MW: Was there a question?

DF: You have a talent for making things harder than you mean to be. Why is not exactly clear, but do you have any thoughts about how to make it easier?

MW: Yeah, no, I mean it’s just who I am.

DF: Surely you don’t want to change, becoming Hubert.

MW: Oh, I mean, I see the attraction of becoming Hubert so strongly, but it’s a trap as well, I think.

DF: Why is that?

MW: Well, because withdrawing from the world – or that sense of wanting someone to look after you – I don’t think it can actually, really work in a way that’s going to bring you the peace that you’re seeking.

DF: I mean, one thing I think is if you withdraw from the world, you have to be committed, like Hubert. And in fact, Hubert seems like a cautionary tale because he kills himself. And that seems almost like the logical conclusion. It’s very Thomas Bernhard, right? It’s like these characters in Bernhard withdraw so much or they die, they kill themselves. And I think if you don’t kill yourself and you’ve withdrawn, then it’s much harder to get back. You’d have to catch up on so much in terms of affect and politics and everything. That also seems like a risk. I don’t know, this is my theory. What do you reckon?

MW: Well, it’s all a risk, you know? It’s all a risk.

DF: You’re more optimistic than me. So much more risky than you can imagine. I mean, it’s powerful. Life’s rich pageantry of risk.

MW: Yeah. Yeah.

DF: Are you a pessimist?

MW: Oh, by nature, yes. Yeah.

DF: As a child?

MW: Ah… yes.

DF: Any suspicion of why?

MW: I think I found the world, you know, a scary place. And when I emerged from the family unit at the age of four or something, when you start school, suddenly I had to find a way to be with different people. Thin-skinned always, you know, very sensitive. And I suppose then those experiences build up and that becomes a sense of… well, you can see how things go, and so therefore you become pessimistic. I live with Karen for whom the glass is always half full. And so mercifully, there’s a balance there. But yeah, I’m always assuming things will go badly and then am pleased when they don’t.

DF: Do you think when you mention, I guess, Karen might have shown you an alternative? I’m really reducing on this thing, but a simple way to put it: any growth you’ve had as a human being or in your character, do you think it helps the writing, or not necessarily? Is that an odd thought, or is there anything there?

MW: Um… I think the only way in which the growth has helped has been confidence. So, becoming a more confident person and becoming confident enough to push the work a bit further and… to aim a little bit higher, I suppose. This idea of aiming higher you might actually end up somewhere near the target, rather than aiming at the target and forever falling short, which is I think probably what happened for decades. You know, I was trying to get to that target in a very sort of unimaginative, unadventurous way. And so it was taking a few more writing risks and aiming for more and not reaching what I want to reach, but hopefully when it falls short, it’s closer to the target.

DF: I wonder if it has a connection to the country, because my experience in the country was if you aimed for something, there were so many naysayers. And you know, adults can be very immature and were regularly immature, I actually found. It was just kind of shocking how immature or quick people were to undercut the idea of aiming or being ambitious for things that were not maybe sport.

MW: In Western Australia, as in country Victoria, if it was football….

DF: …right, then ambition’s okay now.

MW: Aim as high as you can, you know. Everything else… You want to teach yourself Japanese? I don’t think so. You want to read… you know… you want to READ? Let alone wanting to read a bit wider and a bit deeper.

DF [outro]: Well, I hope you enjoyed that. There’s a film, Big Wednesday, in which a man lies on the couch and points out that if you like pain, it’s not a matter of what kind of pain you like – any kind will do. I hope you enjoyed this month’s episode, and the brief Easter eggs, demonic screaming in the background, all those parts we couldn’t translate to tape. And no, I don’t just mean the Twin Peaks couch or Michael’s tomato tin shirt.

To clarify some of the possibly obscure and/or confusing references: the poet Gareth Morgan is a character-slash-recurring-reference in Griefdogg, and the discussion of tears and salinity Michael and I have is about the roles of grief and collective emotional outpouring that take place in Griefdogg. Meanwhile, the story ‘Americano Sal’ is a work of fiction. It appears in The Griffith Review and online at The Guardian.

Look, I’ll level with you. There aren’t too many authors out there doing what Michael Winkler does. In fact, I’m not sure there ever could be. He’s so, so generous, so one-of-a-kind, you’d frankly be a mug to try. Good news is, you don’t have to, because as long as we have him, and the Griefdogg mural gracing the front entrance of Brunswick Bound bookstore, we have, it’s fair to say, a little bit of grace amidst all of the grief in our lives. And honestly, what could be nicer than that?