Rick Held has had a long career as a TV screenwriter. In the 1980s he joined Crawford Productions and later Channel Seven, where his skill for plot, character and dialogue across dramas  (All Saints, A Place To Call Home and Packed To The Rafters) proved perfect preparation for writing fiction. Night Lessons in Little Jerusalem is Rick Held’s first novel.

In his chat, Rick explores the difficult decision to fictionalise his father’s extraordinary story, and takes us on a journey through the Romanian (now Ukranian) city of Czernowitz — his father’s hometown and the setting of Night Lessons in Little Jerusalem.