A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard

Sandi Toksvig talks to Julia about her experience forging a career as a leading female comedy figure in a male-dominated world, as well as the sexual harassment of women comedians and her decision to come out as the first lesbian in the public eye in Britain.

Earnings from the podcast will go back into funding for the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, furthering the work they do to create a world in which being a woman is no barrier to being a leader.

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Julia talks to Cambridge Classics Professor and TV historian Mary Beard, who discusses the first recorded examples of misogyny in Ancient Greek mythology, fighting back when told she was “too ugly” for TV and why we need more women professors.

If you enjoyed this episode or any others, please rate and review us on your preferred podcast provider. It really helps us reach more listeners with our message of a more gender-equal world.

Any earnings from the podcast go back into funding for the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, furthering the work we do to create a world in which being a woman is not a barrier to becoming a leader.

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Now in its 10th year, the Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing and championing diversity and cultural change.

To celebrate the 2022 prize, Julia sits down with Evelyn Araluen, this year’s prize winner, to discuss her award-winning debut book, Drop Bear, which weaves together past and present, her personal history and the story of indigenous Australia through powerful lyrical verse. Evelyn shares her writing experience, her journey into poetry and what it’s been like being recognised by the prize.

Julia also speaks with Jaclyn Booton, the Executive Director of the Stella Prize, about how it was established and why it is so important to spotlight Australian women’s writing. Evie Wyld also joins this bumper episode to share her experience as the 2021 prize winner and talk about her critically acclaimed novel, The Bass Rock .

Show notes

• Learn more about the Stella Prize at https://stella.org.au/prize/
• The 2022 Prize winning book, Drop Bear by Evelyn Araluen is available in Australia at https://www.uqp.com.au/books/dropbear
• The 2021 Prize winning novel, The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld is available in Australia at https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-bass-rock-9781761045301 and in the UK at https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-bass-rock/evie-wyld/9781784705497

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In this episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into the latest novel by best-selling author, Elif Shafak. There are Rivers in the Sky charts the story of three characters from across history brought together by two great rivers, with one epic poem flowing through the story. Spanning centuries and continents, the novel follows a single drop of water from the Tigris to the Thames, from antiquity to the 19th century to the modern day.

While exploring the rich histories laid out in the novel, Julia and Sarah also consider its central question – how does history get told, and who gets to tell it? They also reflect on Shafak's exploration of global inequalities across the novel – from the poverty of a class-divided Victorian London, to the far more recent persecution of the Yazidi people (and especially the women) in war-ravaged Iraq, to the impacts of climate change on the fragile ecosystems of rivers like the Tigris and the Thames.

If the name Elif Shafak sounds familiar, that's because we were lucky enough to have her join us on the podcast back in August. If you've not heard it yet, you can catch up with that interview here, or find it wherever you're listening to this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/elif-shafak-on-the-power-of-storytelling/id1466658814?i=1000666169272.

If you'd like to learn more about Gilgamesh, the epic poem that plays a central role in this novel, and the real-life figure of George Smith who inspired the character Arthur Smyth, you can read Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic by Sophus Helle.

There are Rivers in the Sky is published by Penguin Australia and is available at all good bookstores.

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In this month’s Book Club episode Julia sits down with her good friend, best-selling author Kathy Lette, to discuss The Fraud, by British writer Zadie Smith.

The Fraud is a historical fiction novel set in the Victorian era, centred around a real life London court case - The Tichborne Trial.

England is captivated by the case, in which a man claims to be Sir Roger Tichborne - the heir to a large fortune and long believed dead.

Julia and Kathy delve into the book’s exploration of race, gender, age and beauty, with many laughs along the way!

Show notes:

• The Fraud by Zadie Smith is published by Penguin and available at all good bookstores.
• The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette is published by Bloomsbury and available at all good bookstores.

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