AustLit

'Kate Grenville chats with fellow author Melanie Cheng about A Room Made of Leaves, her highly imaginative retelling of the life of Elizabeth Macarthur. This conversation was recorded online during the Covid-19 crisis.' (Production summary)

'I've just devoured Alex Miller's book Lovesong. Even more than the love affair between John and Sabiha, I'm haunted by the narrator Ken's dilemma - the question of whether he should follow his impulse to write a book about the couple's extraordinary story. John tells Ken he plans to write his own memoir, but Ken has little confidence in John's abilities as a writer, believing the English teacher to be too close to the story to channel the characters effectively.' (Introduction)

'Since her sister died, Meg has been on her own. She doesn’t mind, not really—not with Atticus, her African grey parrot, to keep her company—but after her house is broken into by a knife-wielding intruder, she decides it might be good to have some company after all.

'Andy’s father has lost his job, and his parents’ savings are barely enough to cover his tuition. He can't go home to Hong Kong -- but if he wants to graduate, he’ll have to give up his student flat and find a homeshare. Living with an elderly Australian woman is harder than he’d expected, though, and soon he’s struggling with more than his studies.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When my daughter was two-and-a-half, I took her to her first movie. She was princess-obsessed at the time and I had bought tickets to The Little Mermaid. I knew this was ambitious—toddlers are not known for their capacity to sit still for 90 minutes. I had anticipated a short period of awe, quickly superseded by an ants-in-the-pants restlessness. What I had not expected was to hear her wailing by the end of the first song. But a few minutes after Ariel began lamenting her life beneath the sea, my daughter was crying in sympathy for the would-be princess’s plight. That such a young child could feel empathy under these conditions was a revelation. It made me wonder about the physiology of empathy. At what age does empathy develop? What parts of the brain are responsible for it? Why are some people more empathetic than others?' (Introduction)

'Australia Day is a collection of stories by debut author Melanie Cheng. The people she writes abut are young, old, rich, poor, married, widowed, Chinese, Lebanese, Christian, Muslim. What they have in common—no matter where they come from—is the desire we all share to feel that we belong. The stories explore universal themes of love, loss, family and identity, while at the same time asking crucial questions about the possibility of human connection in a globalised world.' (Introduction)