Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 22 May
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Our favourite writers move us and inspire us: our imaginations, our humanity, our understanding of the world. But sometimes their writerly purpose can carry a little more bite. What is the role for the writer as shit-stirrer and agitator, provocateur and agent for change?
For this all-star panel, we’re bringing together four incredible writers and contrarians. With host Michael Williams, our panellists – Roxane Gay, John Safran, George Saunders and Brit Bennett – will discuss how they push against platitude, prejudice and power in their writing. Are we living in a ‘post-truth’ era of degraded language, where the integrity of words and meaning are under siege? Is it just the nature of language? Is meaning always up for grabs?
And, in such an age, what, if anything, is the responsibility of the writer? Is it to change minds? Or even the world? These four very different writers – whose work traverses overt provocation, subtle subversion and radical inclusion will get down to the nitty gritty of the politics and purpose of the act of writing. Join us for this timely discussion with a stellar line-up of intrepid and original thinkers.
Featuring
George Saunders
George Saunders is the author of nine books, including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the inaugural Folio Prize (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Story Prize (best short-story collection).
He has received MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships and the PEN/Malamud Prize for excellence in the short story, and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2013, he was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.
Brit Bennett
Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Her work is featured in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Paris Review and Jezebel. The Mothers is Brit Bennett’s debut novel.
Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Harper’s Bazaar, A Public Space, McSweeney’s ...
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 ...
Michael Williams
Michael Williams is the editor of The Monthly. He was previously the Artistic Director of Sydney Writers’ Festival. He has spent the past decade at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne as its ...