With a few modern tweaks, old, familiar tales can become startling, fresh and compelling, and this week we're revisiting a couple of vivid, contemporary re-tellings of myth and legend. We'll get to grips with Angela Carter's dark and raunchy re-workings of traditional faity tales. And we'll sit down with David Malouf to talk about his latest novel, a delicate new iteration of one of the oldest stories around.

This is also the final installment in our series of highlights from 2009. Normal transmission resumes next week. Well, normal-ish: this is the last episode with Benedict Taylor in the host's chair. From next week, you're in Nija Dalal's and Paul Kildea's able hands.

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

David Malouf, Ransom, Random House - interviewed by Benedict Taylor

In the spirit of the recently marked Australia Day or Invasion Day, or whatever you chose to call it, we thought we'd bring you a couple of whitefellas who have done a bang-up job of listening to this country. Two blokes who have given their attention and their respect to the people, the languages, the landscapes and the histories of the wide brown land. One is a linguist - his name is Nick Reid. The other, Michael Cathcart, is an historian. They're both full of insights into bits of the Australian story we don't pay nearly enough attention to. (This is the penultimate show in our summer season of highlights from last year).

Nick Reid, Ngan'gi Dictionary, Australian Linguistics Press - interviewed by Madeleine James (first broadcast December 2009)

Michael Cathcart, The Water Dreamers: the Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent, Text - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (first broadcast August 2009)

Aldous Huxley once said (and please excuse the old school gender-specific language): 'Every man's memory is his private literature'. This week, as we continue our summer season of highlights from 2009, we're bringing you stories from memories: stories of people taking their private literature and publishing it. As a grown woman Lorraine McGee-Sippell discovered that her memories were only a fraction of her story—she drops by to share the tale of how she discovered the family and the heritage she didn't know she had. Don Walker is best known for writing and performing Cold Chisel songs, but he is also the author of an intriguing memoir, and he phones in to chat about them. And we revisit a sweet and haunting story by poet and writer Ella Holcombe, a story about a moment full of meaning from childhood.  

Lorraine McGee-Sippell, Hey Mum, What's a Half-Caste? Magabala Books - interviewed by Katherine Keefe (first broadcast July 2009)

Don Walker, Shots, Black Inc - interviewed by Shamin Fernando (first broadcast June 2009)

Ella Holcombe, 'In the Pines', from Louise Swinn and Zoe Dattner (eds.), The Sleepers Almanac No. 5, Sleepers Publishing - read by Ella Holcombe, produced by Benedict Taylor with assistance from Michelle Bennet, RRR; (first broadcast July 2009)

This week as our summer season rolls on, we explore the capacity of the novel to get right inside other people’s heads. And not just any heads, but the heads of people capable of doing horrible, twisted, monstrous, criminal things. There’s someone like that in M J Hyland’s latest novel who is nevertheless strangely likeable. We’ll come face-to-face with the monster in the family, in Deborah Forster’s debut novel. And we’ll also find out what happened to a whole genre of novels dedicated to this very task: working out what makes bad people tick.

M J Hyland, This Is How, Text Publishing - interviewed by Benedict Taylor (first broadcast Sep 2009)

Deborah Forster, The Book of Emmett, Random House - reviewed by Jay Fracaro (first broadcast Oct 2009)

Nija Dalal's reflections on mystery novels included excerts from an interview with Derek Nikitas, author of Pyres (first broadcast Mar 2009)

This week, as our summer highlights season continues, we’re talking about how words can tie us up in fear, and how they can free us to be brave. Nathan Curnow shares what he learned about fear and courage from ghosts and prison cats, and reads a few of the poems he wrote about the experience too. And Dutch journalist and anthropologist Joris Luyendijk, phones in to chat about the Middle East and the secret life of words.

Nathan Curnow, The Ghost Poetry Project, Puncher & Wattmann - interviewed by Benedict Taylor; music track one and music track two by Kevin MacLeod; Nathan's blog can be found here (first broadcast September 2009)

Joris Luyendijk, Fit to Print: Misrepresenting the Middle East, Scribe (trans. Michelle Hutchinson) - interviewed by Rochelle Fernandez (first broadcast October 2009)

Happy New Year folks! For the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you some of the best bits of Final Draft’s 2009. This week we’ve got three different takes on the ways in which the freedom of women is enlarged, and taken away. Activist and writer Kathleen Maltzahn joins us to shine a light on the harrowing experience of women who have been trafficked into this country. We’ll introduce you to an old mate of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, the author and proto-feminist Eliza Fenwick. And courstesy of Peta Murray, we’ll get a glimpse of just what a bittersweet bind it can be to be a solo mum.

Kathleen Maltzahn, Trafficked, UNSW Press - interviewed by Paul Kildea (first broadcast March 2009)

Eliza Fenwick, Secresy; or The Ruin on the Rock - reviewed by Nija Dalal (first broadcast August 2009)

Peta Murray, 'Cameraman', from Louise Swinn and Zoe Dattner (eds), The Sleepers Almanac No.5, Sleepers Publishing - read by Peta Murray, produced by Michelle Bennet from RRR in Melbourne and Benedict Taylor (first broadcast May 2009)

Loyal podcasters, we are sorry to report that the gremlin in the 2ser machine that has PLAGUED us over recent months struck again. We know. We're sick of it too. And we've very sorry. The upshot is we have a slot in the podcast schedule for a goodie from the archives. The episode we've selected is one close to hearts; it helped us win our recent national community radio award, and we hope you don't mind us giving it a second spin.

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. (First broadcast 10 August 2009).

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)

Seasons greetings! It's a good time of year to think about sharing, and, surrounded by material extraganace, it might also be a good idea to consider a few humble pleasures. We'll meet some of the folk behind a library designed to put books in the hands of people with no fixed address. Journalist and film-maker Kim Traill drops by to talk about life in Russia before and after the glut of post-Soviet consumer dross. And we've wranged an invitation from a hospitable listener into her home to take a peek at her shelves. Safe and happy festivites to all!

Sarah Garnett, the founder of the Benjamin Andrew Footpath Library, and two of the library's volunteers, Di Dickens and David Westgate - interviewed by Rochelle Fernandez. Click here for more information about the Footpath Library. Music: 'The Christmas La La Song' by Sherwin Sleeves (check out Sherwin's site for lots of fine goodies, including the best Christmas tale you'll hear in a long time). Music production by Benedict Taylor.

Kim Traill, Red Square Blues, HarperCollins - interviewed by Sara Peel; music: Kevin MacLeod. Music production by Benedict Taylor.

Bookshelf Interview: Gemma - produced by Paul Kildea; music: 'Paloseco Brazz Muted Trumpet Blues' by the The Paloseco Brazz Orchestra / CC BY 3.0

This week, we're off to remote locations—real and imagined—to see what we can find. We'll learn about linguist Nick Reid's labour of love in the Northern Territory, documenting one of Australia's vibrant indigenous languages. And we'll chat with poet and novelist David Brooks about his latest book, an account of a quixotic quest into uncharted realms of the imagination.

Nick Reid, Ngan'gi Dictionary, Australian Linguistics Press - interviewed by Madeleine James

David Brooks, The Umbrella Club, University of Queensland Press - interviewed by Benedict Taylor; music by Kevin Macleod

Click here for more information about the new book blog from Express Media and Radio National's Book Show

One of the best things about an adventure is the story you get to tell about it later. This week, we're enjoying a few of these spoils of hardship. We'll find out what the hell possessed writer and publisher Lisa Dempster to hike 1200 mountaineous kilometres, by herself, in Japan, at the hottest time of the year. We'll also hang out with Reg Mombasa and reminisce about some of his adventures  in art and music. And we'll catch the second and final part of the story we started last week, a tale by Emily Dedakis about exploits of the heart, in New Orleans.

Lisa Dempster, Neon Pilgrim, Aduki Independent Press - interviewed by Benedict Taylor; music: 'My Impure Memories of Osaka', by Gurdonark / CC BY 2.5

Murray Waldren, The Mind and Times of Reg Mombasa, HarperCollins - Reg Mombasa/Chris O'Doherty interviewed by Shamin Fernando

Emily Dedakis, 'Enough: a Nearly True Story' (part two) - read by Emily Dedakis

This week we're exploring the idea of a time and a place for nearly everything. The perfect things can never be re-created, as Katherine Keefe discovers in a story about some very questionable late night nourishment. And Lisa Dempster, the editor of The Words We Found, drops in to discuss Voiceworks magazine growing up and staying young after 21 years, and what growing up means for a young magazine by young people. Tania James has some ideas about time-honoured secrets and mixed-up places in her interesting new novel Atlas of Unknowns; and her characters learn how easy it is to lose themselves when they're in the wrong place. And writer Emily Dedakis proves how hard it is to be in a special place, knowing it can't last forever. 

Final Draft won the 2009 Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Award for Excellence in Spoken Word, News and Current Affairs! More info here: http://www.cbaa.org.au/content.php/768.html

Democracy and charisma: two of humankind's most wonderful and dangerous inventions. Winston Churchill famously thought that democracy was the worst system of government ever invented...except for all the other ones. Political theorist John Keane is along to second the motion, and guide us through the history of this radical idea. And we trace the history of another idea back to its roots too, with John Potts, the author of a intriguing tale about what charisma has been up to for the last couple of millenia

John Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy, Simon and Schuster - interviewed by Paul Kildea

John Potts, A History of Charisma, Palgrave Macmillan - interviewed by Sara Peel

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

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)