Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 18 October
6:30 PM - 7:45 PM
Location
Instagram Live
Reinvention, transformation, starting over – we’ve all dreamed of doing it, but what comes after? And what happens to the self you leave behind?
In this bumper edition of The Next Big Thing, we’re charting the through-lines that connect us to our former selves. Where does who we used to be end, and who we are now begin? These writers are speaking to and challenging the separation of selves.
In Yves Rees’ memoir All About Yves, they relearn how to live in the world with a new understanding of their gender. In Daughter of the River Country, Dianne O’Brien tells the story of a life unknowingly defined by the Stolen Generations. Sara El Sayed’s Muddy People uses humour and heart to explore coming of age in an Egyptian Muslim family. SJ Norman’s haunting, transporting short fiction collection Permafrost queers gothic and romantic traditions. Bella Green’s memoir Happy Endings is the bold and funny journey of a young woman entering the entertaining but surprisingly mundane sex work industry. And Derek Chan explores the temporal disruption of self-perception in his poem ‘Where there’s water’, published in the latest issue of Voiceworks.
Join us on Instagram Live to hear these exciting writers share readings about past and present selves.
The running order will be released on the Wheeler Centre Instagram page (@wheelercentre) prior to the event day. On the night, instructions posted to our stories will direct you to each speaker’s personal Instagram page as they go live for their reading.
To watch this event, you will need to have access to an Instagram account. While not essential for viewing, by ordering a ticket you are signing up to receive a reminder on the day to tune in.
The online bookseller for this event is Readings.
Featuring
Yves Rees
Dr Yves Rees (they/them) is a writer, historian and podcaster based in Naarm/Melbourne, on unceded Wurundjeri land. Rees is a Senior Lecturer in History at La Trobe University, the co-host of Archive Fever history ...
Dianne O'Brien
Dianne O’Brien (known as Aunty Di) is currently the Chairperson of Mingaletta Corporation, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community hub. In 2017, she was named ‘NSW Grandparent of the Year’. She has held many senior positions in government organisations and has also worked in legal services and as a drug and alcohol counsellor. She lives on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia.
Sara El Sayed
Sara El Sayed is a writer based in Meanjin (Brisbane). She teaches at the Queensland University of Technology, where she is completing a Master of Fine Arts. Her debut memoir, Muddy People, was published via Black Inc. in August 2021.
Her work is anthologised in Growing Up African in Australia (Black Inc.) and Arab-Australian-Other (Pan Macmillan). She is a current Queensland Writers Fellow. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award, and the 2019 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.
SJ Norman
SJ Norman is an artist, writer and curator. Their career has so far spanned 17 years and has embraced a diversity of disciplines, including solo and ensemble performance, installation, sculpture, text, video and sound. Their work has been commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney, Performance Space New York, Venice International Performance Art Week, and the National Gallery of Australia, to name a few.
They are the recipient of numerous awards for contemporary art, including a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship and an Australia Council Fellowship. Their writing has won or placed in numerous prizes, including the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, the Peter Blazey Award, the Judith Wright Prize and the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. In 2019, they established Knowledge of Wounds, a global gathering of queer First Nations artists, which they co-curate with Joseph M Pierce. They are currently based between Sydney and New York.
Derek Chan
Derek Chan is a Melbourne-based writer who holds a First-Class Honours in Literary Studies from Monash University. His poems have appeared in both domestic and international journals such as Meanjin, Cordite Poetry Review, Voiceworks, Verge and Juked.
Bella Green
Bella Green is a stand-up comedian, writer and sex worker living in Melbourne, Australia. She got her start in comedy by telling jokes in brothels to anyone who'd listen. Now she tells jokes in some of the best comedy rooms in the country.
Her debut stand-up hour, Bella Green is Charging For It, answers all the questions you’d never thought to ask about the adult industry. It won Best Comedy at Adelaide Fringe 2020 and was nominated for Best Comedy at Melbourne Fringe 2018. Her memoir Happy Endings was released by Pan Macmillan in 2021. Her greatest accomplishment is remaining employable despite tattooing both of her hands.