Meet award-winning poet, novelist, and translator Lia Hills. Lia reveals her innovative approach of narrating her novel, The Desert Knows Her Name, using voice recognition software while on location in the desert. She completed her first draft in TWO WEEKS! You’ll discover Lia’s methodology, challenges, and the profound connection between place and narrative.
00:00 Introduction and host's update 02:00 Nat Newman’s writing tips 05:51 Words at Dawn writing community 08:00 Keep it simple 10:21 Useful apps for writers 12:31 Book giveaway: The Haters by Robyn Harding 14:53 Word of the week: Imbroglio 15:35 Interview with Lia Hills 27:01 Immersing in character narration 28:23 Writing in the desert 29:11 Specific writing spaces 31:50 Challenges and reflections 34:39 Community engagement and research 38:47 Editing and software tips 49:23 Future writing methods 51:17 Final thoughts and tips 53:42 Podcast conclusion and resources
Lia Hills is an award-winning poet, novelist and translator, born and raised in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her work has been published, translated and performed around the world.
Her debut novel, The Beginner’s Guide to Living (Text, 2009), was critically acclaimed both in Australia and overseas, and was shortlisted for the Victorian, Queensland and Western Australian Premiers’ Literary Awards, and the NZ Post Book Awards. It was translated and sold into numerous countries, including Germany, Brazil, Greece and the US (Farrer, Straus & Giroux).
Lia’s second novel, The Crying Place (Allen and Unwin, 2017), was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2018 and named Book of the Month by Australian Independent Booksellers. Recipient of a Creative Victoria grant for her work on the novel, Lia travelled regularly to the centre of Australia to research and write The Crying Place, set partly in Pitjantjatjara country. As part of the process, Lia stayed in Aboriginal communities and began learning the Pitjantjatjara language.
In 2019, Lia received a Creative Victoria Creators Fund grant to work on her critically-acclaimed novel, The Desert Knows Her Name (Affirm Press, 2024). Set in the Wimmera, it is the story of a young girl who walks barefoot out of the desert, and the response to her emergence in the local community and beyond. The novel explores the erasure and re-emergence of voices, both human and nonhuman, and the silences that persist in contemporary Australia. The first draft was narrated, using voice-recognition software, over a two-week period in an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of the desert. During the writing of The Desert Knows Her Name, Lia engaged regularly with the Barengi Gadgin Land Council, the representative body of the traditional custodians of the Country on which the novel is set.
