The Next Big Thing
View all events in this series
Ender Baskan is a Melbourne-based writer who is working on a travel memoir about his return to Turkey.
Meaghan Bell is working on a series of poems investigating the apocalyptic outcomes of global warming and climate change.
Elin-Maria Evangelista is writing a novel about a handful of Australians travelling to Stockholm for the 1934 world congress in Esperanto.
Rebecca Harkins-Cross is writing a cultural history of Australian cinema, consisting of discrete essays on key films. She is film editor of the Big Issue.
Christa Jonathan’s short-story cycle The Long Way Home will be published as a series of themed zines.
Chad Parkhill’s critical essay ‘About Time’ will analyse Daft Punk’s 2001 album Discovery in terms of technology and temporality.
Kieran Stevenson’s The Johnston Tradition is a novel that follows Padraig Johnston, a young man who has fallen into a life of alcoholic isolation.
The Next Big Thing
Australia consistently produces a wealth of new literary talent – from debut novelists to short-story writers, memoirists to poets. How to keep up? It’s simple.
Once a month, head on down to The Next Big Thing, where you’ll hear from and meet exciting new and emerging authors. These are the literary stars of tomorrow. Come and hear from them today.
Included in our line-up are two special extended editions, with spotlight conversations on selected authors. And two Hot Desk editions, featuring the writers selected for our renowned Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowships.
Who?
Meaghan Bell
Meaghan has featured at many poetry reading events around Melbourne as well as working with the journals Going Down Swinging and Visible Ink. She was a part of the team producing the Visible Ink journal in 2011 and completed her study at RMIT (Professional Writing and Editing) the following year.
Elin-Maria Evangelista
Elin-Maria Evangelista is a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship recipient, 2014. She holds a PhD in creative writing and has published on translation issues when writing in a second language. An award-winning short-story writer, she has been an invited guest at international writers’ festivals and the Emerging Writers Festival.
Chad Parkhill
Chad Parkhill is a Melbourne-based cultural critic who writes about sex, booze, music, history, and books – but not necessarily in that order.
Rebecca Harkins-Cross
Rebecca Harkins-Cross is a writer and critic based in Melbourne. Her work focuses on arts and culture, and has appeared in such publications as CNN Style, the Saturday Paper, the Australian and Meanjin. Rebecca is currently the film editor at the Big Issue, theatre critic at the Age and film columnist at the Lifted Brow. This year she was named one of Melbourne Writers Festival's 30 Writers Under 30.
Kieran Stevenson
Kieran Stevenson is a Melbourne writer and musician who graduated from one of RMIT’s writing programs and dropped out of another. He has a preoccupation with the unusual, with hopelessness and gallows humour. He is currently undertaking a Hot Desk Fellowship at the Wheeler Centre to complete his first novel.
Christa Jonathan
Christa Jonathan is a graphic designer, writer and stage manager. Her writing has appeared in Voiceworks, Farrago and Maps for Teeth.
Ender Baskan
Ender Baskan studies professional writing & editing at RMIT. He is the recipient of a 2014/15 Marten Bequest travelling scholarship for prose and a 2014 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship.
The Next Big Thing
New and emerging writers often produce adventurous, experimental or honest work – with the lesser burden of expectation, habit and legacy allowing for more careful or bold ideas.
A Wheeler Centre stalwart, our Next Big Thing series showcases the best in fresh Australian writing – with a focus on a different genre each month. You’ll hear from future favourites, and discover new darlings while you enjoy a drink and a bite in the intimate surrounds of The Moat.
Why wait for everyone else to catch up? Find tomorrow’s literary stars today.
