Interview #229
Andrew Brooks in conversation with Thao Phan

‘I’m interested in poetic forms that can reflect the collective and create relations across time and space.’

“I always want to be writing an essay.”

“For me, sustainability is always beyond just fabric. It's about how I can sustain my business, my team, myself and my mental health so I can do this for the long run, especially being a mum as well.”

“I don’t have the nerve to go back through the novel to examine its sentences; it would feel too close to being confronted with past crimes.”

“Being who I am, namely Australian Chinese and female—two distinct drawbacks in mid-20th-century Australia, especially in the small apple isle of Tasmania—I grew up totally outside the norm in white assimilationist Australia, when those with non-Anglo-Celtic backgrounds were expected to merge with the majority and forget their own cultural backgrounds.” 

“Writers seem to come into their literary prime, so to speak, later than other artists because it can take time and long years of lived experience to create something fresh and moving on the page.”

“Art is expressed in so many different ways and forms—you’re wearing a piece of art when you’re wearing my silk, but I see it as more of a design that’s made from pieces of art.”