Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 04 March
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
One woman ate, prayed and loved her way around the world, from New York to Bali. One walked across the Australian interior, with only camels and a dog for company. Another was born in Syria, grew up in Michigan and lived a gritty adult life in New York’s East Village art scene. And the man who was once Australian Adventurer of the Year rode the trail of Genghis Khan by horseback, from Hungary to Mongolia.
Four very different writers come together in conversation about their life journeys, through both physical and interior landscapes. How does landscape determine story and character? What role does autobiography play in grand narrative journeys?
Join Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love, The Signature of All Things), Robyn Davidson (Tracks), Tim Cope (On the Trail of Genghis Khan) and Rayya Elias (Harley Loco) as they interview each other about their stories, and their adventurous lives. Hosted by Jesse Martin.
Note: this event is at Aireys Inlet.
Featuring
Rayya Elias
Rayya Elias is a Syrian-born author, filmmaker and musician. Her first book, Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side is published by Bloomsbury.
She has worked as an art director, in hair and fashio. She has played in bands including Ancient Beat and Rayya, and has directed two short films –Anonymous and The Lunchroom.
Tim Cope
Tim Cope, F.R.G.S., is an award winning adventurer, author, and filmmaker with a special interest in the traditional cultures of Central Asia and Russia. He has studied as a wilderness guide in the Finnish and Russian subarctic, ridden a bicycle across Russia to China, and rowed a boat along the Yenisey River through Siberia to the Arctic Ocean.
Tim is the author of Off the Rails: Moscow to Beijing on Recumbent Bikes (Penguin, 2003), and On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey through the Lands of the Nomads (Bloomsbury Worldwide, to be released September 2013).
Tim’s most renowned journey was a three year, 6,000 mile journey by horse from Mongolia to Hungary on the trail of Genghis Khan - a quest to understand the horseback nomads of the great Eurasian steppe.
He is also the creator of several documentary films, including the award winning series The Trail of Genghis Khan (commissioned by ABC Australia and ZDF/Arte in Europe). Tim lives in Victoria, Australia, and annually guides trekking journeys to remote western Mongolia for World Expeditions.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert is an award-winning writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her latest novel is The Signature of All Things.
Her short story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and her novel Stern Men was a New York Times notable book. In 2002, she published The Last American Man, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics' Circle Award.
She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which was published in over thirty languages and sold more than seven million copies worldwide. It was made into a film and released in 2010, with Julia Roberts starring as Gilbert.
Robyn Davidson
Robyn Davidson was born on a cattle property in Queensland. She moved to Sydney in the late Sixties, returning to study in Brisbane before going to Alice Springs to prepare for her journey across the Australian desert. Davidson’s first book Tracks was an international sensation, and was adapted into a film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver. She has travelled extensively, living in London, New York and India, where in the 1990s she spent a year writing about and migrating with nomads. Davidson is now based in regional Victoria, but spends some time each year in India.
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Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin is an Australian sailor who in 1999 became the youngest person to sail solo non-stop and unassisted around the world. He is the author of Lionheart, Kijana: The Real Story and I Do Believe Her Dark Clothes Were the Attraction.