Tim Winton lives in Western Australia and is the author of 30 books, some of which have been adapted for film, television, stage and radio.

These include his 1991 novel Cloudstreet, which was adapted into a six-part mini-series in 2011, featuring Essie Davis and Stephen Curry.

The story centres on separate catastrophes that cause two rural families to flee to the city. They find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet, where they begin their lives again from scratch.

His trilogy of Lockie Leonard books, released in 1990, 1993 and 1997 respectively, has also been turned into a series.

Winton will be visiting the capital as part of the Canberra Writers Festival, which runs from 23-27 October.

You can catch the long-time author at the festival’s special event at The Australian National University’s Llewellyn Hall on Sunday, 20 October at 6pm, where he will discuss his new novel Juice, described as “an epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit.

You have been an author for many decades now. What do you like most about attending events like the Canberra Writers Festival?

It isinstructive to meet readers, to put faces to the thousands of strangers you’re engaged with at a huge distance, sometimes over decades. So, the educational element, I’d say!

Is this your first visit to Canberra, if so, what are you most looking forward to? If you have been before, what do you like about the ACT?

Nah, I’ve been there a bunch of times. Mostly for work, like this, but sometimes in my other role as rabble-rouser. That’s when I’m up the hill, being wheeled about the hallways between ministerial offices like a plate of ham that’s on the turn.

Last year I was there in winter. I had to borrow a coat. It’s a long flight home. I was nearly thawed out by the time I landed.

Canberra’s beautiful. A city of trees.

And the museums are great, not that I’ve been in one for a decade or more. 

But I once stood with my dad in front of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles (at the National Gallery of Australia), which was a controversial painting in its day. 

He’s (Winton’s father) a retired copper. That made for an interesting conversation, trust me.

What motivates you to keep on writing? Will you ever stop writing/publishing or slow down?

I write because I can, I suppose. And to make a living. 

I guess when I can’t, or when I’ve got nothing to say, I’ll stop.

One hopes to remain useful.

Tell me about writing your latest novel, Juice which was released on 1 October, as well as the inspiration behind it?

Well, it’s an adventure yarn, really. An odyssey of sorts about a country boy who gets to be a world traveller – in a world that’s radically transformed from the one we know today. For all the reasons you’d expect. And maybe some you wouldn’t.

I guess it came from watching our governments waste away two decades of opportunity as they refused to deal with the challenges of climate change.

The moronic denialism, the culture wars that only served the interests of those determined to extend the fossil fuel industry.

All this achieved by the same folks who spent that precious time knighting the consorts of queens, falling down drunk in the streets, and telling folks during a bushfire that they don’t hold a hose, mate.

So… rage, as you may be able to tell, was the initial inspiration. Rage that was not tempered by increasing knowledge but rage that was inflamed by it.

But, in the end, I felt I had to address the grief bound up in that legacy, and so I turned my mind to trying to counter the despair and immobility that so many are now gripped by as the world slips through our fingers.

The novel’s a nightmare, yes, but it’s a nightmare I want us to avoid, that I believe we can avoid if we pull our fingers out.

Some commentators seem fixated on the bleak “dystopian” element of the book, but there’s a stubborn hope in it, a refusal to give in to nihilism and savagery.

I guess I’m interested in fostering solidarity. That’s our only hope, I think.

To meet this historic (and deeply challenging) moment together.

Does that sound too earnest for Canberra? I know I’m supposed to be cynical, right? 

But I’m browned off, not cynical. Stubborn, not bitter. Life’s good. The world’s a fricking miracle.

It’s time we lived as if we appreciated it.

What was your favourite book to write and why?

Ah, I don’t have favourites. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell. Bad parenting.

When you’re not writing, what do you enjoy doing in your downtime?

I surf, snorkel, play with megafauna, admire corals and fossils and grow veggies.

I entertain the grandkids (certain moves and gags have a shelf life, so I’m sound with one to five-year-olds). 

Read, of course, shout at the telly, naturally and I help out with various social justice and conservation efforts. 

 What’s next after the tour for Juice?

A rest, I hope. And I’ll do my laundry, of course. Beverages, perhaps.

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