Bill Garner: Born in a Tent: How Camping Makes us Australian

Bill Garner – historian, playwright and television writer – is just an ordinary camper with perhaps an unusually dogged curiosity. A casual conversation at Wilson’s Promontory several years ago started him down the track of researching the history of camping in Australia. Ten years later, he has finished a PhD on the subject and written a book about it.

Born in a Tent takes the story from the campfire to the gas bottle, from a tarp slung on saplings to polymer tents and aluminium poles. It reveals how deeply our camping holidays connect us to the land, to the past, and to one another.

Lunchbox/Soapbox

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good rant. Every Thursday, the Wheeler Centre hosts an old-fashioned Speakers’ Corner in the middle of the city, where writers and thinkers can have their say on the topics that won’t let them sleep at night.

Featuring some of our most compelling voices across just about every sector of human endeavour you can imagine, the themes dominating Lunchbox/Soapbox are proudly idiosyncratic. BYO lunch. Ideas provided.