Celebrating books and readers, this is a monthly series of in-depth and relaxed conversations with authors about their latest work, and their body of work, their writing process and the ideas that inspire them.

Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer, moderator and curator for writers and ideas festivals. Highlight interviews include Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Michelle de Kretser, Amos Oz, Stan Grant, Holly Ringland & Etgar Keret. She's the curator of ABC RN’s on-air writers festival, Big Weekend of Books, now in its 4th year. In 2022 she was curator of International Author events for Brisbane Writers Festival. Michaela has conducted radio interviews for ABC RN’s The Music Show, Big Ideas & The Bookshelf, ABC Classic and has presented programs across ABC radio.

April’s featured author: Jodi McAlister

Jodi McAlister is an author and academic and one of Australia’s leading romance experts. She writes romantic fiction for adults and young adults, fantasy and YA. Her academic work focuses on the history of love, sex, women and girls, popular culture and fiction. It means that reading romance novels and watching The Bachelor is technically work for her. She writes novels that are delightful & unpredictable, populated by smart, left-of-centre characters. And they always take you somewhere you didn’t expect to go. As New York Times bestseller Kylie Scott says, ‘Jodi never fails to deliver humour, wisdom, and heart.’

She’s the author of the Valentine series, a young adult paranormal romance/urban fantasy series about smart girls, small towns, and scary fairies. The three books in that series, Valentine (2017), Ironheart (2018), and Misrule (2019), are all published by Penguin Teen Australia. She’s also the author of Libby Lawrence Is Good At Pretending (2022), a young adult contemporary romance with university-aged characters, published by Wakefield Press.

When she’s not writing fiction, Jodi is an academic. Her research focuses on representations of love in popular culture and fiction. Her first academic book The Consummate Virgin is about representations of female virginity loss in popular culture. Her second academic book New Adult Fiction is about the rise, fall, and repeated re-emergence of – you guessed it – new adult fiction.

Jodi has recently started writing rom-com for adult audiences. Her debut in this space is Here For The Right Reasons (July 2022), which is followed by Can I Steal You For A Second? (out April 23rd 2023), published by Simon & Schuster. These are both set on the same season of a reality dating show where, in a massive twist, it turns out no one can leave – even eliminated contestants. Here For The Right Reasons is the love story of Cece, a contestant knee-deep in debt who gets eliminated on the first night, and Dylan, the star of the show, a former Olympian with kind eyes and a propensity for panic attacks. In Can I Steal You For A Second? two of the frontrunner contestants for Dylan’s affection fall in love with each other instead.

'Can I Steal You for a Second is sweet, pacy, queer and satisfying. It’s about overcoming self-erasure and features, at its heart, a deep and genuine friendship – and what better basis is there for love?' - Angela Meyer, author of Moon Sugar.

Originally from Kiama, a seaside holiday town on the south coast of New South Wales, Jodi has lived in a bunch of different cities including Canberra, Wollongong and Hobart. Currently, she lives in Melbourne, where she works as a Senior Lecturer in Writing and Literature at Deakin University.

Thursday, April 27th - tickets are $10.00+bf via Humanitix. We recommend you arrive by 730pm.
The event will commence at 8 pm. Books are available for purchase on the night.

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All ticket holders must be accompanied by a member or become a member ($3 annually) upon booking confirmation. You can renew an existing membership or start a new one here.

Petersham Bowling Club is honoured to present these events for our community and would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land we meet on and pay our respects to the Elders both past, present and emerging.

Contact the host of READERS - Books and Conversations with Jodi McAlister