Claire Nicholls

How does he feel about going home to Ireland?

What is it like in a moment of, I guess, anxiety for some, a moment of political change to actually go to your writing room and set yourself a project to write about this exact moment as it happens?

How does that help you deal with what's actually happening around you?

But, well, you do have some power.

You are a writer.

And what is the role of the writer?

Can writing a piece of fiction make an impact?

Tim Winton always says he's in the business of useless beauty.

Yes, wonderful, wonderful book.

I love that book of his, yeah, yeah.

Look, I want to talk about one more story in this collection, The News from Dublin.

It really stood out to me.

It was called A Sum of Money.

It's about a teenager called Dan.

He's at boarding school and he starts pinching

I'm glad you found it.

All right.

I'm going to teach you how to do a control replace before we hang up today.

But, okay, he is called Dan, and I think he's consistently called Dan through the story.

He's at boarding school, and he starts pinching money out of other kids' lockers.