They’re really my reaction to the constraints of the last 30 years in corporately funded and distributed filmmaking, where anything that can possibly make an audience uncomfortable and genuinely ask questions is excised.

The most interesting thing to learn about Learner’s work is that she’s always considered that she writes from a male viewpoint, perhaps explaining her wide readership not just in age but gender. “I know quite a lot of male readers like to read the stories to their girl friends,” she laughs. “It’s used as a bit of a metrosexual draw card.”

Most of us who live in the city rarely get the chance to see the stars and night sky from a remote desert, let alone do it for a living. Greg Quicke, originally from southern forest country, is one of the lucky ones. He speaks softly, with a calm, unhurried manner that seems to befit life in the far north.