Jill Stark: High Sobriety: My Year Without Booze

Jill Stark, a Sunday Age writer specialising in alcohol and public health issues, came to write her first book, High Sobriety, after one big night too many. On January 1 2011, she woke up with the hangover of all hangovers and decided it was time for a well overdue break from the booze.
‘The irony was that binge drinking had been my job – for more than five years, I’d written about the health and social consequences of Australia’s alcohol consumption. At the weekends, I wrote myself off.’ Hear her discuss the clash of those two worlds – and Australia’s conflicted relationship with alcohol consumption.

Lunchbox/Soapbox

Sometimes, there’s nothing better than a good rant. Every Thursday, the Wheeler Centre hosts an old-fashioned Speaker’s 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 the 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.