Welcome to the second Kill Your Darlings Podcast! The (loose) theme of this edition is life lessons; purely because looking back on interviews conducted we came to the realisation that we had learned something from every one. While it was not exactly the intention of the exercise, learning something new is a happy side effect and we hope you’ll be similarly educated. If not, we’ll settle for entertained.

They are an entertaining bunch, our interviewees. Melbourne writer Liam Pieper chats about The Feel-Good Hit of the Year – the memoir covering his past life as a ‘sleazy drug dealer’ and ‘abhorrent human being’. Jessica Alice asks graphic designer and visual artist Elwyn Murray to tell us how he started out designing some of our favourite literary publications. Emily Bitto reads from her debut novel The Strays, and answers a few related questions. (She’ll be appearing at the Kill Your Darlings First Book Club this Wednesday, so if her answers aren’t the ones you were looking for you’ll have the chance to cross-examine her then!) Writers Victoria director Kate Larsen expands on her piece ‘Read What You Know: The Comfort of the Familiar’ from KYD No. 17. Finally, Emily Laidlaw interviews Justin Heazlewood on a topic near and dear to all our hearts – how to ‘make it’ (or at least pay the rent) as a working artist in Australia.

Produced by Meaghan Dew

Credit: Excerpt of ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing With My Life’, performed by Justin Heazlewood, taken from justinheazlewood.bandcamp.com.