5 Questions with Bri Lee

Bri Lee is the multi-award-winning bestselling author of acclaimed non-fiction books Eggshell Skull, Beauty and Who Gets to Be Smart. Her journalism, essays and short stories have been published widely, and she is the creator and editor of newsletter News & Reviews. Bri's bestselling first novel, The Work, was published last year and has been longlisted for the 2025 Indie Award for Debut Fiction. Her latest novel, Seed, has just been released.

Q1. What has been your best career move?

Marrying a man who’s not afraid of my success. I couldn’t do what I do if I was not fully supported at home. I hear all the time from women whose male partners, in particular, don't like the idea that they would be movers and shakers, doing really great work and challenging themselves outside of the home. I’m someone who has quite a lot of natural motivation, and I think it would be really hard to continue having the confidence out in the rest of the world if you’re not built up with that confidence at home. It’s a really big deal. I think a lot of women could be a lot more at work if they were supported to be more at home.

Q2. Given your time over, what would do differently?

I have been self-employed – freelance – for almost 10 years now, and a big mistake I made, with hindsight, was waiting so long until I rented an office space so that I could get out of working from home. It’s quite a nuts-and-bolts thing, but for too many years, I thought that I couldn’t justify the expense. Especially in the first five years of your freelancing career, when you’re not making any money. It’s just such a slog. But as soon as I did that and started being able to separate my work from my life, not only was my mental health hugely improved, but I actually think I became more productive. If I had my time over, I would be more confident to back myself. Spending money on that was worthwhile.

Q3. Do you have a professional hero?

My professional hero is Amy Taylor, who is the lead singer of the pub-rock-punk band Amyl and the Sniffers. I actually find it really helpful to have heroes outside of writing. And one of the things I most admire about Amy Taylor is that Amyl and the Sniffers were playing at tiny pubs for years and years, grinding, starting out, and now they're internationally successful. And she has not lost who she is. Success has not changed them. She calls out the tall poppy bullshit in Australia, and she just is so honest. She really inspires me the way she’s so committed to her art, but doesn't take it seriously. I have a little picture of her on my desk at work. She's like the North Star for me.

Q4. What do you think the media sector will look like in 10 years’ time?

Video, video, video. I tried to remember what media was like 10 years ago, and I never would have anticipated that for journalists, like investigative journalists through to editors and cultural commentators through to authors of all sorts, it’s not enough in 2025 to make that good writing; you have to also be able to read it out to camera and have a conversation about it, because people are consuming things via video. It's difficult not to feel resentful of that, or worried about what that means in terms of whose faces the algorithm likes pushing to the surface. I’m not saying I’m stoked about it, but it just seems to me like the trend is more towards audio-visual, because that is what the human brain finds irresistible. The absolute dream is to be able to be the Zadie Smith or the Sally Rooney who doesn't have to be on social media at all. But that’s just not a reality for the rest of us. Even at The New York Times, the Pulitzer Prize-winning gun writers all now have to make videos.

Q5. What is your proudest achievement?

I put a deposit down on an apartment with my book money. When I quit my law job at the end of 2015, I thought that there was no chance I would ever make as much money as I did lawyering. I felt certain that I had prioritised my art and a career that would bring me intellectual and emotional fulfillment. And I just presumed that that would mean I would be broke forever, and now it's about 10 years later and I make what my lawyer friends make, but I have this amazing life's work, and I'm really proud of that. It’s a tiny 60-square-metre apartment, but I love it. Sydney is expensive to live in, and writing novels doesn't really pay a living wage, but it is my art form, and it is what I love doing. So I basically have to make sure that I'm making the equivalent of an annual salary from all of my other work so that I can afford to take months each year to work on my books. I'm just finishing off a PhD, and there's a small scholarship for that. I have the newsletter. I do freelancing. I'll do keynotes and speaking. I teach workshops. I run international book clubs. It's like 15 different things at any one time.

Interview by Susan Horsburgh