Interviewer to interviewee: Author + journalist Trent Dalton expresses gratitude to ‘PR’
“The first thing I'm looking for is...‘is this a story that will sustain the reader across 4,000 words?’” – Trent Dalton, The Weekend Australian Magazine, Boy Swallows Universe, All Our Shimmering Skies
It’s PR Darlings’ Jo Stone and Greer Quinn talk media and publicity with multi-award-winning Aussie author and Weekend Australian Magazine journalist Trent Dalton.
He’s arguably Australia’s top profile writer. His debut novel Boy Swallows Universe and second novel All Our Shimmering Skies are instant Aussie literary classics.
The Brisbane-set novel Boy Swallows Universe attracted actor Joel Edgerton’s attention and it’s being turned into a TV series with the Australian film industry’s best behind it. Oh – and once this pandemic is over, it’ll be hitting the stage as a theatre production.
When it comes to working with PRs in his role as a journalist, Trent says he’s “always open to the pitch” and tells us why he’s grateful to public relations and communications professionals who helped him score interviews with Anthony Hopkins, Matt Damon, Eric Bana and Heath Ledger, which got him noticed and led to his dream-type journalism jobs.
“[In] year 2000, I worked for this magazine called Brisbane News…and it was all the PR people who helped me out because I was just completely nobody,” Trent says.
He also talks about what it’s been like to go from interviewer to interviewee since the runaway success of his debut novel (which made Oprah’s book club) and the ways his Harper Collins publicist has supported his meteoric rise.
In this extended episode, Trent talks about the amazing mentors he’s had throughout his career and what he believes future of journalism will look like. He believes “journalism will always survive because storytelling will always survive”.
“Storytelling is the greatest invention we've ever come up with and people will never tire of it,” Trent says.
Today’s jargon word for the Darlings to decode: op-ed.
REFERENCES:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/Trent%20Dalton
www.harpercollins.com.au/trentdalton/
It’s PR Darlings is produced by Greer Quinn from Forward Communications and Jo Stone from Sticks and Stones PR.
It’s PR Darlings
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