Welcome, Maxine! Wonderful to have you here. So much to discuss… One of the abiding principles that motivated Clem Christesen to found Meanjin was, in his words: ‘to make clear the connection between literature and politics’. So let’s start there. What does that mean to you? What is the connection between literature and politics?

For me—for my writing, at least—writing is a political act. For me, that means that I don’t generally create something unless I have an impetus to create it. You know—unless I feel like there is a need for this story to be told. Perhaps it hasn’t been told before. Perhaps it’s the right time to tell it in terms of doing the work it needs to do to start conversations. But I don’t think it necessarily means that for every writer. I think, for some, the political act is choosing not to make political work. And that could also be a kind of avoidance: it could be a commercial consideration, or it could be an avoidance of wanting to get into Politics with a capital P.