Face it. Forget about an exit strategy and you can find yourself in an almighty pickle. So tonight, as a public service, we're canvassing a few handy ways to get out of tricky situations (and bad books) with one’s dignity intact. Novelist and journalist Emily Maguire drops in to talk about the drastic exit strategies considered by the characters in her excellent recent novel.  We’ll also talk about the exit strategies available when we find ourselves in the middle of a book thinking ‘do I really have to read this tripe?’ And we’ll ponder the exit strategy that vexes writers more than any other – what to write in the last line of a book. 

Emily Maguire, Smoke in the Room, Picador - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Charlotte Roche, Wetlands, Grove Atlantic - reviewed by Madeleine James; music by Kevin MacLeod

'Last Lines' - produced by Katherine Keefe with assistance from Tom McMullan; music by Machine Est Mon Couer

Hey podcasters, the gremlin in the 2ser machine struck again, which means that last week’s podcast – the one about traveling with books and Shakespeare’s wife – didn’t go to air. So that’s our radio episode this week. Which means we’ve got a spot in the podcast schedule for another favourite from the archives. We hope you enjoy it and we’ll be back to regular programming next week.  

Humans are 'make-believe animals', British essayist William Hazlitt said. We are never so truly ourselves as when we are acting a part, he thought. This week we’re celebrating the power of make-believe. We’ll meet Glenn Fowler and Christopher Smythe, the real funnymen behind a fictitous old codger who successfully spoofed many of this country’s most reputable newspapers. And writer Chris Womersley is along to tell us a story about the bittersweet power of make-believe.

Glenn Fowler, Christopher Smythe and Gareth Malone, Dear Editor: The Collected Letters of Oscar Brittle, UNSW Press - interviewed by Nija Dalal

Chris Womersley, 'The Possibility of Water', Aviva Tuffield (ed), New Australian Stories, Scribe - produced by Benedict Taylor

We’re talking about difficult decisions – what to choose, and what to leave out; what to believe and what not to believe. We’ll talk about that most vexing of decisions – what books to stuff in the bag when we go on holiday. We’ll also meet one of the editors of a new anthology of Australian literature, which uses generous definitions of both ‘literature’ and ‘Australian’. And we’ll find out about the very tough call made at the expense of Anne Hathaway, the wife of one William Shakespeare.

'Travelling Books': Mona, Emma and Michelle spoke about the books they take with them when they travel - produced by Rochelle Fernandez; music: Mr. Biggz, 'Vieux Farka Toure - Ana (Mr.Biggz Remix)' 2009 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial

Nicolas Jose (ed), The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, Allen and Unwin - interviewed by Paul Kildea

Germaine Greer, Shakespeare's Wife, Bloomsbury - reviewed by Nija Dalal

This week we're talking about relationships between grown-up daughters and their aging mums. We'll hear all about Susan Varga's latest novel, a challenging tale about a daughter learning to let go of a mother who is learning to let go of life itself. And we'll meet musician and writer, Linda Neil, and hear about her journey through the underworld of mental illness with her mother, and about the poignant reconciliation they reached in the process.

Susan Varga, Headlong, UWA Publishing - reviewed by Madeleine James

Linda Neil, Learning How to Breathe, University of Queensland Press - interviewed by Benedict Taylor. The song Linda played was 'Sorry', which is part of her project, 'My Year of Singing Love Songs'.

We're wild about the second and final week of radiothon! The court of Final Draft sits to determine once and for all whether 'tis  nobler in the mind to prefer the book of Where The Wild Things Are, or to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous purists and go for the film version. We also go wild about Margaret Atwood's latest, the long awaited follow-up to Oryx and Crake. Poet Geoff Lemon 'fesses up to some pretty wild shenanigans, and the crowd goes wild for the good folks who helped 2ser into its 31st year.

The Trial of the Wild Things - featured Craig Johnson, Aaron Nyerges and Justin Ellis and was produced by Nija Dalal

Final Draft Year-That-Was Montage II - produced by Benedict Taylor

Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood, Bloomsbury - reviewed by Sara Peel

Geoff Lemon, untitled, recorded at This is Not Art 2009, Newcastle, by Nija Dalal 

The low-down on Radiothon is here

Have we ever told you how beautiful you look with a credit card in your hand and a phone to ear? Yup, it's radiothon time again. That time where you pay peanuts and get all-singing, all-dancing monkeys. And heaps of free stuff. Hear how language messes with our understandings of what the hell is going on in the Middle East. Get acquainted with a couple of readers and find out about the books that were there for them at pivotal moments in their lives. And win books, flights, tickets and our undying gratitude.

Final Draft Year-That-Was Montage - produced by Benedict Taylor

Joris Luyendijk, Fit to Print: Misrepresenting the Middle East, Scribe - interviewed by Rochelle Fernandez

Brenda spoke about Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and Mo spoke about Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian - produced by Katherine Keefe

Click here for more about Radiothon

This week we’re getting cosy with monsters - real monsters, fake monsters, nice monsters and maybe even a few loveable monsters. We find a twisted intimacy with the monster in the family in Deborah Forster’s debut novel. We rehabilitate a remarkable woman unjustly monstered by history. And with writer and thespian Nick Coyle we’ll find out how, if you’ve lost your groove, maybe all you need is a monster.

Deborah Forster, The Book of Emmett, Vintage - reviewed by Jay Fracaro

Nick Coyle, 'The Story of How I Got My Groove Back' - produced by Jay Fracaro and Benedict Taylor. Nick is one third of the theatre trio, Pig Island, and this story was first read at Penguin Plays Rough in July

Margaret Ball, Duchess of Aquitaine: a Novel of Eleanor, St Martins Griffin, and Alison Weir, Eleanor of Aquitaine, by the Wrath of God, Queen of England, Random House - reviewed by Sara Peel

If you tuned in to the broadcast on the 28th of September, you may have noticed we made a boo-boo. We accidentally broadcast ‘The Secret Lives of Chimps and Ghosts’, again. We had an episode full of great stories about getting intimate with monsters all ready to go, but a naughty gremlin in the system had other plans. Sorry about that. Since ‘The Secret Lives’ was already up online, we decided to take this opportunity to re-podcast an earlier episode that had ceased to be available on the internet. We’ll bring you the monsters next week.

This week on the show, Abbas El-Zein tells his story, and what an astonishing tale it is. From the violence and cosmopolitanism of a childhood in civil-war Beirut, we follow Abbas to Baghdad, Paris, Palestine, and Sydney. Along the way, we learn to think about migration as a beautiful mutilation, and find out why Asterix kicks Tintin's ass. Bruce Williams is along too, to tell us about folks in Cumbersome going their separate ways. (Originally broadcast March 2009).

Abbas El-Zein, Leave to Remain: a Memoir, University of Queensland Press - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Bruce Williams, 'Separate Ways', Love at Cumbersome Corner, part 16

Chimps and ghosts both have a lot to tell us about being human. Poet Nathan Curnow joins us to talk about how he slept in ten of the most haunted sites in Australia, and then carved a language of fear and guts from the experience. And writer Charles Siebert phones in to talk about the hidden meanings of chimpanzees in retirement homes.

Nathan Curnow, The Ghost Poetry Project, Puncher & Wattmann - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Charles Siebert, Roger's World: toward a new understanding of animals, Scribe Publications - interviewed by Nija Dalal

This week it is all about the getting the word out there. We'll meet Kareyn Stapylton, a writer of adventure novels for kids, and hear about her own epic quest, to publish herself. We'll also meet David Henley, the bright spark behind an innovative way for new writers to get their words out there—it's kind of Charles Dickens meets MySpace. And we'll also get the word from out there, with wanderer and writer Nicolas Rothwell.

Rufi Cole read an extract from her novel, The Violin Face, which is serialised in Seizure; music by Kevin MacLeod. David Henley, founder of Seizure, was interviewed by Katherine Keefe. Music during reading from blog: B. Calandra 'Merry Go Round In the Sea', used with permission. To win a free copy of the first issue of Seizure email us.

Kareyn Stapylton, The Terror of Prism Fading, self published - interviewed by Ariane Minc

Nicolas Rothwell, The Red Highway, Black Inc - interviewed by Paul Kildea

The green-eyed monster wants to move to Melbourne, and who can blame him? The Mexicans can boast of some pretty damn fine writers fests, journals and publishers. This week, we pay homage to the city of literature. We nab a couple of fantastic guests of the Melbourne Writers Festival, M J Hyland and Anne Michaels, and get them to shine a little light on some of the things that fiction does particularly well, and the things that perhaps only fiction can do. We've also got details of an exciting new Melbourne-based literary quarterly, and news about a great zine-making workshop that—hurrah!—you don't have to go to Melbourne to attend.

M J Hyland, This Is How, Text Publishing - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault, Allen and Unwin - interviewed by Rochelle Fernandez

More information about Seven Letter Words here

More information about the zine-making workshop at the NSW Writers Centre, with Vanessa Berry on 24 October here

From the troubled streets of South London to our own neck of the woods, we're talking about some of the seemingly intractable challenges facing black communities, and we're sampling some interesting and exciting responses to those challenges too. Poet, novelist and DJ Alex Wheatle shares his thoughts about life and politics in Brixton, past and present. Anthropologist Peter Sutton makes some uncomfortable points about the politics of suffering in Aboriginal Australia. Indigenous film-maker, writer and musician, Richard J Frankland introduces us to an inspiring young Koorie fella in his latest book. We get up to speed on a wonderful indigenous literacy project and we take in some tunes from some deadly black MCs.

Alex Wheatle, Dirty South, Allen and Unwin - interviewed by Nija Dalal

Peter Sutton, The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of the liberal consensus, Melbourne University Press - interviewed by Justin Ellis

Richard J. Frankland, Digger J. Jones, Scholastic - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (first broadcast November 2007)

Morganics, Wire MC, Sista Native, BruthaBlak and Local Knowledge, 'Outbackandback', from Morganics 2005 album, Odyssey - not included in podcast for copyright reasons

For more information about Indigenous Literacy Day, on Wednesday 2 September, click here

Two passionate and articulate fellows for you this week. Broadcaster and historian Michael Cathcart is along to talk about the ways in which water has shaped our lives and haunted our imaginations. And poet John Kinsella joins us to talk about poetry with guts.

Michael Cathcart, The Water Dreamers: the Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent, Text - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

John Kinsella (ed), The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry, Penguin - interview by Paul Kildea

Click here for more information about the Red Room Company's event on 27 August, featuring Lionel Fogarty, at the Redfern Community Centre

They say the things that don’t kill you make you stronger. And it is probably true. But that doesn’t make the hard stuff any easier. This week: stories of people staying in the game despite being dealt a lousy hand. We’ll open a few brutal rejection letters from publishers to authors who went on to make the publishers look pretty stupid. Novelist and radio producer Gary Bryson joins us to talk about his very fine first novel and the odds stacked against its young protagonist. Lana Penrose is along to tell us how she coped with the disintegration of her marriage, and about the therapeutic qualities of rock ‘n roll. And we’ll discover a world of sacrifice and struggle laced with hedonism in the work of British writer Alan Sillitoe.

Read The Examiner's report on famous writers' rejections here

Gary Bryson, Turtle, Allen and Unwin - interviewed by Benedict Taylor; music: Kevin MacLeod (first broadcast November 2008)

Lana Penrose, Kickstart My Heart, Penguin - interviewed by Rochelle Fernandez; music: Kevin MacLeod

Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - reviewed by Ben Falkenmire (first broadcast August 2008)

We're all familiar with those weary platitudes about the journey being the destination. Let's be honest. Some journeys are pretty grim, some are just plain boring, and a few are downright scary. This week we speak with novelist Will Elliot about his journey back from a dark place. We'll hang out on trains and peer over our fellow passengers' shoulders to see what they're reading to while away the journey. And we'll meet a young couple whose journeys have separated them from their beloved books.

Train traveller, avid reader and ibis-watcher, James Scanlon - interviewed by Katherine Keefe

Will Elliot, Strange Places: a Memoir of Mental Illness, HarperCollins - interviewed by Sara Peel

Bookshelf interview #4: Nija Dalal and Craig Johnson - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (music: 'Mellow', by Darkroom used under Creative Commons licence Attribution 3.0 Unported)

Eliza Fenwick, an English woman, wrote books in the 18th century about gender, liberty and reason. Tom Cho lives in Melbourne and writes about being Whitney Houston's bodyguard, and evil ninjas who destroy call centres. Believe it or not, they have a couple of things in common.

Eliza Fenwick, Secresy; or the Ruin on the Rock  - reviewed by Nija Dalal

Tom Cho, Look Who's Morphing, Giramondo - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (more information about Tom's Melbourne Writers' Festival appearances here)

Click here for more information about the Red Room Company's event on 27 August, featuring Lionel Fogarty, at the Redfern Community Centre

Click here for more information about HTML Giant's literary tattoo project

Click here for more information about the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize

This week we're talking about that great cusp in our lives: adolescence. Peter Goldsworthy joins us to talk about the creative and sexual turbulence in the life of his latest young protagonist. We'll hear about death entering young lives in a story from Ella Holcombe. We encounter a unusual and intriguing adolescent in Peter Cameron's latest book. And we witness the dismemberment of a childhood icon!

Ella Holcombe, 'In the Pines' (published in The Sleepers Almanac No.5,  Sleepers Publishing)

Peter Goldsworthy, Everything I Knew, Penguin - interviewed by Paul Kildea (first broadcast Feb 2009)

Peter Cameron, Someday this pain will be useful to you, Scribe - reviewed by Arabella Close

Bruce Williams, 'Barbie', Love at Cumbersome Corner (episode 23)

For more information about the Australian literature symposium at the State Library of NSW on 1 August - click here

It's wall-to-wall sex this week. Find out who won the bad sex awards, and why the wonderfully named publisher of erotica, Kate Copstick, thinks women can't write sex. Get to grips with Angela Carter's dark and raunchy reworkings of old fairy tales. Listen to Jennifer Robertson's story about the yearning, awkward desire of youth. And with historian Rae Frances, discover the real story of how sex has been bought and sold in Australia.

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber, Vintage - reviewed by Sara Peel

Jennifer Robertson, 'Heat', Westerly, v.53 2008 (first broadcast July 2008)

Rae Frances, Selling Sex: a Hidden History of Prostitution, UNSW Press - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (first broadcast November 2008)

This week we’re talking about things with shiny surfaces: dreams, oceans, celebrities. And we’re talking about the murky things that lie beneath too.   Philipp Meyer joins us to talk about his book about the rusted dark side of the American Dream.  Kirsty Eager is along as well, to tell a tale about surfing and hidden scars. And we reflect on Michael Jackson’s famously pale surface!

Philipp Meyer, American Rust, Allen and Unwin - interviewed by Paul Kildea

Kirsty Eager, Raw Blue, Penguin - interviewed by Rochelle Fernandez

Bruce Williams, 'Sunshine', Love at Cumbersome Corner (episode 22)

Master criminals have kids too! This week, meet film-maker Oren Siedler and find out what it's like to have a bank robber for a dad. And Lorraine McGee-Sippel shares her story about discovering her biological parents, and her Aboriginal heritage, in middle age.

Lorraine McGee-Sippel, Hey Mum, What's a Half-Caste?, Magabala Books - interviewed by Katherine Keefe

Oren Siedler, Bruce and Me, Random House - click here for more about Oren and her father - interviewed by Sara Peel

Bruce Williams, 'The Ballad of Cumbersome Corner', Love at Cumbersome Corner, episode 21

'X' marks the spot! We're off in search of hidden treasure. Lesley Jorgensen reads a story about hidden Indian dowries and other treasures squirriled away in unassuming places. We partake of some of the latest booty from the expert excavators of hidden treasure at Going Down Swinging. And we spend time with a real gem: artist Thom Roberts.

Thom Roberts, a member of Studio ARTES and a contributor to Trunk, vol.1 ('Hair') - interviewed by Katherine Keefe

Don Walker and StJAM, 'Country Trains', and Teresia Teawa and Hinemoana Baker, 'Athena and the Breadfruit', Going Down Swinging, No.28

Lesley Jorgensen, 'Pure Gold', from Aviva Tuffield (ed), New Australian Stories, Scribe - produced with assistance from Cath Kennealy from Radio Adelaide

Nominate which literary character you would most like to spend a day at the beach with, and win a year's subscription to Meanjin, here

Click here for more information about the monthly new fiction evening, Penguin Plays Rough

Mary Ablaza's exhibition, 'Me, You and Everyone I Know' opens at Cream, 317 King St Newtown, on Wednesday 1 July, at 6.30pm. Click here for more information.

This week we look at the role that power plays in everyday lives. We speak to Chimamanda Adichie, whose work explores the complex power relationships which shape the lives of her characters. And Melbourne author Amy Espeseth drops by to give a reading of her story, 'On a Wire'.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck, HarperCollins  - interviewed by Paul Kildea

Amy Espeseth, 'On a Wire', from The Death Mook, Vignette Press - produced with assistance from Michelle Bennetts at RRR in Melbourne

Presented and produced by Paul Kildea

This week we seek some relief from the winter cold with some literary sex and rock ‘n roll. We speak to former Cold Chisel keyboardist, Don Walker, about his life in music. And we speak to some Final Draft listeners about their favourite literary sex scenes.

Literary Sex scene - produced by Rochelle Fernandez

Don Walker, Shots, Penguin  - interviewed by Shamin Fernando

Bruce Williams, 'More Sex', Love at Cumbersome Corner, episode 20

Presented and produce by Paul Kildea

This week we're talking with two artists and a writer about space, places, and the buildings that affect our lives everyday. The towers that look over us, the pubs where we spend our evenings. Zanny Begg and Keg de Souza talk about their ten-year project archiving the history of Sydney's iconic Redfern neighbourhood and we speak with Jennifer Mills about her debut novel, The Diamond Anchor.

Keg de Souza and Zanny Begg, There Goes the Neighbourhood
Jennifer Mills, The Diamond Anchor, UQP

Contributors: Nija Dilal, Benedict Taylor

We all understand the awful toll war takes on the battlefield. This week, we take a look at some of the less obvious effects of warfare. With journalist and editor, Philip Gourevitch we discuss the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004. And with academic and memoirist Mira Crouch we talk about life for civilians in occupied cities. Along the way we find out about the chilling effects of war on language, and the way in which food and eating are transformed by war.

Philip Gourevitch, Standard Operating Proceedure: A War Story, Picador - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Mira Crouch, War Fare: Sustenance in Time of Fear and Want, Gavemer - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Franz Kafka pulled a massive swifty. He was no lonely Nostradamus of middle Europe, scribbling away in unrecognised, solitary genius, as we have been lead to believe. He was connected, calculating careerist, a gung-ho imperialist, and a well-heeled ladies man. He was also a frickin funny bastard. Join us as we spend time with James Hawes, the author of an iconoclastic biography of Mr Metamorphosis. And find out what happens when Kafka collides with Suess! (Repeat episode).

James Hawes, Excavating Kafka, Quercus - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (first broadcast Nov 2008)

Jonathan Goldstein and David Rakoff, 'The Gregor Samsa/Dr Suess Letters', from the CBC's show, 'Wiretap' (first broadcast Nov 2008)

Tonight we're looking at ways of speaking with children about difficult truths, and at the surprising and confronting lessons children have to teach the grown ups. The prolific and much-loved writer Christobel Mattingley joins us to talk about her latest book. It's a children's illustrated history of Maralinga, produced in collaboration with the traditional owners of the land. Playwright and author Peta Murray has a story to tell us about learning to see oneself through the eyes of a child. And Bruce Williams reports from the frontiers of parenthood, somewhere deep in Cumbersome.

Christobel Mattingley, Maralinga: the Anangu Story, Allen and Unwin - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

Peta Murray, 'Cameraman', from Louise Swinn and Zoe Dattner (eds), The Sleepers Almanac No. 5, Sleepers Publishing - produced with assistance from Michelle Bennetts from RRR

Bruce Williams, 'Split', Love at Cumbersome Corner, part 19