Meet: Creators of Tramlines
Tramlines: part audio book, part spoken word and part locative literature. This podcast celebrates Naarm/Melbourne’s tram network, its rich history and everyday stories.
In this seven part-series, each episode delivers a new piece of writing from a Victorian writer. Each story makes use of the location, the time and the ambient sounds to complement your tram journey.
Meet the production team behind Tramlines.
Writer | Route 59
Sharmini Kumar is the founder and Artistic Director of 24 Carrot Productions. Sharmini has written, directed and produced many performance pieces and short films including ‘Shakespeare in Therapy’ and ‘The Regina Monologues’, as well as radio documentaries for the ABC. When she's not writing and directing, she works as a doctor and teaches medicine.
Writer | Route 109
Fiona Hardy is a writer, bookseller and reviewer. Her childrens’ books include the CBCA Notable How to Make a Movie in 12 Days, and her short fiction has been published in journals such as Gargouille and The Big Issue. She grew up in the distant east (aka Metcard Zone 3), thinking trams were incredibly worldly and sophisticated, and still partly believes that despite becoming an adult and riding the 109 tram to work for seven years.
Writer | Route 6
Nova Weetman has published 16 books for children and young adults, including: Sick Bay, The Edge of Thirteen and The Jammer. Nova’s books have been CBCA Notables, shortlisted for the Readings Children’s Prize, Japan’s Sakura Medal, the NSW Premier’s History Prize and more. She won the ABIA Award for Best Children’s Book Small Publisher in 2021 and is shortlisted this year. Nova has written for Overland, Mslexia, Kill Your Darlings, Island, The Age and The Guardian. She chats about children’s books every fortnight on ABC Radio Melbourne.
Writer | Route 19
Shivaun Plozza is the award-winning author of Frankie, Tin Heart, The Boy, the Wolf, and the Stars, A Reluctant Witch’s Guide to Magic and Meet Me at the Moon Tree. Her writing has been shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year, YALSA's Top Ten Best Young Adult Books of the Year, and the Gold Inky. She won the Davitt Award for Best Young Adult Crime Novel in 2017.
Writer | Route 11
Vidya Rajan is a writer & performer currently based in Australia working across screenwriting, theatre, comedy, and digital space. A former writer-in-residence at the Malthouse Theatre, graduate of the VCA, and a recipient of Screen Australia’s Developer Program, her work has often been described as surreal, inventive, darkly funny, and probing of the contemporary moment. She can next be seen as part of the core ensemble on the new Aunty Donna sitcom series—Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe (2023, ABC)—on which she also worked as a writer/story consultant.
Writer | Route 35
Nadia Bailey is a writer, editor, and critic from Melbourne. She was the 2020 recipient of the National Library of Australia's Creative Arts Fellowship for Australian Writing, and was Kraków City of Literature's Creative Fellow in 2019. She has been published in The Age, The Australian, and The Lifted Brow, among others. She is currently a PhD candidate at UNSW Canberra and is working on her first novel.
Writer | Route 58
Emma Gibson's place-based work includes a spoken-word audio tour in Canberra, site-specific poetry installations in Spain and Iceland, and an audio walking tour along Melbourne’s Upfield line. She has an MA in Place Writing, which is often confusing when said aloud because she is also a playwright. Emma is an alumna of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Women in Theatre and Theatre Works’ She Writes residency. She has a new play in La Mama’s Explorations Season this July.
Editor
Elizabeth Flux is an award-winning writer and Arts Editor at The Age. Previously, she was the editor-at-large for the Melbourne City of Literature office, and the editor of The Victorian Writer. In 2019 and 2020 she was a convening judge for the VPLAs. Her fiction and nonfiction work has been widely published. Photo by Leah Jing McIntosh.
Producer
Beth Atkinson-Quinton is an award-winning audio producer, broadcaster and co-founder of Broadwave. Their recent work includes: Supervising Producer on Saving The Franklin (ABC), Series Producer on Bad Taste (SBS) and Co-Producer of Tender: Roia Atmar (Broadwave). Currently, they are a 2022 Our Watch Fellow and work as a Supervising Producer at ABC Audio Studios.