This special edition of Fully Lit Live was recorded at the Abercrombie Hotel in Sydney, on beautiful Gadigal land.

It was a night of celebration, conversation, and creative sparks, as we launched the podcast with a vibrant discussion on the power of audio as a medium for literary criticism - one where the critique is embodied, voiced and felt, and built in conversation with one another and with you, our listeners, in mind.

Sophie Gee of the Secret Life of Books was there to host a conversation with Lynda Ng and Ben Etherington, then Delia Falconer, of the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, introduced our friendly crowd to Eda Gunaydin, the 2025 UTS-Copyright Agency writer in residence.

Then we ate cake!

Further reading

Eda Gunaydin is the author of Root and Branch (2022, New South), a collection of essays. You can read many of her published essays via her website.

You can find Eileen Chong's poem, 'We Speak of Flowers,' about launching a book here, thanks to Kill Your Darlings.

Credits

This live event was recorded by Simon Branthwaite, who also did sound design on this episode.

Fully Lit is an Impact Studios podcast, made in collaboration with the Sydney Review of Books.

Its producer is Regina Botros.

Executive producers are Sarah Gilbert and James Jiang.