Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Saturday 13 February
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
On the anniversary of the Federal Government’s apology to the Stolen Generations, the Wheeler Centre presents a night of celebration and reflection, sharing the common and different experiences that define our past and our present.
Twelve of Australia’s best writers come together for an intimate night of storytelling, each reflecting on those tales that have been handed down to them through the generations, each giving voice to an inheritance of wisdom, of understanding, of identity.
With contributions from Chloe Hooper, Paul Kelly, Cate Kennedy, Judith Lucy, Shane Maloney, David Malouf, John Marsden, Alex Miller, John Safran, Christos Tsiolkas, Tara June Winch and Alexis Wright this will be a literary event like no other.
Join us as we reflect on the stories that make us who we are and mark the arrival of the Wheeler Centre.
All proceeds from the event will go to the Indigenous Literacy Project.
Featuring
John Safran
John Safran is a Melbourne writer and filmmaker. His recent book Puff Piece, exploring Big Tobacco and vaping, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, his debut Murder in Mississippi won the Ned Kelly ...
Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly was born in Adelaide, one of nine children, in 1955. He wrote his first song in 1976 and has been making records since 1978, over thirty to date. He has collaborated with many other songwriters and written music for film and theatre. His prose has appeared in Meanjin, The Monthly, Rolling Stone and the Age, and in 2010 he published a ‘mongrel memoir’, How to Make Gravy. Love is Strong as Death: Poems chosen by Paul Kelly was published in 2019. His most recent albums are 2019’s Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds and 2020's Please Leave Your Light On, with Paul Grabowsky.
Chloe Hooper
Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2008) won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a ...
John Marsden
John Marsden has written more than 40 books, mostly for teenagers and children, including Tomorrow When the War Began, So Much to Tell You, and Letters from the Inside. He has sold over five million books worldwide, and has won every major award in Australia for young people's fiction. South of Darkness, written for adults, won the Christina Stead Award for Best Novel of 2015. John's passionate interest in education led him to start two schools, Candlebark, on a vast forested estate near Romsey Victoria, and Alice Miller, at Macedon, a Year 7-12 school with a particular emphasis on the creative arts. The two schools enrol 380 students in 2019.
Judith Lucy
Judith Lucy has written four books now (Jesus). She’s done a lot of stand-up and made some TV shows. Since her last book, Turns Out, I’m Fine, she’s toured another show with Denise Scott, Still Here ...
Tara June Winch
Tara June Winch is Wiradjuri writer based in France. She is the author of Miles Franklin Literary Award winner The Yield, as well as After the Carnage, and Swallow the Air, which is reissued as a UQP First Nation Classic ...
Christos Tsiolkas
Christos Tsiolkas is the author of eight novels – Loaded, The Jesus Man, Dead Europe, The Slap, Barracuda, Damascus, 7 ½, The In-Between - and the short story collection, Merciless Gods. Many of his works have been ...
David Malouf
David Malouf is the author of short story collections The Complete Stories (winner of the Australia Asia Literary Award), Dream Stuff and Every Move You Make, and of acclaimed novels including The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ and Miles Franklin Prizes) and Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award).
His most recent work Ransom was shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award and the Qld Premier’s Literary Award.
He also writes poetry, drama and libretti for operas. Born and brought up in Brisbane, Malouf lives in Sydney.
Alexis Wright
Prof. Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She is the author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and, most recently, Praiseworthy. Her works ...
Alex Miller
Alex Miller is one of Australia’s best loved writers. He is twice winner of the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia’s premier literary prize, the first occasion in 1993 for The Ancestor Game, and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country.
Conditions of Faith, his fifth novel, was published in 2000 and won the Christina Stead Prize for fiction in the 2001 NSW Premiers Literary Awards. It was also nominated for the Dublin IMPAC International Literature Award, shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award in 2000, the Age Book of the Year Award and the Miles Franklin Award in 2001.
He is also an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, for The Ancestor Game, in 1993.
Miller’s seventh novel, Prochownik’s Dream, was published in 2005.
In 2009, Alex Miller was named as a finalist for the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Literature and his most recent novel, Lovesong, was published in November 2009 to great critical acclaim.
Shane Maloney
Born in Hamilton in western Victoria in 1953, Shane Maloney is one of Australia’s most popular novelists. His award-winning and much-loved Murray Whelan series – Stiff, The Brush-Off, Nice Try, The Big Ask, Something Fishy and Sucked In – has been published around the world.
In 1996, The Brush-Off won the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction. In 2004, Stiff and The Brush-Off were made into telemovies starring David Wenham as Murray Whelan. In 2009, Shane Maloney was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association of Australia Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cate Kennedy
Cate Kennedy is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely ...