Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 03 April
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Imagine William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as an interactive choose-your-own adventure reboot. What will you and your marauding mob do next? 1) Choose some wacky new totems 2) Murder the most vulnerable among you 3) Set the whole island on fire.
At this lively event in April, we’re inviting a panel of writers and comedians, including Niki Aken, Laura Davis, Damon Young and Sami Shah to pitch classic works of literature to a 21st-century marketplace. A warning to purists: this might involve massive, modernising adjustments to plot, character, setting and form. Panellists will read their own literary upgrades, unveil cover art and social media marketing strategies and make the case for their retrofitted classics in today’s hyper-competitive environment.
Fan-fic fiends and all bookish types welcome. Prepare for a night of literary upgrade, embellishment and abomination. Hosted by Jennifer Wong.
Featuring
Jennifer Wong
Jennifer Wong is a comedian and writer from Sydney. With her love of language and wordplay, she's written for Good News Week, presented Bookish on ABC iview, and performed at comedy and arts festivals in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Edinburgh. Jennifer is a regular guest on ABC Sydney's Thank God It's Friday, and her latest show How to English Harder is on at the 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Laura Davis
Laura Davis is a stand-up comedian and television host known for her peculiar style – riding the line between charming and challenging. Recently winning awards for Best Comedy at Melbourne Fringe and Best Independent ...
Sami Shah
Sami Shah is a multi-award winning comedian, writer, and journalist. Sami is a lecturer in journalism at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism, and is the Ambassador-at-Large for PEN Melbourne.
View ProfileDamon Young
Damon Young is a prize-winning philosopher and writer. He is the author of ten books in English and translation, including The Art of Reading, How to Think About Exercise, Philosophy in the Garden and Distraction. Young is also the author of several popular children’s books, including My Brother is a Beast and My Sister is a Superhero.
Niki Aken
Niki Aken is a multi-award winning screenwriter, script editor and researcher. Since her television debut in 2012 on Underbelly: Badness (for which she wrote the series finale – despite it being her first gig writing television – and won a Best Original Screenplay AWGIE), Niki has become one of Australia’s most in-demand young screenwriters.
Along with Felicity Packard, Niki co-wrote the historical drama mini-series ANZAC Girls, which won them the 2014 Best Adapted Screenplay AWGIE. ANZAC Girls was the most watched Australian drama series on the ABC in 2014 with a peak audience of 1.8 million.
More recently Niki has storylined and written on series two and three of legal thriller Janet King, as well as script editing the second series. She wrote an episode of Hyde and Seek for Matchbox Pictures, and was the story editor on comedy troupe Aunty Donna’s pilot Chaperones for Stan, which is in pre-production.
Niki is currently adapting the US drama Chosen for Playmaker Media and Chinese streaming platform IQIYI, as well as developing her own projects across comedy and drama.