Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 20 April
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
This event has been cancelled as part of our preventative measures to stem the spread of coronavirus COVID-19. If you have tickets for this event, we’ll be in touch with you directly via email.
Find out more about our response to COVID-19 here.
For this edition of The Next Big Thing, we present a handful of writers whose exciting new works concern distance and perspective – from down the hall, across town or the other side of the world.
The Adversary, by Ronnie Scott, follows its protagonist from a long Brunswick winter into the sticky heat of one transformative Melbourne summer. Laura McPhee-Browne’s tender coming-of-age novel, Cherry Beach, introduces a pair of childhood best friends who depart suburban Melbourne to live in Toronto. And in her experimental essay collection, Blueberries, Ellena Savage wields a stirring blend of journalism, poetry, polemic and memoir in her pursuit of human truths: the meaning of power and desire, the decisions that make a life, and one’s place in the world.
Join us at The Moat as we bring these three writers together for readings from their new books – alongside April Rasmussen, who’ll share ‘Familial Eclipse of the Heart’, her essay published in the latest edition of Voiceworks.
Readings will be our bookseller for this event.
Featuring
Stella Charls
Stella is the Wheeler Centre's Programming Coordinator.
An emerging arts manager and event producer, Stella was previously the Marketing and Events Coordinator for Readings, and the Festival Manager for the National Young Writers’ Festival, Australia’s largest gathering of young and innovative writers working in both new and traditional forms.
Drawn to both programming and operations, with a particular interest in education and support for young creatives, she has worked for Teach for Australia, Melbourne Writers Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival. She really likes festivals.
Stella has a BA in Philosophy, Political Science and Literature and a Diploma of Italian from the University of Melbourne, but has definitely learnt more useful things working on the floor as a both a front of house manager and a bookseller for Readings since 2012.
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott’s first novel The Adversary was shortlisted for a Queensland Literary Award and the ALS Gold Medal; his second novel, Shirley, will be published in February. He teaches Creative Writing at RMIT.
View ProfileEllena Savage
Ellena Savage is an author and academic. Her work has been published widely in anthologies and literary journals including, recently, the Paris Review Daily, Sydney Review of Books, Choice Words and Lifted Brow, of which she is a former editor. Ellena is the recipient of several grants and prizes, including the 2019–21 Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship. Ellena lives in Athens, Greece. Blueberries is her first collection.
Laura McPhee-Browne
Laura McPhee-Browne a writer, social worker, and counsellor living in Melbourne, on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her award-winning debut novel, Cherry Beach, was published by Text Publishing in February 2020 ...
April Rasmussen
April Rasmussen is a writer and artist living in Melbourne. Her education is in science, but her real passion is crafting stories about the ways we live, love, and learn from one another. Originally from the US, she has lived in Chile and Denmark, and is now finding appreciation for all that the Australian landscape and its people have to offer.