Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 04 July
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
About
The Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk Fellowships have kicked off for another year, and in this instalment of our ever-popular Next Big Thing series, we’re showcasing writers from the first intake of fellows. Grab a drink from the Moat bar and be the first to hear excerpts from these exciting projects-in-progress.
Featuring Julia Bak, Aurelia St Clair, Tiia Kelly, Kylie Mirmohamadi, Miriam Webster and Theresa Tully, these works – ranging from memoir and essays, to short fiction and middle grade fantasy - have all been refined over the writers’ ten-week fellowships.
The Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowships are supported by the Readings Foundation and Just Pretending theatre group.
Illustration: Megan Herbert
The Next Big Thing
The Next Big Thing takes place every month at the Moat and is a cherished Melbourne institution. It’s the place to be if you want to hear great emerging writers read from new and adventurous work.
Featuring
Julia Bak
Julia Rose Bąk is a queer, Māori-Polish writer, researcher, organiser and abolitionist who grew up in Boorloo and now resides in Narrm.
Julia’s writing touches on themes such as access, interdependence, care, collective healing and collective liberation, as well as their experience growing up with complex chronic illness. Their work can be located in Overland, Bitch Media, Archer, Honi Soit and others.
View Profile
Tiia Kelly
Tiia Kelly is a writer and editor living in Naarm. She’s interested in everyday performance, online ephemera, and the influence of pop culture in how we construct our identities. Her work can be found in The Guardian, Overland, The Big Issue, Kill Your Darlings, Junkee, and elsewhere. In 2021, she participated in the MIFF Critics Campus and was shortlisted for the Deakin University Nonfiction Prize. She currently edits nonfiction for Voiceworks.
View Profile
Kylie Mirmohamadi
Kylie Mirmohamadi is an academic and author from Melbourne/ Naarm. She was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2022 and her unpublished manuscripts have been highly commended in the Victorian ...
Aurelia St Clair
Aurelia St Clair is a German-Cameroonian comedian, writer, podcaster and dog mother who now calls Melbourne home. They were a part of the Comedy Up Late series, recorded in 2021 for Audible and are one of six playwrights ...
Theresa Tully
Theresa is a Melbourne-based writer and editor. Her work explores fantasy and superstition, race and class, and the impacts of grief and trauma. In 2022, she won the Curtis Brown Creative Breakthrough YA and Children’s Fiction Scholarship.
View Profile
Miriam Webster
Miriam Webster writes stories in and around Melbourne/Naarm. You can read her in places like Aniko Magazine, Island online, swim meet lit mag and FDBNHLLLTTFPLAGIARISM. Her stories have placed in this year’s major prizes, including runner-up in both the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize and the Olga Masters Short Story Award.
View Profile
Diem Nguyen
Diem is the Wheeler Centre’s Program Coordinator. She has worked at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Writers Victoria, and the Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library of Victoria. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) ...