What writers read

6-7pm, Tuesday 24 June 2025 at Five Leaves Left, 41 Victoria St Hobart

Join author Robbie Arnott as he talks to writer and editor Jane Rawson about Kathryn Scanlan’s 2022 underground classic, Kick the latch, which “vividly captures the arc of one woman’s life at the racetrack — the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner’s circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the ‘particular language’ of ‘grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody’ — with economy and integrity. The novel investigates form and authenticity in a feat of synthesis reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff’s ‘Testimony’.”

Robbie Arnott is the author of Dusk, Limberlost, The Rain Heron and Flames. He’s a two-time winner of The Age Book of the Year, and has also been awarded the Voss Literary Prize. He’s been named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist, and has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Tasmanian Literary Awards.