Hello and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt.

Quite a start to the year here. If you haven't already listened to it, I recommend going back and listening to our season on Guyana. It has a lot to do with what's

happening in Venezuela right now. And in other news, unfortunately, the episode that we're

bringing to you today is quite timely. Our Australia reporter, Royce Kermelovs, spoke with

Canadian author John Valent at the Byron Writers' Festival last year about John's book, Fire Weather.

We were already planning to bring you that conversation this week, but now the entire state of

Victoria is under an extreme fire danger warning. It's bringing back memories of the terrible

fire season in Australia just a few years

back. There are spot fires burning in New South Wales and South Australia as well. So I can't think

of a better time to bring you this conversation. Hope you enjoy it. Here it is. Hello and welcome to the 2pm session here at Byron Riders Festival. I am Royce Kermelovs. I will be your host for this session. I'm very excited to be here today with you to talk about this wonderfully written book that is both exquisitely written and as one writer for the New York Times

described it unfortunately exquisitely timed. The book is fire weather, a true story from a hotter

well, which you can see here. I'm holding up very conveniently. The story it tells is about a Canadian

oil town that experienced a catastrophic bushfire in 2016 and though it describes events a

weldaway for many of us here in Australia it'll be deeply familiar and and for many

people in this region and this powerfully drawn book is about many things it's

harrowing it's about fire it's about change. And it's about the particular talent for

self-harm that we as a species appear to show for ourselves. The author of this fine book is John

Valiant, who is here with me today. And for those who don't know him, John is an author and a writer

and has travelled halfway around the world to be here. So could you please all make him for warmly

welcome in Byron Bay?

And just before we get into, I want to be just a heads up. We will be taking questions in this session.

So in about 45 minutes, a volunteer will come around with a microphone. So if you have your questions,

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