Will Dean

So if you were to imagine a sort of top shelf of books that have influenced you we've already sort of put Shirley Jackson there what else would you put there?

Oh, that is one of the best twists of all time.

Fingers crossed.

Well, and interestingly, none of the examples you've given are genre fiction.

So are there works of crime fiction that you see as really important to what you do?

And what about Swedish fiction?

What have you read recently that you've just loved?

We always love a reading recommendation.

Will Dean, thanks so much for speaking to us on Radio National.

And did you hear, Cassie, that he mentioned James Lee Burke there as one of his favourite crime novelists?

And of course, he's going to be on air tonight, Friday night, talking to Michael Robotham.

Yeah, we did.

And then Nam Lee also wrote about David Maloof.

And I spoke to him about that at a Sydney Writers Festival, I think.

There's a lot of writing advice available out there in books, online, in recycled dot point lists.

But one of my favourite pieces of writing advice is from Colm McCann's 2017 book, Letters to a Young Writer.

It's beautifully written.

It's full of chapters, one of which is simply called Don't Be a Dick, although that's not my favourite.

It's the one where he says, read, just read, adventurously, promiscuously, unfailingly.

Now, that could be advice for all of us at any time, though.