WEBVTT

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Something doesn't seem quite right.

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Welcome to Not quite right.

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My name's Ed and I'm Amanda.

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And we are at Words on the Waves with
another interview.

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And this interview is with George Kemp.

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MMM.

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So George Kemp brought his debut novel to
Words on the Waves this year.

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And it's called Soft Serve,
which is an intriguing title but is,

da322c12-e6b8-4be0-9961-dd7849a3d79d-1
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in fact,
set in a McDonald's during a Bush fire.

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Intriguing set up.

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And we spoke to George about the novel
and the subplots and a little bit about

4c2be942-0585-438c-aefc-05089711e2c7-1
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writing your second book.

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So here is our interview with George Kemp.

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We are here at Words on the Waves with
George Kemp.

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Nice to meet you.

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Nice to meet you too.

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So tell us why you're here.

08807829-c2c0-436e-93da-3a766b678778-0
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You're part of the Inktenash panel.

4ab50b27-6fa1-42eb-8cc7-431423e59579-0
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I am here for the Inktenash panel.

de8db235-2499-47fa-b81a-5c47c9b3659f-0
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Talk about my debut novel called Soft
Surf,

de8db235-2499-47fa-b81a-5c47c9b3659f-1
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which came out in Feb this year and it's
about four people,

de8db235-2499-47fa-b81a-5c47c9b3659f-2
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320 somethings and their dead friend's
mum and they're all in regional Maccas as

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bushfires close in and they're all facing
some sort of reckoning with the day

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outside and also with their lives.

31dce1bd-0fe7-46e5-b86e-7713320e99ea-0
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Little queer love story going through it
and they're billed as Drive Through

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Chekhov is what we've done.

4c6a7b65-23ae-4e58-8cb5-0df9c50ab537-0
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Is that a a personal thing for you
working in a Maccas?

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Is that part of your history?

fb2e5402-284e-4920-8398-1829ecf44042-0
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I never did, no.

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I never worked in a Maccas.

458900d6-b6b1-46e6-8ab9-cc332a8dff0a-0
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So I get nervous when people that have,
they're gonna come and be like,

458900d6-b6b1-46e6-8ab9-cc332a8dff0a-1
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that's not how it happens.

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Yeah.

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How we got the chips.

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Yeah.

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No absolute wrong temperature on your
deep fryer.

52a53e5e-05a2-4025-b45f-673ab04cec2a-0
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I've never worked in a Maccas,
but I've worked in a Pizza Hut.

6c4ae983-eb28-4ecd-a4b9-143b93a64ea2-0
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But just the experience of observing
people who are working Maccas,

6c4ae983-eb28-4ecd-a4b9-143b93a64ea2-1
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I think the beeping would drive me crazy.

748a0b51-f2e7-44b5-acdf-43495c711dbd-0
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Oh, so much beeping.

0482b26a-04b4-460e-b3b4-f9f4affb322f-0
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People say they hear it still.

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Yeah.

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Decades on,
they can still hear the beeping at night.

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Yeah,
but you say there's a queer love story.

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So is that kind of like a subplot that
weaves through the book?

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It is a subplot.

a8d2e868-7c16-41de-81b5-762627b5cec2-0
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The the book sort of follows a few
different POV's.

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And two of those is 2 people in their 20s.

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And they're both at very kind of
different stages of their acceptance of

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their sexuality.

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And they're in a small town.

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And so there's a there's a danger at play
there.

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And one of them would love for them to
move to Sydney and be happy and fall in

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love.

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And the other one is happy in their small
town nest and knows what's what and isn't

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quite ready to face that.

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So it's kind of about the,
the snakes and ladders of,

093961a5-9eb0-4795-9156-59ef6098e788-1
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of early queer love, you know,
2 steps forward, one step back.

ea57519d-946c-493f-a19e-ad5630051346-0
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There's a fire outside in the town so
that they get,

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it's too late to leave order from the RFS
as well.

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And so they're, they're all stuck there.

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And then in the final section of the book,
a team of RFS firefighters come into the

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Mackers and try and get them out.

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But everyone's got their own,
their own stories, deep, deep below.

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And so this is your debut novel.

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You know,
a lot of writers listen to our podcast

efa35e01-63d7-42cb-be76-63118f6cddb7-1
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and would be interested to know what is
it that sold your book, do you think?

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What is it that got the attention of the
publisher?

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That's a good question.

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I wish I knew.

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It's an interesting setting concept.

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It's easily explainable.

ff526f60-72f8-49cb-a0fe-e9dcbe21eaaf-0
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I think there's a containment to it
that's interesting.

cb5554df-89d5-4334-8e7c-216119db0e08-0
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It's not a long book.

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I love a short book.

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I love it.

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This isn't like an Agatha Christie
situation in the Maccas where you know,

9ace0a67-7bc7-48d7-aef2-e204b5bb395c-1
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no, no, no, it's not,
It's not so and so in the,

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in the bathrooms with the Candlestick.

3d8a6393-3bea-4e41-82de-079954f17132-0
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No, it's, it's quite a interior novel.

655c26d2-3ab6-4228-838c-c62cee382a5e-0
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OK.

e6758594-003a-4eb0-8de5-76a342608c2f-0
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Have you got anything else in the
pipeline planned?

926a5a4a-380d-468d-a521-2556481b7980-0
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I'm working away on book #2 about 5000
words or so of that one.

dde0b6fe-1d77-4823-81dd-6bedf0199937-0
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Also in a bit of an unusual setting,
but about something quite different.

3897d379-1d78-45db-a69f-6ce27fea490b-0
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I'm kind of looking at trust and the the
of, you know, trusting the experts.

e93b804d-698e-4686-be52-6392148df152-0
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And if everybody's yelling and at once
and nobody's listening,

e93b804d-698e-4686-be52-6392148df152-1
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then what happens there is the is the
fear that I'm trying to.

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Yeah.

2f0d6a3d-f079-4f7a-b294-4c8fab0534f4-0
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Explore for myself.

7886b0d6-0bcf-4b30-af3e-fb360b04eefe-0
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Yeah.

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I mean, this is interesting.

c451cb7a-dbfd-446f-bde5-16bb3a8b16a5-0
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A lot of authors who come for their
second book, you know, you've got the one.

0cb5fd2b-0ab3-47d2-b656-01b8cf44bcfd-0
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And then I think there can be so much
pressure to sort of reproduce what was

0cb5fd2b-0ab3-47d2-b656-01b8cf44bcfd-1
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successful the first time.

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Do you feel that pressure or do you just
feel driven to write what you want to

c4c3942d-770e-4855-8ef7-7cc400686cbd-1
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write?

fa0b7d66-f045-469e-8af7-0fc535c22f0f-0
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I get, I feel the opposite.

26307596-89b2-42fe-8c3e-ef2a0f0cb3ec-0
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I feel,
I feel nervous that I'm repeating myself.

c81002cd-701c-4d7e-a1dc-8791145eab87-0
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Yeah.

f9fbf398-2573-46a8-9bfb-698cc2564621-0
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I also find myself being like, well,
that's a similar rhythm or that's a

f9fbf398-2573-46a8-9bfb-698cc2564621-1
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similar are people love seeing the same
thing again, maybe new packaging.

7d3fe2df-03a5-4b31-8865-438a55fd8303-0
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I feel, well, certainly publishers do.

f638fbfe-dbf5-4f17-8c9b-ee41c4db5349-0
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That's that's that's my understanding of
the industry.

494ca6ee-eca7-4169-898a-e4ef2d033d51-0
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Give me the same thing but different.

cd111700-7144-4b8b-813e-053a93f48160-0
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I think so.

2300aede-1d5a-4a9f-accf-aff362acef35-0
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

5e5dfedd-e34c-497b-95ad-eaea70f48592-0
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I think it's a good attitude to have to
want to do something different next time

5e5dfedd-e34c-497b-95ad-eaea70f48592-1
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around.

f557ad6d-e76f-402a-8d4b-1c57b2a3d136-0
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And it sounds like that's something that
people are thinking about at the moment,

f557ad6d-e76f-402a-8d4b-1c57b2a3d136-1
00:04:39.036 --> 00:04:40.960
the death of expertise and that kind of
thing.

cea307f6-6082-407e-82d4-8b74824697b9-0
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And trust.

ff86f521-9879-4c42-9d2c-aa2b14c34213-0
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Yeah.

4eed6374-7bda-4ab4-8f75-c9d7c4d1c3d0-0
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Yeah.

6333ed26-f915-4fa8-8330-c6bde77e84c6-0
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Very much so.

a30b5a55-398a-44a8-be8f-5190eb13d142-0
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Where is truth exactly to find out?

03cb00a4-f788-4c72-8523-fddb6f364538-0
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Well,
you've got to jump onto a panel very

03cb00a4-f788-4c72-8523-fddb6f364538-1
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shortly, so we won't keep you.

b020cd35-3329-452c-939b-0aa264b4d6c2-0
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But thank you so much for speaking with
us.

03f1d5f4-4087-415f-969b-d914dc811104-0
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Thank you for having me.

573a05a4-98ab-4fa5-8884-a32334abe433-0
00:04:52.040 --> 00:04:52.960
Thank you very much.

03231884-3cf4-4786-9625-ee124eda3ee2-0
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This has been a special presentation of
the Not Quite Right podcast in

03231884-3cf4-4786-9625-ee124eda3ee2-1
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collaboration with Words on the Waves
Writers Festival.

c80d45f1-1778-48d9-9f93-0f3aadade28d-0
00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:05.603
Check the show notes For more information
about Words on the Waves and the books

c80d45f1-1778-48d9-9f93-0f3aadade28d-1
00:05:05.603 --> 00:05:06.760
mentioned in this episode.

78fb3928-30a6-41f8-8a81-bb5dbd60b421-0
00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:10.095
If you're new to the podcast,
please join us again for our regular

78fb3928-30a6-41f8-8a81-bb5dbd60b421-1
00:05:10.095 --> 00:05:13.160
episodes where we talk about media,
culture, and the art of writing.