Our guests in this episode create very different work. Patricia Cornelius writes uncompromising, realist drama, while Toni Jordan is the author of best-selling contemporary fiction. But we’ve brought them together to talk about something close to both their hearts – swearing.

(Note: This episode may include swearing. A bit. Well, actually, a fucking lot.)

Listen here:

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About our guests

Toni Jordan has been a newspaper columnist, a writing lecturer, molecular biologist, quality control chemist, and  door-to-door aluminium siding saleswoman.

Her first novel, Addition, was an international bestseller, published or about to be published in eleven countries. It was a Richard and Judy Bookclub pick and long-listed for the Miles Franklin award.

Fall Girl (2010) was published internationally and has been optioned for film, and Nine Days was awarded Best Fiction at the 2012 Indie Awards. Her latest, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts is out now.

Patricia Cornelius is one of Australia’s most innovative and acclaimed playwrights. She was a founding member of Melbourne Workers’ Theatre and has written over twenty-five plays including Savages, Slut, Jack’s Daughters, Max, and Lilly and May. She co-wrote Who’s Afraid of the Working Class?  and its film adaptation, Blessed. Her novel, My Sister Jill, was published in 2002. 

Patricia’s many awards include a Gold AWGIE and Green Room awards, the Jill Blewett Award,  the NSW and Victorian Premier’s Awards for Drama, and the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award.

Patricia’s play SHIT was presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company and at Forty-five Downstairs and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.

Peta Brady, Nicci Wilks and Sarah Ward on stage in SHIT.
Production photo: Sebastian Bourges

Toni Jordan’s essay ‘Blue Meat and Purple Language’ appears in the anthology Purple Prose,  edited by Liz Byrski and Rachel Robertson and published by Fremantle Press. Her new novel, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, is published by Text.

The script for Patricia Cornelius’s play SHIT is published by Red Door.