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Dear Rach & Soph

Sophie Hamley
Dear Rach & Soph
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  • Making a creative career change - with guest Miranda Nation
    Some people will make a change from a ‘conventional’ career path to a creative career; some will move from one form of creative practice to another. Melburnian Miranda Nation has done both.After commencing studies in medicine at university, Miranda instead decided to pursue a creative life, training as an actor at at Jacques Lecoq in Paris from 2003 to 2005, then becoming a director and screenwriter, completing a Graduate Diploma in Directing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 2010. That alone would have been reason enough for us to want to talk to her for Dear Rach & Soph, because the conventional path is often the easier one to take, due to there being less resistance along it – from family, friends and those around you – and there’s always a story attached to the decision to take a creative path instead. Miranda has taken it a step further, though. She’s had great success in screen - her short film, Perception, won the Dendy Award for Best Short Film at the 2014 Sydney Film Festival and her critically acclaimed debut feature as writer/director, Undertow, premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival and was released in cinemas in early 2020. The easier choice there would have been to stick to the artform she knew. Except she has taken on another: writing fiction. Her debut novel, New Skin, was released a few weeks ago by Allen & Unwin, and we speak quite a bit about that as well (blurb below). That’s not to say she has left screen behind! Miranda's original six-part series as creator/writer/EP, Playing Gracie Darling, will premiere on Paramount+ soon and stars Celia Pacquola, Anne Tenney and Harriet Walter.So there was so much to ask her about, and Miranda gave great insight into the choices she’s made and what it’s taken to inhabit her creative being. We hope you enjoy meeting her as much as we did. In the intro we talk about Rach's Substack serial, Meanwhile in Mount Merry-Glen, which is being released one week at a time and it is fab! Want to find out more? Go to rachaeljohnsauthor.substack.com ABOUT NEW SKINNew Skin is Miranda’s powerful debut novel about first love and second chances. Alex and Leah meet at medical school and form an immediate and intense connection. Over the course of four years, they are caught in the push-pull of passion and betrayal, longing and reunion. Neither can quite give up the relationship, even as they question whether they are good for each other.Years later, when Alex and Leah are drawn together once more, will they make the right choice?New Skin evokes a coming of age in the 1990s and charts the course of first love and its power to shape who we become. Spare and compelling, this powerful debut introduces a dazzling new voice in Australian fiction.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Productivity, plot twists and personal growth: Inside Leonie Kelsall’s writing life
    Léonie Kelsall is the bestselling author of seven rural romance novels. Her eighth is The Path Through the Coojong Trees, has just been released. Léonie keeps a fast pace as a writer, currently producing two books a year while also running a counselling practice and running a farm that is home to many animals. We wanted to talk to Léonie about the relationship between her counselling work, in particular, and her writing but – as often happens – this chat covered a lot of other territory, including Léonie being both a traditionally published and self-published author, how her writing process is not at all structured, and how a childhood without television led to a lifelong love of reading. We had a great time chatting to Léonie, who is a creative powerhouse, and clearly someone who makes the most of each day. You can read more about Léonie below.***Raised initially in a tiny, no-horse town on South Australia's Fleurieu coast, then in the slightly more populated wheat and sheep farming land at Pallamana, Léonie Kelsall is a country girl through and through. Growing up without a television, she developed a love of reading before she reached primary school, swiftly followed by a desire to write. An animal rescuer and carer, Léonie now divides her time between the lush Adelaide Hills, the location of her professional counselling practice, and the stark, arid beauty of the family farm at Pallamana, which provides both the setting for many of her stories and a refuge for the rescues that can't be released. For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • The Biggest Disappointment - with guest Allison Tait
    This episode is long and all of it worth your attention, mostly because Allison Tait - who writes as A.L. Tait - is one of the most dynamic people working in Australian writing and publishing, and you can find her bio below. Also because it’s an unusual conversation we have for some of it - and that’s because Allison talks about her contemporary women’s fiction book being rejected by its publisher after it was accepted for publication and she did more work on it. The extra angle is that Sophie was her literary agent at that time.So Sophie know Allison well. And Allison and Rachael have known each other for a while through Romance Writers of Australia. Therefore this is a free-flowing conversation in which Allison is also really honest about what it was like to have what was her big dream at the time - to be a published novelist - be crushed. So it’s about a massive disappointment, and also what she made of that and what her career became afterwards.***Allison Tait (A.L. Tait) is the internationally published bestselling author of 12 middle-grade novels, including fantasy adventure series The Mapmaker Chronicles the Ateban Cipher novels, and the Maven & Reeve Mysteries.Her first contemporary middle-grade novel THE FIRST SUMMER OF CALLIE McGEE was published in 2023 and was longlisted for the 2024 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award.Allison’s latest middle-grade novel WILLOW BRIGHT’S SECRET PLOT is out now (Scholastic 2025), with DANGER ROAD (Scholastic 2025) to follow on 1 July.A multi-genre writer, creative writing teacher and speaker with many years’ experience in magazines, newspapers and online publishing, Allison is co-host of the top-rating Your Kid’s Next Read podcast and former co-host of the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Writer 'therapy': Stuck in the draft! With guest Mona Farrokhi
    Dear listeners-slash-viewers - or ‘liewers’, as Soph has taken to calling you - this episode was recorded in April and because Soph mentioned her upcoming appearance at the Festival of Fiction in it, we had to hold it until the festival was announced, which has just happened! And the reason we mention the festival is that our guest, Mona Farrokhi, is involved with the festival.Mona volunteered a little while ago for writer ‘therapy’, in which writers bring us their writerly challenge and we try to help them through it. Mona has been working on a manuscript for a while and wanted our advice on what she should do about it. Suffice to say Soph declared that this would be a ‘tough love’ session! Thanks to Mona for her honesty and as she is no doubt not alone in this challenge, perhaps some of you will find the episode of interest.If you’d like to receive some of our tough love, please send Soph or Rach a DM on social media or email sophiegreenbooks [at] gmail [dot] comThe delay on releasing this means the intro we recorded is technically out of date but as Soph listened to it in preparation for publication, she realised it’s kinda not! We talk about ideas we have for books and also those ideas being rejected and us not being attached.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Writing fiction about a real person, with guest Kimberley Freeman
    Kimberley Freeman is an award-winning writer in children’s, historical and speculative fiction under her birth name Kim Wilkins. She has written several bestselling novels, including Wildflower Hill, Evergreen Falls and Stars Across the Ocean. Her latest novel is The Secret Year of Zara Holt, published by Hachette Australia (read more about the novel below). Kim has an Honours degree, a Masters degree and a PhD from The University of Queensland where she is also a senior lecturer. There is very little Kim does not know about writing and her readers are the beneficiaries of that knowledge and her experience and her pure, passionate drive to tell stories. In this episode of the podcast, we talk to Kim about all of that and also about why she chose the Zara Holt - widow of Prime Minister Harold Holt, as well as an acclaimed fashion designer - as her subject and what it’s like to write fiction about a real person. The novel is glorious and if it’s your first Kimberley Freeman novel, it definitely won’t be your last! ***About The Secret Year of Zara HoltA richly imagined novel of love, fashion, scandal and one captivating woman's passionate life.Melbourne, 1927. The summer flowers smell like Christmas the night Zara Dickins meets Harry Holt. Zara is wearing a dress she has designed and made herself: white organdie over a short black slip, with black embroidery and a crimson taffeta sash. It's party season and the university crowd are celebrating end-of-year exams. Zara loves dancing with the boys and flirting with them, but it's a game to her. Nothing serious. Until Harry.He plans to be a politician once he finishes law. She, a fashion designer, if she can find a way to break out of the secretarial pool. When he takes her hand, she doesn't want to let him go.The spark they ignite that night will last forty years.Portsea, 1967. When Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming, his wife Zara loses herself in the memories of their volatile relationship. She always believed Harry when he said no matter what happened, he'd never leave. Their bond has stretched to London, Europe, India, America. It has survived anger, loss and heartbreak, media scrutiny, secrets and lies. But now all Zara wants is for Harry to come home.A vibrant and compelling story inspired by the fascinating life of fashion designer and businesswoman Dame Zara Bate.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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About Dear Rach & Soph

Bestselling Australian authors Rachael Johns (The Other Bridget, The Patterson Girls) and Sophie Green (Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society, The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle) talk about writing and books and all sorts of things - and they welcome questions from other writers and readers! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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