Episode 33: Holly Throsby
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Holly Throsby\\xa0is a songwriter, musician and author.
As an accomplished singer and songwriter, Holly has been performing since 2004, and has released five albums. In 2010, she joined forces with her friends Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltmann to form the indie pop group Seeker Lover Keeper, which released one album the following year. In\\xa02016, she became an author: her first novel was published in September by Allen & Unwin. It\'s named Goodwood, and it\'s\\xa0about what happens to a small town in New South Wales when two prominent members of the community go missing within a week of each other.
The story is narrated by a 17 year-old named Jean Brown, and\\xa0everything we see is filtered through the young narrator as she grapples with the dramatic turn of events. It\'s a combination of a mystery narrative and a portrait of a town experiencing a collective trauma.\\xa0Goodwood offers a\\xa0wonderfully lush and well-realised depiction of several aspects of contemporary Australian life, and it announces Holly as a major talent in fiction writing.
I first met Holly in April 2013, when she invited me into her home in Sydney to talk about drug use for my book\\xa0Talking Smack. In late September 2016, Holly\'s book was launched in Brisbane by\\xa0previous\\xa0Penmanship guest Kathleen Noonan at Avid Reader bookstore. The morning after, we met at an inner-city hotel room for a conversation which touches on\\xa0her\\xa0extensive research into the creative process as she began the\\xa0book\'s\\xa0first draft while pregnant with her daughter; why she likes the distance and anonymity that comes with writing fiction; how elements of the story and its characters draw on her upbringing in Sydney\'s inner west; how she snuck some of her favourite Australian expressions into the book\'s dialogue; what\\xa0inspired her\\xa0to record an album for children, and what led her to write an op-ed for The Sydney Morning Herald about same-sex marriage.
Holly Throsby is a Sydney-based songwriter and musician. She has released four solo albums and a children\\u2019s album called See! She is known for summoning melodies that sound beautifully crumpled, worn and decades-old, and matching them with hushed, cutting lyrics that read like a Carver short story. Holly has been nominated for four ARIA Awards: two for Best Female Artist, one for Best Children\\u2019s Album, and one as part of Seeker Lover Keeper, her band with Sally Seltmann and Sarah Blasko.\\xa0Goodwood\\xa0is Holly\'s debut\\xa0novel.\\xa0
Show notes and links to what was\\xa0discussed in this episode: http://penmanshippodcast.com/episode-33-holly-throsby/
Holly Throsby on Twitter:\\xa0@HollyThrosby
Penmanship on Twitter:\\xa0@PenmanshipAU
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