Susan Johnson

They're talking to shopkeepers.

They're going into delis.

And she says the wildness, bigness of her bursting out in the most banal, microscopic exchanges, like a button on a blouse popping.

And underneath is a patch of skin that speaks of another unfathomable life.

I felt like that was what she was exposing, this patch of skin again and again.

And Maria Tamarkin's Axiomatic is published by Brow Books, a small publisher that really keeps hitting the marks.

Oh, so many incredible women.

Kim Scott is a Noongar man from Western Australia, and frankly, he's one of our best novelists.

His books include Banang and That Dead Man Dance, both of which won the Miles Franklin Award.

And not long after that, I spoke to him about the books that shaped him.

What I'm interested in, though, Kim, is what reading means to you.

What sort of reader are you?

Has that been the case since you were a kid?

Can you remember what reading was like for you then?

Is that a book that you've re-read?

But that's also talking about a really emotional, visceral response to a book.

So that's what you want when you read?

So if you were to imagine the bookshelf that shaped you and shaped you as a writer, are there other key books that shifted you or moved you or even made you think about language in a different way?

What did you like about that language?

And what do you do when you come to those moments that make you stop in your tracks?