Fully Lit
Impact Studios and The Sydney Review of Books
Recent Episodes
In this episode, we return to Roland Barthes’ famous 1967 essay, The Death of the Author. This influential text is often taught as an anti-authoritarian gesture, shifting the power of meaning from the author to the reader. But what happens when we consider Barthes’ ideas alongside the voices of anticolonial writers who, at the same historical moment, were mobilising literature to galvanise communities against oppression?
We explore what these debates reveal about contemporary writing’s tendency to blur authorial fact with fiction, and why questions of agency still matter today. The conversation is sparked by Michael Griffiths’ new book, The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought, and was recorded live at UTS’ Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges.
Guests
Michael Griffiths – Author of The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought, Michael is a scholar whose work explores intersections between literary theory and postcolonial studies.
Ben Etherington – Academic and writer with expertise in world literature and cultural theory.
Elizabeth McMahon – Scholar and author focusing on literature, identity, and critical theory.
Graham Akhurst – Academic and author whose work engages with Indigenous storytelling and creative practice.
Credits
This live event was recorded on Gadigal land, live, at UTS’ Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges on November 27.
The event was produced and recorded by Ben Etherington.
Fully Lit is an Impact Studios podcast, made in collaboration with the Sydney Review of Books.
Its producer is Regina Botros.
Executive producers are Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.
In December 2023, the Sydney Review of Books and Western Sydney University's Writing and Society Research Centre were delighted to announce renowned fiction writer, Yumna Kassab, as the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature, a program delivered in partnership with the City of Parramatta.
The program, now in its second iteration, recognises the unique and vital work of writers as contributors to narratives of place – through storying, remembering histories, and shaping a creative vision for our shared future.
As the inaugural Laureate, Kassab has composed Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory. She writes in the introduction to her work: 'It was my idea that a dictionary could tell the story of a person (me) in connection with a place (Parramatta) with enough flexibility to take in detours, digressions, musings, and general quirkiness. I knew at the outset that the entries would be placed under titles and it would be fragmentary in spirit.'
Extracts from the Parramatta Dictionary are free to read on the Sydney Review of Books website.
Author note:
Yumna Kassab is a Parramatta-based novelist and short fiction writer, a high school teacher, and a staunch supporter of the Western Sydney Wanderers.
The Lovers (2023) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction. She has also authored The House of Youssef (2019), Australiana (2022), Politica (2024), and Theory of Everything (2025).
Guests
Host: Kate Fagan - Director of the Writing and Society Research Centre Western Sydney University
Interviewer: James Jiang - Editor at The Sydney Review of Books
Credits
Recording engineer Sevan Dermelkonian recorded this episode on the 30th October, 2025 at PHIVE, Active Wellness Studios, Parramatta.
Fully Lit is a collaboration between Impact Studios, UTS, and the Sydney Review of Books. Its producer is Regina Botros, and its executive producers are Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.
In this episode, we’re bringing you a story from our friends at History Lab.
Historical novelist Sienna Brown brings to life the story of Nellie Small, a trailblazing performer whose life challenged the boundaries of race, gender, and identity in early 20th-century Australia. You'll hear actor Zahra Newman as Nellie, and an interview with playwright Alana Valentina, for whom Nellie has been a rich source of writerly inspiration.
Head to History Lab and subscribe to hear all four episodes of this special series, Caribbean Echoes - and much more.
History Lab is an Impact Studios podcast, made in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Public History.
Voices
Alana Valentine is a librettist, playwright, and director who is an expert at working with real life subjects and stories, dramatizing them with respect. She has three plays on the NSW HSC Syllabus: Parramatta Girls, Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah, and Cyberbile. Her play, Letters to Lindy, has seen hundreds of amateur and school productions. Valentine is particularly distinguished in her skills as a co-collaborator, notably with Barbara and the Camp Dogs, which won the 2019 Helpmann Award for Best Musical and Best Original Score. She has chronicled her practice in Bowerbird and published the memoir Wed By The Wayside.
Professor Cassandra Pybus FAHA specializes historical narratives about people who have been marginalized, forgotten or written out of history. An award-winning author she has published 13 books including Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia's First Black Settlers and the bestselling biography, Truganini. She has held research professorships at the University of Sydney, Georgetown University in Washington DC, the University of Texas and King's College London. She is descended from a colonist who received the largest free land grant on Truganini's traditional country of Bruny Island.
Vanessa Cassin is Education Manager at Society of Australian Genealogists with extensive experience in providing training and assessment in the trustee industry, both as an in-house trainer for the NSW Trustee & Guardian and as an assessor for Western Sydney University the College’s Registered Training Organisation. Vanessa holds a Diploma in Family Historical Studies from the Society of Australian Genealogists and has been researching her own family history for over 20 years.
Zahra Newman was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and moved to Australia at age 14. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Newman has an extensive list of credits in theatre, television, and film. Her notable works include her performance as Nabalungi in the original Australian cast of The Book of Mormon, and her lead role in the play The Hate Race and in the film Long Story Short. She has received a Green Room Award, a Sydney Theatre Award, and multiple Helpmann Award nominations. Newman played all 23 characters in the Sydney Theatre Company’s recent one-person production of Dracula.
Graeme Rhodes’ acting career spans over 30 years and includes numerous theatre, film, television and radio credits. Most recently he has been working as a writer and director for Forum theatre based Industrial safety programs. When he’s not acting he sings with a jazz trio and builds electronic noise making machines.
Credits
This series was produced on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eeora Nation and Burramatagal people of the Dharug nation.
Narrator, writer, and producer: Sienna Brown
Sound recordist, writer, and producer: Ben Etherington
Supervising producer: Jane Curtis, UTS Impact Studios
Executive producer: Sarah Gilbert, UTS Impact Studios
Sound designer and engineer: John Jacobs
Support
The research for this series was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Creole Voices in the Caribbean and Australia: Poetics and Decolonisation (DP220101256).
We are also grateful to the Writing and Society Research Centre and School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University for their generous support in the production of this series.
More reading about Nellie Small
- Nellie Small on Wikipedia
- Nellie Small: the trailblazing, cross-dressing cabaret star who Australia forgot The Guardian Australia
- From the Archives: The great live music war of 1954 Sydney Morning Herald
- Zoe Coombs Marr on Queerstralia Sydney Morning Herald
- A letter to the editor about soup Sydney Morning Herald
- Send for Nellie in the 2024 Sydney Festival and article by Alana Valentine on the State Library of NSW website
