Creative Momentum with Meg

S2E13: Linda Atkins on writing the novel that was always waiting

Season 2: The Home Season The second season of Creative Momentum with Meg, The Home Season, features interviews with Australian writers and artists where I explore how and why people do their creative work. Episode 13: Linda Atkins, Author Linda Atkins is a women’s health physician and writer based in Western Sydney who came back to writing in her fifties after stopping as a teenager, and has since written four manuscripts, scored a literary agent, and landed a book deal for her debut crime novel What We Left Behind, due out in November. She started writing again not from ambition but from necessity, sitting down to release a long-held family secret into an essay she sent off to the Calibre Essay Prize, then promptly forgot about. It was longlisted, then shortlisted, and she has not stopped writing since. She is funny, forthright, and completely unromantic about the craft. In this episode, we talk about: - Why doctors end up as writers, and what happens when the science-rewarded part of yourself suppresses the artistic part for 30 years - The essay that started it all: writing a family secret out of her body and sending it off to a prize she then hoped she would not win - What it felt like to pull the plug after 30 years of stored-up words, and why having no craft was part of the deal - Learning to write entirely on the run: reading a bazillion books, sending out short stories, and reaching the critical mass of small wins that made her believe she could do it - How a comment from Candace Fox at a State Library panel became the challenge that sparked her crime novel - Her transition from pantser to plotter, and why crime fiction eventually demands you sort out your plot holes, whether you like it or not - Why the best novel to work with is a finished one, and why writing forward rather than backwards is the only advice that matters - Flash fiction as a craft tool, and short stories as palate cleansers between novels - Why she writes because she cannot not, and her greatest fear that she will not live long enough to say everything she wants to say - What home means to someone who grew up in an immigrant family selected for ambition and dissatisfaction, and how finding safety finally unlocked her creative life Whether you are a writer who came to it late, a creative person who buried their art under decades of other life, or someone who keeps rewriting Chapter 1 instead of getting to Chapter 30, this episode is for you. Linda is practical, warm and clear-eyed about what it takes, and her story is a good reminder that 30 years of unwritten words do not disappear. They just wait. And when you finally sit down, they come gurgling out all at once. Connect with Linda Linda on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/atkinsaudacity/] ‘After’, Linda’s KYD Flash Fiction prize [https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/flash-fiction-prize-2025-after/] Shouting Abortion: A doctor reflects on the politics and economics of terminations [https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2022/june-2022-no-443/shouting-abortion-a-doctor-reflects-on-the-politics-and-economics-of-terminations-by-linda-atkins] Find all Creative Momentum with Meg show notes [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] and interviews: https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] A special thanks to Yvonne Morton for the music accompanying this episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/] (https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/ [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/]) and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/].(https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/ [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/]) Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [http://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe] Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [https://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

S2E12: Author Susan Green on finishing the crap first draft

Season 2: The Home Season The second season of Creative Momentum with Meg, The Home Season, features interviews with Australian writers and artists where I explore how and why people do their creative work. Episode 12: Susan Green, Author Susan Green is a children's and adult fiction writer with a career spanning nearly four decades. Best known for the Verity Sparks series, which began with The Truth About Verity Sparks (a CBCA Awards runner-up in 2011), she has also written picture storybooks, non-fiction, one adult novel, and five teenage romances under the name Susan Lennox. After nearly a decade away from completing projects, the writing bug has returned, and Susan is now deep in a 1950s espionage novel and preparing a submission for a Varuna residency. In this episode, we talk about: - How a walk through Melbourne’s grand Victorian architecture sparked the first Verity Sparks novel - Why having a contract focused her writing life, and what happened to her routine without one - Her pantser approach: starting with a character, worrying at a first sentence, and trusting the story to find itself - The breakthrough she had in her 20s for dealing with the voice that says this is crap - What a great editor taught her about killing your darlings - The Little Bo Peep theory of creative problems, and why she no longer worries too much - Why she stopped thinking about publishers and markets, and what that freedom has meant for the book she is writing now - The grief that comes when your characters stop speaking to you Whether you are a writer finding your way back after a long break, stuck in the middle of a draft, or wondering what the point is without a contract or a deadline, this episode is for you. Susan is funny, generous and disarmingly honest about the messiness of creative life, and her story is a good reminder that beingness, including creative beingness, is enough, and that the characters always come back wagging their tails. Connect with Susan * Susan’s website [https://veritysparks.com/] * How Bright Are All Things Here [https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760555627/] Find all Creative Momentum with Meg show notes [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] and interviews: https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] A special thanks to Yvonne Morton for the music accompanying this episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/] (https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/ [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/]) and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/].(https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/ [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/]) Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [http://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe] Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [https://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

S2E11: Debut author Kerry Jewell on writing dark humour

Season 2: The Home Season The second season of Creative Momentum with Meg, The Home Season, features interviews with Australian writers and artists where I explore how and why people do their creative work. Episode 11: Debut Author Kerry Jewell Kerry Jewell is a nuclear medicine physician and writer based in Melbourne whose debut novel, A Little Unwell, is a darkly funny look at life inside the Australian hospital system. Kerry began the book in 2015 during a night shift, venting a bureaucratic frustration into a Word document she almost never opened again, and finished the first complete draft seven years later. Her first three chapters were shortlisted for the Richell Prize in 2020, and the book is published by Hachette. She is also, it turns out, a genuinely funny person to talk to at an early hour of the morning. In our chat, we discuss - Why so many doctors end up as writers, and what medicine and creative work have in common - Dark humour in medicine: why healthcare workers rely on it, and why Kerry was surprised to learn hers was dark - Kerry’s deliberately routineless approach to writing and why attempting a routine makes things worse - The car as creative space and how a one-hour commute does more for plot and character than sitting at a desk - How the book moved from vignettes and loose notes to a complete manuscript across seven years - Why Kerry chose fiction over non-fiction to tell these stories, and what fiction allows that non-fiction does not - The connection between creative practice and showing up well at work and for patients Whether you are a writer who has been sitting on a half-finished manuscript for years, a creative person trying to balance a demanding day job with the work that feeds your soul, or someone who simply needs permission to stop trying to have a routine, this conversation is for you. Kerry is warm, funny, and bracingly honest about the messiness of the creative process, and her story is a good reminder that the gap between venting into a Word document at 2am and holding a published novel is mostly just time, stubbornness and a willingness to let the work find its shape. Connect with Kerry A Little Unwell [https://www.hachette.com.au/kerry-jewell/a-little-unwell] https://www.hachette.com.au/kerry-jewell/a-little-unwell [https://www.hachette.com.au/kerry-jewell/a-little-unwell] Website [https://www.kerryjewell.com/] https://www.kerryjewell.com/ [https://www.kerryjewell.com/] Substack [https://substack.com/@drkerryjewell/notes] https://substack.com/@drkerryjewell/notes [https://substack.com/@drkerryjewell/notes] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drkerryjewell/] https://www.instagram.com/drkerryjewell/ [https://www.instagram.com/drkerryjewell/] Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/drkerryjewell.bsky.social] https://bsky.app/profile/drkerryjewell.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/drkerryjewell.bsky.social] Find all Creative Momentum with Meg show notes [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] and interviews: https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] A special thanks to Yvonne Morton for the music accompanying this episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/] (https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/ [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/]) and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/].(https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/ [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/]) Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [http://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe] Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [https://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

S2E10: Co-Authors Graeme Simsion & Anne Buist on a shared writing life

Season 2: The Home Season The second season of Creative Momentum with Meg, The Home Season, features interviews with Australian writers and artists where I explore how and why people do their creative work. Episode 10: Co-Authors Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist have been creative collaborators for their entire relationship. They have now written five books together, including the Menzies Mental Health series, which follows trainee psychiatrist Hannah through the sometimes brutal world of public hospital medicine. The third book in that series, The General Hospital, is out now. In this conversation, they talk about what it actually looks like to write a book together, from brainstorming scenes on cards thrown into an ice cream container, to sitting side by side for eight hours a day during first draft, to the rule that Anne does not give Graeme her first draft because it is too sloppy and he will feel disrespected. They talk about why Graeme believes pantsing is a choice not an identity, why screenwriting training produces better novelists than prose courses, and the mash-up method he uses to find original ideas. Graeme’s advice for anyone starting out is blunt: know why you are writing, follow a process and understand that there are two kinds of people who say they sit in front of a blank screen and wait for drops of blood to form. One group are geniuses. The other are liars. Connect with Graeme & Anne Anne on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/anneebuist/] (https://www.instagram.com/anneebuist/ [https://www.instagram.com/anneebuist/] )& Website [https://annebuist.com/] https://annebuist.com/ [https://annebuist.com/] Graeme on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/gcsimsion/] (https://www.instagram.com/gcsimsion/ [https://www.instagram.com/gcsimsion/] ) & Website [http://www.graemesimsion.com] http://www.graemesimsion.com [http://www.graemesimsion.com] Buy The General Hospital [https://www.hachette.com.au/anne-buist-graeme-simsion/the-general-hospital-a-menzies-mental-health-novel], the third book in the Menzies Mental Health Series: https://www.hachette.com.au/anne-buist-graeme-simsion/the-general-hospital-a-menzies-mental-health-novel [https://www.hachette.com.au/anne-buist-graeme-simsion/the-general-hospital-a-menzies-mental-health-novel] The Novel Project [https://www.amazon.com.au/Novel-Project-Step-Step-Biography/dp/1922458384/] by Graeme Simsion (https://www.amazon.com.au/Novel-Project-Step-Step-Biography/dp/1922458384/ [https://www.amazon.com.au/Novel-Project-Step-Step-Biography/dp/1922458384/]) Find all Creative Momentum with Meg show notes [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] and interviews: https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] A special thanks to Yvonne Morton for the music accompanying this episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/] (https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/ [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/]) and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/].(https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/ [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/]) Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [http://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe] Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [https://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

S2E9: Author Emma Hardy on writing memoir

Season 2: The Home Season The second season of Creative Momentum with Meg, The Home Season, features interviews with Australian writers and artists where I explore how and why people do their creative work. Episode 9: Emma Hardy, Author Emma Hardy is a writer who works across fiction and non-fiction. Her debut book Periodic B***h is a literary memoir of menstruation, madness, and monsters. It is a hybrid non-fiction work that weaves her own experience of PMDD during Melbourne’s lockdowns with archival research and a sweeping look at how women’s illnesses have been treated throughout history. It is also, as the title suggests, not shy about being angry. In this conversation, Emma and I cover a lot of ground. We talk about improv and how it helps or hinders writing, what it means to craft a curated version of yourself in memoir, and Jane Alison’s book on story structure that made everything click. We talk about body doubling, dead cow narrators, and why workshop can sometimes edit out the good bits. And we talk about Melbourne as home for Emma and her writing. Connect with Emma Hardy Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emahrdy/] Website [https://emmahardy.me/] Buy Periodic B***h [https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Emma-Hardy-Periodic-B***h-9781761473593?] book [https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Emma-Hardy-Periodic-B***h-9781761473593?] Emma’s Substack ‘Hot Mess’ [https://emahrdy.substack.com/] See Emma at Melbourne Writers Festival [https://mwf.com.au/program/breaking-taboos-rewriting-sex-love-and-the-body] Join Emma at her book launch at Readings on 14 May 2026 [https://www.readings.com.au/events/periodic-b***h-by-emma-hardy] Find all Creative Momentum with Meg show notes [https://megdunley.substack.com/s/creative-momentum-with-meg-dunley] and interviews A special thanks to Yvonne Morton for the music accompanying this episode. You can find Yvonne on Bandcamp [https://yvonnemorton.bandcamp.com/] and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/yvonne.morton/]. Get full access to Musings with Meg at megdunley.substack.com/subscribe [https://megdunley.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]