Is it ever too late to discover a different version of yourself?

In this episode of Between The Lines, we're joined by Australian author Mikki Brammer to discuss her wonderful new novel, Good Joy, Bad Joy.

For more than eighty years, Joy and Hazel have been best friends. But while Hazel has lived boldly and adventurously, Joy has spent her life doing what was expected of her: being a devoted wife, loving mother and good neighbour.

When Hazel is given only months to live, Joy begins to wonder whether playing it safe has meant missing out. What starts with a determination to live a little more boldly soon involves mischief, petty crime and a very late coming of age.

But underneath all the fun is a deeply thoughtful story about friendship, ageing, identity and the ways we can continue to change throughout our lives.

Mikki describes the novel as an ode to lifelong friendship, very late bloomers and the thrill of dabbling in a little mischief. We talk about the great romance of platonic love and the friends who don't just complement us, but show us parts of ourselves we haven't yet discovered.

We also explore Joy's relationships with her husband and daughter, and the realisation that a lifetime spent avoiding conflict hasn't necessarily protected her relationships. Instead, saying the difficult things may be exactly what allows those relationships to deepen.

• Joy and Hazel's extraordinary eighty-year friendship
• Why Mikki wanted to write about the great romance of platonic love
• Being a late bloomer and having more than one "coming of age"
• The difference between living through someone else's adventures and discovering what you're capable of yourself
• How our experiences with our own parents can shape the way we parent
• Conflict avoidance and why keeping the peace doesn't always create closeness
• Joy's unlikely friendship with her neighbour Rowan
• Ageing, invisibility and the boxes society places people in
• Challenging our assumptions about other people
• Regret as an invitation to change rather than something simply negative
• Why small, everyday regrets can matter more than the grand ones
• The idea of being "cautiously reckless"
• Why a quiet life can be every bit as meaningful as one lived loudly
• Mikki's first novel, The Collected Regrets of Clover, and the themes connecting the two books

This is a conversation about friendship and ageing, but ultimately it's about possibility: remaining curious about ourselves, other people and the lives we might still choose to live.

What happens to the parts of ourselves we put aside when we become who everyone else needs us to be?

In this episode of Between The Lines, Leanne is joined by author and psychologist Lauren Keegan to discuss her haunting historical novel, The Woman in the Seal Skin.

Set on the remote Orkney Islands in 1695, the novel follows Mali, a young woman raised on stories of selkies: shape-shifting women who shed their seal skins to walk on land. Mali has always done what is expected of her. Now married and expecting her first child, her life appears safe and predictable. But beneath it all is a yearning for the sea and for a part of herself she has never been allowed to fully know.

Lauren shares how traditional selkie folklore inspired the novel, particularly the story of a woman whose seal skin is stolen, trapping her on land as a wife and mother until she eventually reclaims it and returns to the sea.

From there, our conversation explores something that will feel familiar to many women: the tension between loving the people and roles in our lives and still yearning for something that belongs entirely to ourselves.

We talk about motherhood and identity, the judgement placed on women who pursue their own needs, and why having something that brings us back to ourselves can be so important.

We also explore the darker side of folklore. Who gets to tell the story? Who benefits from the version that survives? And what happens when stories about women are used to frighten them, control them or keep them small?

• The selkie folklore that inspired The Woman in the Seal Skin
• Why Lauren chose Orkney in 1695 as the setting
• Motherhood and the yearning to retain a sense of self
• The impossible judgement women can face whether they prioritise their children or themselves
• Why our passions don't need to serve anyone else to be worthwhile
• Female oppression, violence and the ways stories can be used to control women
• How folklore can help communities explain loss, tragedy and things they don't understand
• The sea as a metaphor for emotion, thought, freedom and wildness
• Bessie as an outsider, healer and woman who has embraced her own wildness
• Lauren's work as a psychologist in perinatal and infant mental health and how her interest in women's experiences connects with her writing
• The relationship between nature, folklore and human experience across Lauren's novels

This is a beautiful conversation about motherhood, identity and the parts of ourselves that continue calling to us, even when life has taught us to keep them quiet.

What does it mean to build a home in a country that isn't your own?

In this episode of Between The Lines, we're joined by author Tyree Barnette to discuss his powerful memoir, Stolen Man on Stolen Land.

After moving from North Carolina to Sydney, Tyree expected Australia to be familiar enough to feel like home. Instead, he found himself seeing both countries through a completely new lens. As a Black American living in Australia, he reflects on migration, race, belonging and identity with remarkable honesty, curiosity and compassion.

Rather than offering easy answers, Tyree invites readers to sit with complexity. He shares what surprised him most about Australian culture, the similarities and differences between race relations in Australia and the United States, and how learning about Indigenous Australian history transformed his understanding of the country he now calls home.

At its heart, Stolen Man on Stolen Land is a deeply personal story about leaving one home, finding another, and recognising that identity is shaped not only by where we come from, but by how willing we are to listen, learn and grow.

• Tyree's journey from North Carolina to Sydney
• The joys and challenges of migration
• Race, identity and belonging across two countries
• Learning about Australia's Indigenous history
• The complexity of comparing Australia and the United States
• Why curiosity and empathy are more powerful than certainty
• Writing memoir with honesty, vulnerability and humour
• Finding home while holding space for difficult conversations

This is a thoughtful conversation about identity, perspective and what happens when we begin to see both ourselves and our country through someone else's eyes.