Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 28 March
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
‘History is not the past,' Hilary Mantel has said. 'It's the record of what’s left on the record.’
So, what are the challenges for writers seeking to revive the stories of female historical figures? Women have not always featured prominently in the historical records. And the ways they do feature are often compromised by the prejudices of record writers and keepers of the past.
For this discussion, we'll bring together three outstanding Australian writers: Ali Alizadeh, Odette Kelada and Sarah Goldman. All three have written about women of the past – from Joan of Arc to Caroline Chisholm – and all three are obsessive researchers. Hosted by Gabrielle Ryan, our panellists will discuss narrative approaches to writing and re-writing women’s history, including experimental fiction, academic writing and biography.
What are the responsibilities, and the occupational hazards, of writing about female historical figures?
Is there a difference between facts and the truth? And how hard is it to change collective memory and mythology when writing about people from the past?
Hill of Content will be our bookseller at this event.
Featuring
Gab Ryan
Gab is a writer and the Wheeler Centre's Head of Productions and Relationships.
She has a PhD in creative writing, looking at the Gothic as a transgressive mode of representation in historical novels by Australian women, and is writing an historical novel of her own. She has a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing as well as a number of English Literature qualifications. Her writing has appeared in academic journals Text and cinder (forthcoming) and in Archer magazine online.
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Ali Alizadeh
Ali Alizadeh is a writer and academic, based in Melbourne.
His books include the new novel, The Last Days of Jeanne d'Arc (Giramondo, 2017); the work of fiction, Transactions (UQP, 2013); the collection of poetry, Ashes in the Air (UQP, 2011) and the work of creative non-fiction, Iran: My Grandfather (Transit Lounge, 2010).
Iran: My Grandfather was shortlisted for a 2011 NSW Premier’s Literary Award and Ashes in the Air was shortlisted for the 2012 Prime Minister's Literary Award.
Ali’s research and writing interests include the connection between politics and literature, writing and history, aesthetic theory and poetry, and art and violence. He was born in Iran in 1976 and migrated to Australia at the age of 14. He has lived and worked in China, Turkey and Dubai and is now a lecturer at Monash University.
Odette Kelada
Odette Kelada is a Lecturer in Creative Writing in the School of Culture and Communication. She has a PhD in literature researching the lives of Australian women writers.
Her writing focuses on marginalised voices, gender and racial literacy, and has appeared in numerous publications including the Australian Cultural History Journal, Outskirts, Postcolonial Studies and the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Her novel, Drawing Sybylla, won the Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2017.
Sarah Goldman
Sarah Goldman has spent most of her life as a journalist. Initially working for newspapers in Sydney and London, she later transferred to television with the BBC. Back in Australia, Sarah continued as a producer for both commercial and ABC television news in Sydney and Melbourne.
Much of Sarah's journalistic work has involved international news. Caroline Chisholm: An Irresistible Force is Sarah's first book. She and her partner, Steven, have two sons and a dog. They live in Sydney.