Michelle de Kretser : Theory & Practice

Michelle de Kretser : Theory & Practice

Author: David Naimon, Milkweed Editions March 10, 2025 Duration: 2:02:36

Today’s guest, one of Australia’s most celebrated and daring writers, Michelle de Kretser, discusses her latest uncategorizable book Theory & Practice (one she describes as 80% fiction, 15% essay and 5% memoir). Theory & Practice is a book that is wildly erudite and erotic at the same time, both an engrossing, immersive read and one that is constantly experimenting with and breaking form. A book that dwells in the contradictions between what we believe and what we do. And one that uses, as a lens, the liberatory power of Virginia Woolf’s published words alongside her often snobbish, racist, and antisemitic private ones, not only to explore this contradiction but also questions of gender, race, class and colonialism more broadly. You’d be just as correct, however, to call it a book about love, sex, shame and jealousy, set on a university campus in the 1980s at the height of deconstruction’s hold on the minds of its thinkers there.

If you enjoyed today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community, receiving supplemental resources with each and every episode, and being able to choose from a wide variety of other gifts and rewards as well. You can check it all out at the show’s Patreon page.

Finally, here is the BookShop for today’s conversation with books from everyone from Ursula K. Le Guin to Shirley Hazzard to Virginia Woolf.


There's a particular kind of conversation that happens when a thoughtful reader sits down with a writer, one that moves beyond simple promotion into the real heart of the creative act. Between The Covers is built on that very premise. Hosted by David Naimon and presented with Milkweed Editions, this long-form interview podcast delves into the lives and minds of authors working across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each episode feels less like an interview and more like a privileged eavesdrop on a deep, meandering dialogue. You'll hear writers discuss not just their latest book, but the fragments of life, the stubborn questions, and the daily rituals that feed their work. Naimon’s approach is informed and curious, often leading guests into unexpected reflections on craft, influence, and the ideas that haunt them. The result is a consistently illuminating audio experience that feels like a private workshop in narrative, language, and thought. For anyone who loves the texture of words and the stories behind them, this podcast offers a sustained and intimate look at how literature is made. It’s a space where the finished book is just the starting point for a richer exploration.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry
Podcast Episodes
Lily Brooks-Dalton : Ruins [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:12:55
Lily Brooks-Dalton’s Ruins is both a cleverly plotted page-turner, and an emotionally engaging, character-driven novel with an unforgettable protagonist; it’s both erudite and a wild ride, inviting and yet mysterious, on…
From the Archives : Ted Chiang : Exhalation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:13:26
Excited to share this classic episode from the archives with one of the great short storytellers of our time, Ted Chiang. This conversation happened in 2019 at the studios of KBOO community radio in Portland, Oregon. Bla…
Jordy Rosenberg : Night Night Fawn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:26:44
Today’s conversation with Jordy Rosenberg is many things but at its heart it explores the question of what it means to write revolutionary literature (or as Trotsky would call it “October literature”). Whether we are tal…
Joan Naviyuk Kane : with snow pouring southward past the window [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:39:03
When Cynthia Cruz describes Joan Naviyuk Kane’s latest collection as a series of poems that “both shows and enacts how a self is brought to being through the abyss,” I think of Kane’s own words about poetry: as “a place…
From the Archives : Brandon Shimoda : The Grave on the Wall [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:55:54
Today’s episode is a classic from the archives, a conversation from 2019 with Brandon Shimoda about his book The Grave on the Wall. While the book centers on an exploration of Shimoda’s grandfather’s internment at Fort M…
Báyò Akómoláfé : Selah [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:14:41
What if we were to take seriously that we, as humans, aren’t the sole authors of our world, that there are other intelligences at play, that we are only one of many agents of change and transformation, and that “we” aren…
Milkweed Live : Canisia Lubrin : The World After Rain [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:57
Canisia Lubrin returns to Between the Covers for a live conversation in downtown Portland, at Powell’s Bookstore, about her latest poetry collection The World After Rain. A private book, that Canisia never intended to pu…