Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Saturday 07 September
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Victoria is embarking on a Treaty process, the first of the states to do so. How do writers from other states respond – in a creative way – to the idea of a Treaty? We’ve asked some of our most lyrical and expressive poets and writers to pen their responses.
Featuring Ali Cobby Eckermann, Uncle Jim Everett, Marie Munkara and Ellen van Neerven, and host Lidia Thorpe.
This event is presented in partnership with Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival and Melbourne Writers Festival.
Other Blak & Bright / Melbourne Writers Festival events
Featuring
Ali Cobby Eckermann
Ali Cobby Eckermann’s first collections of poetry little bit long time and Kami (2010) both quickly sold out their first print runs. Her verse novel His Father’s Eyes was published by OUP in 2011. Her second verse novel Ruby Moonlight won the inaugural kuril dhagun National Manuscript Editing Award and the 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry and Book of the Year Award. In 2017, Ali won the Windham-Campbell prize, worth AUD$215,000.
View Profile
Ellen van Neerven
Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. They have written two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which was shortlisted in 2021 for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Ellen also won the Queensland Literary Awards – Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award and the University of Melbourne’s Australian Centre Literary Awards – Peter Blazey Fellowship in 2019.
View Profile
Lidia Thorpe
Lidia Thorpe is the former Greens MP for the Victorian seat of Northcote, Gunnai-Kurnai Gunditjmara mother and grandmother living on Wurundjeri Country.
Some of her roles include: Managing director of Clan Corporation, a sustainable housing and renewable energy business catering to remote Aboriginal communities. Former chair of the Victorian NAIDOC Committee. Former Aboriginal employment adviser for the Municipal Association of Victoria, former President of the Lakes Entrance Basketball Association, former school council member of the Nowa Nowa Primary School. A steering committee member for Indigenous Administrators, a member of Community of Practice, a member of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (Victoria), and a project manager with the East Gippsland Shire Council, where she addressed disadvantage in Lakes Entrance through the Advancing Country Towns Project.
Jim Everett
Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta. A plangermairreenner man, Turbuna-Meenamatta, Tasmania. Jim worked for 15 years as a fisherman, merchant seaman, at the Australian Regular Army, in Aboriginal organisations and the public service. He wrote We Are Survivors (1984) and produced, directed, and acted in it. His written works include plays, papers and short stories. He also produced One People Sing Freedom (ABC 1988) and has been an associate producer on documentaries.
Marie Munkara
Born on the banks of the Mainoru River in Arnhemland, Marie Munkara has written two novels, two children’s books and a memoir which is currently being made into a film. Marie is currently working on two TV mini-series and is completing a PhD.