the Addi Road Writers’ Festival.

Voices

Sarah Runcie is a writer, broadcaster and arts journalist whose work spans literature, music, theatre and cultural commentary.

Judith Nangala Crispin is an award-winning poet, visual artist and conservationist, and the author of the verse novel Dingo’s Noctuary.

Helen Franzmann is a singer-songwriter, musician and member of Mess Esque, whose work blends intimate lyricism with dreamlike, atmospheric soundscapes.

Vaughn Upward Garcia is a Queanbeyan-based poet and performer whose debut collection, Poems from the Afterlife, explores class, recovery, mortality and belonging.

Credits

This episode of Fully Lit was recorded at the Addi Road Writers’ Festival on Gadigal land in Sydney.

Fully 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.

Executive Producers: Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.

Recorded and mixed by Daniel Wiggins

Further Reading

Poems from the Afterlife by Vaughn Upward Garcia

Dingo’s Noctuary by Judith Nangala Crispin

Jay Marie, Comfort Me by Mess Esque

For more conversations on poetry, storytelling and contemporary Australian literature, explore the Fully Lit back catalogue.