A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard

In this month’s episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia Gillard and Sarah Holland-Batt discuss a truly iconic novel that became a cultural phenomenon, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

First published in 1985, the story follows Offred, a woman who has been assigned as a Handmaid to a household in the Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state that has overthrown the United States government amidst environmental catastrophe, political instability and declining birth rates. Offred’s sole function is to produce children. 

Julia and Sarah discuss why this book has continuously resonated...

In a special live recording from the 2026 Women Deliver conference in Melbourne, Julia Gillard interviews Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant. 

Julie began her career working in Washington at the dawn of the digital age, and went on to work for Microsoft, Twitter and Adobe.

Over time she became increasingly concerned about what technology companies could do to keep people safe, and what they were actually doing.

Now, as Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, she’s working to close that gap by leading world-first efforts to regulate social media, protect c...

In this month’s episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia Gillard and Kathy Lette discuss Yesteryear, the hit debut novel from Caro Claire Burke.

Yesteryear follows Natalie - a wife and mother living on a ranch in Idaho and promoting a traditional lifestyle to her many millions of followers on social media. One day Natalie wakes up in a strange version of reality, where her home and family look similar but different.

What follows is a fascinating examination of tradition, fame, faith and the performative way so many of us live our live...

In this special episode recorded live at the 2026 Hay Festival in Wales, Julia Gillard sits down with Thangam Debbonaire to discuss their roles as judges for this year’s Women Prize.

Julia is chairing the judging panel for the Women's Prize for Fiction, while Thangam is the chair of judges for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.

In this entertaining conversation the pair take listeners behind the scenes of judging one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes. 

The prizes are awarded annually to a female author of any nationa...

In this very special episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia Gillard and Sarah Holland-Batt discuss the work that inspired the name of this podcast.

Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own was originally delivered as two lectures at Girton College, Cambridge almost a hundred years ago.

Despite the passage of time many of the themes and ideas Woolf explores in this short but weighty book remain startlingly relevant today. 

Julia and Sarah discuss what has and hasn't changed for women since the 1920s, the evolution of women's writing and Vir...

Former AFLW player and gender equality advocate Akec Makur Chuot has lived an extraordinary life.

Born in South Sudan, she spent her early years in a refugee camp in Kenya before moving to Australia at age 11. She went on to become the first African woman drafted into the inaugural season of the AFLW, the national professional league for women’s Aussie rules football, helping to shape the game from the very beginning.

In this episode, Julia Gillard and Akec discuss her journey to Australia, how football became a bridge to belonging, and the re...

In the first Book Club episode of 2026 Julia Gillard and Kathy Lette delve into The Names, the hit debut novel by British author Florence Knapp.

The story begins in 1987 when a woman named Cora arrives at the registry office for what at first glance seems like a simple task: naming her newborn son. But for Cora it is a deeply complicated decision. Her husband expects her to follow family tradition and name him Gordon; she likes the name Julian; and her young daughter thinks her baby brother should be called Bear.

The story...

In this special episode recorded live at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, Julia Gillard interviews author and broadcaster Caitlin Moran.

They delve into her hippy childhood, how she found her voice, the future of feminism and her book What About Men.

The event also launched the latest GIWL research into global attitudes towards gender equality, produced in conjunction with IPSOS UK. 

Julia and Caitlin are joined by Kelly Beaver, the Chief Executive of IPSOS UK and Ireland, for a fascinating discussion about the resea...

To kick off our new season, Julia sits down with award-winning playwright and former criminal defence lawyer Suzie Miller.

Suzie’s work sits at the intersection of law, storytelling and social change. Before becoming one of the most influential voices in contemporary theatre, she spent years working inside the justice system as a criminal defence lawyer – an experience that would later shape many of her plays.

She is best known for her groundbreaking play Prima Facie, a one-woman production that premiered in Sydney before becoming a global phenomenon on the West End and Broa...

In the final episode of 2025 Julia Gillard and Kathy Lette look back on their favourite books of the year.

In a candid and funny chat they also discuss writing memoirs, the upcoming release of Kathy's new book, Julia's role as Chair of the Women's Prize for Fiction and their plans for the holiday season.

Show notes:

Kathy Lette's new novel The Sisterhood Rules will be published in Australia on February 3, 2026 and in the UK on April 9.

For more information about the Women's Prize for Fiction visit https...

This month's episode of A Podcast of One's Own is a little unusual because you'll hear from two guests, who are unaccustomed to the limelight as they work in the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office which is one department of the UK’s national security community.

They're also both mums and in a long term job share. 

They talk to Julia about the stereotypes and misconceptions of their work, what it’s really like for women, diversity in national security and how they make job-sharing work in such an important area. 

For more...

Kelly T. Clements has made it her life’s mission to help people who have been displaced by war, violence, famine and other catastrophes.

Kelly has served as Deputy High Commissioner of UNHCR (The United Nations High Commission for Refugees) since 2015.

In this episode Julia Gillard and Kelly discuss her 30 year career that’s taken her to conflict zones around the world.

They delve into the devastating cutbacks to foreign aid spending and how that’s impacting millions of people in desperate need. 

Show notes:

To le...

In this month’s Book Club episode, Julia Gillard and her co-host Sarah Holland-Batt explore Highway 13 by internationally acclaimed Australian author Fiona McFarlane.

The award-winning book is a series of loosely connected short stories focusing on the lives of everyday people who have all been affected by a single serial killer in a small Australian town.

Paul Biga is arrested and charged over the brutal murders of at least a dozen backpackers and hitchhikers along an Australian highway in the 1990s.

The reverberations of his crimes stretch far and wide, wi...

In this episode Julia Gillard sits down with former New Zealand Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern.

Jacinda was just 37 years old when she was elected Prime Minister, and a few months later became the second leader in history to give birth while in office, when she welcomed her daughter Neve.

This year Jacinda published her memoir - A Different Kind of Power - an aptly named book for someone who always pushed back against stereotypes and assumptions about what leadership is, and asked the question, what if kindness came first? 

I...

In a special Book Club episode, Julia Gillard sits down with Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Chair Professor Michelle Ryan to discuss The Book of Guilt by New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey.

The Book of Guilt is a deeply unsettling exploration of autonomy, identity, and morality.

It’s set in an alternate England in 1979 – where Hitler’s assassination in 1943 led to a negotiated peace and a chillingly different trajectory for post-war Britain.

The story follows three identical boys: Vincent, William, and Lawrence, who are the last remaining residents of a bleak...

When Katherine Bennell-Pegg was in high school, she was asked to write down three career options to pursue. She wrote down one - astronaut.

Last year, she not only fulfilled that ambition but she made history in doing so, becoming Australia’s first female astronaut and the first person to qualify as an astronaut under the Australian flag.

For this episode, Julia met Katherine at the Australian Space Agency in Adelaide, where the mother-of-two is the Director of Space Technology.

They discussed the intense training she’s undergone, her passion to p...

In this month's Book Club episode, Julia Gillard and her co-host Kathy Lette discuss Tell Me Everything, the latest novel by Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout.

Tell Me Everything is Strout's 10th novel, and it returns readers to the fictional town of Crosby, Maine - where several of her novels have taken place. It also features many of the characters from her previous books, including Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge.

In this story, the town lawyer Bob Burgess takes on a case defending a man suspected of killing his own mother. But...

In this live event recording Julia sits down with the UK's Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, they reflect on her journey from a working-class upbringing in Sunderland and running a domestic abuse refuge, to becoming a Cabinet Minister in the first Labour government for 14 years.

The pair discuss the state of gender equality today, tackling misogyny and violence against women and girls, and emerging divisions between young men and women on gender roles and women's rights.

They are l...

In this Book Club episode, Julia Gillard and her cohost Sarah Holland-Batt dive into Audition, the latest novel from Katie Kitamura.

Audition follows an unnamed actress as she rehearses a play that blurs the lines between performance and personal history. When a mysterious young man appears, claiming to be her son, she’s drawn into a spiral of uncertainty that challenges her sense of self and reality.

Together, Julia and Sarah unpack the novel’s themes of identity, motherhood, and the shifting boundaries between truth and fiction. They explore how the story's psychologically rich...

Cheng Lei was riding high in a successful career as a news anchor in China when her life changed in an instant. 

Lei is a Chinese born Australian citizen and mother of two, who spent more than three years detained in a Beijing prison after being wrongly accused of illegally supplying state secrets. 

In this emotional and candid conversation, Julia and Lei delve into her early life in China and then Melbourne, her exciting journalism career around Asia and the ordeal that changed her and her family’s lives forever. 

Show...

In this month’s book club episode Julia Gillard and Kathy Lette discuss Fundamentally, by Nussaibah Younis. 

It’s the British author’s debut novel and it follows the story of Nadia Amin - an academic disowned by her mother and dumped by her long-term partner, who accepts a job with the United Nations in Iraq to rehabilitate ISIS women so their home countries will take them back.

While struggling to get the program off the ground amidst the opaque world of international aid, Nadia meets Sara, a fellow Londoner who was radicalised when sh...

In this episode of Julia's Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into Theory & Practice by Australian author, Michelle de Kretser.

Short-listed for the Stella Prize, the seventh novel from the Miles Franklin winner tells the story of a first generation immigrant from Sri Lanka living in Melbourne in the 1980s.

The young academic is writing a thesis on Virginia Woolf, who this podcast is named in honour of, when she begins a love affair with a man who is in a "deconstructed relationship".

Part fiction, part essay, Julia...

In this special episode, we take you inside Julia's first ever Australian live recording of A Podcast of One's Own.

Recorded in front of an audience at the Australian National University in Canberra, home to the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, Julia is joined on stage by one of Australia's most respected journalists, Leigh Sales.

The pair discuss Leigh's incredible career achievements, preparing for Prime Ministerial interviews, telling stories of tragedy, the power of podcasts and her latest project.

Show notes:

Leigh has authored several books, including...

In our April Book Club episode, Julia and Kathy unpack Butter, the cult Japanese bestseller by Asako Yuzuki.

Inspired by the real-life case of the “Konkatsu Killer” and translated into English, the book follows journalist Rika Machida as she tries to get inside the mind of convicted serial murderer Manako Kajii.

Kajii, a gourmet cook, is serving time behind bars for the murders of lonely businessmen who she seduced with her delicious home cooking.

What follows is an intimate and unsettling relationship between Rika and Kajii, as Rika recreates Kajii’s reci...

In this episode, Julia Gillard is joined by Dr. Beverley Ditsie – pioneering filmmaker, artist, and gender non-conforming activist – whose fearless activism has shaped the fight for queer rights in South Africa and beyond.

From co-founding South Africa’s first multiracial LGBTQ+ rights group at just 16 to leading the country’s first Pride March in 1990, Beverley has been at the forefront of the battle for equality for decades. In 1995, Bev made history as the first openly lesbian person to address the United Nations, demanding global recognition of LGBTQ+ rights as human rights.

In this powerful...

In our first Book Club episode of 2025, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt explore the newly-released Wild Dark Shore by Australian author, Charlotte McConaghy.

Out this month, the mystery novel is set on a tiny, remote island near Antarctica, where Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers.

The island is home to the world’s largest seed bank. But with sea levels rising, the family needs to move the precious cargo to safer land before it’s lost to the ocean.

As each character is grappling with personal trauma, a woma...

Eluned Morgan is the first woman to lead Wales.

Before that, she made history as the youngest member of the European Parliament at just 27 years old.

Ahead of International Women’s Day, Julia travelled to Cardiff to sit down with the First Minister in her office.

In this season-opener, they discuss Ms Morgan’s political upbringing, her path to the leadership, building resilience, misogyny on social media, how her faith shapes her politics and her life away from from the public eye.

Show notes:

To l...

In the final episode of 2024 Julia sits down with her good friend Josephine Linden to discuss their favourite books of the year, and look ahead to the new releases they can’t wait to read in 2025.

Thank you to all our listeners for joining us again this season, the whole A Podcast of One’s Own team hopes you’ve enjoyed the interviews and book club episodes as much as we have!

Show notes:

Books discussed by Julia and Josephine during this episode include: 

The Enigma of Room 66...

In this special episode of A Podcast of One’s Own, we take you inside Julia’s live event with international best-selling author, Paula Hawkins, at the Hay Festival Winter Weekend.

After the huge global success of Paula’s first novel ‘The Girl on the Train’, the pair sat down to explore her latest thriller ‘The Blue Hour’.

Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours a day and home to only one inhabitant, the novel asks questions about ambition, power, art and perception.

Julia also a...

Dr June Oscar AO is a is a proud Bunuba woman from the remote town of Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

Her remarkable decades-long career has taken her from a small office in a cattle station in a tiny Western Australian town, to serving a five-year term as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. June was the first woman to hold this role in its 20-year history and used her position to advocate for, and empower, indigenous women and girls across Australia. The story of how she got there and al...

Angie Murimirwa personifies the transformative power of education.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, Angie was one of the first girls to receive support from the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) to go to secondary school.

Angie is now the organisation’s CEO.

In this episode Julia - who is Patron of CAMFED - and Angie discuss the huge barriers to education that many girls still face, and the impact finishing school has on not only an individual, but also their family and community.

They also talk about the al...

It’s been arguably the most eventful US Presidential campaign in history and the stakes couldn’t be higher, not just for the United States, but for the world.

There’s been two assassination attempts on Republican nominee Donald Trump, who became the first US President to be convicted of a felony over hush money payments to an adult film star.

We've seen President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden sensationally withdraw from the race after the most disastrous presidential debate performance in history and replaced by America’s first woman of colour to run for...

In this episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into the latest novel by best-selling author, Elif Shafak. There are Rivers in the Sky charts the story of three characters from across history brought together by two great rivers, with one epic poem flowing through the story. Spanning centuries and continents, the novel follows a single drop of water from the Tigris to the Thames, from antiquity to the 19th century to the modern day.

While exploring the rich histories laid out in the novel, Julia and Sarah also consider its ce...

Alexis Wright is one of the most highly-regarded Australian authors in recent times, winning both the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize - twice.

Her work is challenging the traditional publishing world and asking some tough questions.

But her passions extend far beyond writing.

In this episode, Julia explores Alexis’ early beginnings as a young activist, her lifelong dedication to Indigenous land rights and her concerns around global warming, as well as her literary success.

Show notes:

Alexis’ latest novel Praiseworthy is publ...

In this episode of Julia's Book Club, Julia and Kathy Lette sit down to discuss Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.

Blue Sisters is the second novel from Mellors, following her bestselling debut Cleopatra and Frankenstein. It tells the story of three very different sisters – strait-laced lawyer Avery, party girl Lucky and stoic world champion boxer Bonnie – who are torn apart by grief and scattered to different corners of the globe after the sudden tragic death of their fourth sister, Nicky.

As the sisters try to come to terms with this devastating loss, the book...

Elif Shafak is a best selling author, a political scientist and an advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression.

In this episode Julia and Elif journey on a candid and deep conversation about Elif’s childhood in Turkey, what drew her to writing, and the lengths she’s had to go to keep telling the stories of those who are often silenced.

They also delve into Elif’s spectacular new novel There are Rivers in the Sky, and discuss why tackling the world’s water crisis is critical for the safety...

In this month’s Book Club episode, Julia and Kathy Lette explore Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by internationally-renowned author, Salman Rushdie.

In his memoir, the Booker Prize winner recounts the horrifying moment he was stabbed, almost to death, while on stage in upstate New York, preparing to deliver a lecture on keeping writers safe from harm.

Julia and Kathy examine his incredible literary career, his life under 24-hour surveillance and the fatwa which led to the frenzied attack, reigniting debate around freedom of speech.

Kathy - a close fr...

In this episode Julia sits down with Domtila Chesang, an incredibly courageous woman who has dedicated her life to ending female genital mutilation in her home country, Kenya. 

In this powerful conversation Domtila explains how the devastatingly harmful practice impacts girls and women around the world, and how she’s working to educate and empower communities in order to stamp it out.

She details the pivotal moment in her life that started her journey as an activist. 

Julia and Domtila also discuss her selection as the Global Institute for Women’s Lead...

In this month’s Book Club episode, Julia and Sarah Holland-Batt discuss The Wren, The Wren by Man Booker prize winner, Anne Enright.

Shortlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, the novel is told in three voices and explores an Irish family’s love, betrayal and intergenerational trauma.

Julia and Sarah delve into Enright’s poetry and unique writing style.

Show notes:

H...

Katrina Gorry is a trailblazer on and off the pitch. Last year she stole our hearts in her record-breaking performance in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, making the highest number of tackles and covering the most ground of any player in the tournament. Katrina helped the Matildas reach the semi-finals for the first time ever, catapulting her and the rest of the team to the status of national treasures and putting women’s football on the map in Australia for the first time.

Speaking to Julia just after the birth of her second child Koby earl...