Hello, this is Meet the Writers.
I'm Georgina Godwin.
My guest today is an Australian comedy actress, author, singer, and LGBT rights advocate.
She's known to Australia as Sharon in Caf and Kim, and to the world as the beloved Esme Hoggett in the Babe film series and Ms.
Viola in the Happy Feet films.
In 2015, she released a memoir, Reckoning, which features her father, who was a World War II Polish resistance assassin, and deals with themes of intergenerational trauma and struggles with her own sexuality.
The book won the Douglas Stewart Prize for nonfiction and Book of the Year and Biography of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.
Her children's series Timmy the Ticked Off Pony follows an audacious pony up to no good and has met with critical acclaim globally.
In 2019, she was appointed an officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia.
That's AO for distinguished service to the performing arts as an actor, comedian and writer, and as a campus campaigner for marriage equality.
Magda Subanski.
Welcome to Meet the writers.
Magda.
This is not the first time we've spoken and I need to just explain to people where we are to sort of figure out this background noise.
So we're on the rooftop of this ultra hip hotel in downtown Melbourne, so you can hear cicadas, you can hear perhaps a little bit of music, people splashing in the pool.
I don't know the wind, but here you are.
Very distinctive Melbourne feature, the screech of the tram.
But it's lovely to be back here and it's lovely to talk to you.
Now, the last time we spoke, it was about your book Reckonings, which was your autobiography, and really looked into your background and your mother and just remind us of that book.
Well, really, it was sort of one of the early books about intergenerational trauma.