Gala Night of Storytelling 2016: The Book that Changed Me

Anna Funder is the author of Stasiland. Her debut novel, All That I Am, won the 2012 Miles Franklin Award.

Anna Funder was born in Melbourne in 1966. She has worked as an international lawyer and documentary film-maker. In 1997 she was writer-in-residence at the Australia Centre in Potsdam. She lives in Sydney.

Kon Karapanagiotidis is the CEO and founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the largest independent human rights organisation for refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia. They assist thousands of people each year, with the help of over 1200 volunteers and 125 staff.  

Kon grew up in a working-class family in a small country town in Victoria. His personal experience of racism and witnessing the exploitation of his parents in factories and farms planted the seeds for his passion for human rights. He started volunteering at a centre for homeless men at the age of 18, and went on to do volunteer work at 24 other charities. He also completed six degrees, becoming a lawyer, social worker, and teacher. Kon founded the ASRC at the age of 28.

His work has been recognised with over two dozen awards and honours including an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) and a Churchill Fellowship. He was finalist for Australian of The Year (Victoria) and the Human Rights Medal, as well as Citizen of the Year in his local community. His memoir, The Power of Hope is published by HarperCollins Australia.

Russel Howcroft has recently joined PwC as a partner and as the firm’s first Chief Creative Officer.

Russel was most recently the Executive General Manager of Australian free-to-air television broadcaster Network TEN, responsible for TEN’s operations in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. In this capacity, he was also a founding board member of ThinkTV Australia.

Before joining Network Ten, Russel had a stellar career in advertising, rising to become CEO of Young and Rubicam Brands Australia and New Zealand and a member of the Y&R Global Executive Committee. A recognised leader in the advertising industry, Russel held a number of important advisory and leadership roles, including a successful tenure as chairman of the Advertising Federation of Australia.

His regular position on the panel of ABC1’s hugely successful show The Gruen Transfer has made Russel the very public face and voice of brand marketing and advertising in Australia.

Dr Susan Carland is a sociologist of religion in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. A DECRA fellow & Churchill fellow, she researches the intersection between gender, Islamophobia, sexism, and social cohesion ...

Tony Windsor was the Independent Member for Tamworth (1991–2001) in the NSW Parliament for 10 years, and the Independent member for New England in the federal parliament for 12 years.

For nearly a third of his political career, Tony Windsor held the balance of power working to demand attention for country people from the major parties.

Lee Lin Chin is best known as presenter of SBS World News on Saturday and Sundays, but has found a new following thanks to a series of appearances on SBS 2’s The Feed, including Broadcast Battleground, which sees her leading a violent battle to the death with rival news anchors.

Jack Charles is an actor, musician, potter, Koori elder and national treasure.

After Bastardy, a biographical documentary about Jack, was released in 2008, he rediscovered family members, and is now a respected elder of the Boon Wurrung clan and one of Australia's foremost Indigenous stage and film actors.

As a member of the Archie Roach Foundation’s Council of Elders, Jack has taken his place as a Kadaitcha man — a traditional lawman — and works to help Indigenous prisoners see a better life beyond jail. 

Jack was in and out of Pentridge, and other jails, most of his life. He spent his 20th, 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays in jail. Under the Australian government’s forced assimilation program, he was taken from his Indigenous mother as a baby.

Along with Bob Maza, Jack was a co-founder of Australia’s first Indigenous theatre company, Nindethana, in 1972. He became a well-known performer, and, in those days, it was not uncommon for Jack to take a bow in some of the nation’s most prestigious theatres and then leave through the stage door looking for a bridge to sleep under.

Graeme Simsion is a Melbourne-based novelist and screenwriter. The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect have combined global sales approaching five million copies.

Graeme is also the author of the international bestsellers The Best of Adam Sharp and – co-written with his wife, Anne Buist – Two Steps Forward. His screenplay for The Rosie Project is in development with Sony Pictures, The Best of Adam Sharp is in development with Toni Collette’s Vocab Films, and the rights to Two Steps Forward have been optioned by Fox Searchlight and Ellen DeGeneres.

Graeme’s latest book is the third and final Rosie novel, The Rosie Result.

Sarah Blasko is an acclaimed singer, songwriter and performer who has released five studio albums and won numerous accolades, including two ARIA Awards and a J Award. Her most recent album, Eternal Return (2015) was described by the Guardian as 'an extraordinary record' (*****).  She has also composed music for film (The Nightingale and The Rose, Ruben Guthrie), theatre (Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet) & dance (Sydney Dance Company’s Emergence).