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The Wheeler Centre Storytelling Gala: 2020 Hindsight

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Event Status

In February 2010, the Wheeler Centre introduced itself – and its programme – to Melbourne with its first ever event: a gala night of storytelling. Wielding an impressive line-up of Australian writers, we invited our speakers and audience alike to reflect on the stories that make us who we are – and to mark the beginning of our own.

Over the ten years since, the Wheeler Centre has become many things: a place for conversation, a place to meet, a place to write. A place to ask, learn and disagree. We’ve held major festivals, celebrated and supported writers unknown and well known, and heard the voices of more than 3000 speakers on all kinds of topics. We’ve produced podcasts that grapple with painful and painfully important issues, and published on everything from masked passion to fast fashion. We even tried to fix your love life. 

It’s been a big decade, and while we’re not immune to a pinch of nostalgia, we can’t wait to see what’s next. Join us in February 2020 as we celebrate our tenth birthday with a very special storytelling gala. You’ll hear from ten speakers – one from each storytelling gala of the past decade – sharing stories big and small, tender and rueful, funny and profound, on the topic of hindsight. Because, you know, it’s 2020.

This event will be Auslan interpreted.

Featuring

Alison Lester

Alison Lester grew up on a farm by the sea, and first rode a horse as a baby in her father’s arms. Her picture books mix imaginary worlds with everyday life, encouraging children to believe in themselves and celebrate the differences that make them special. Alison is involved in many community... Read more

Archie Roach

Archie Roach’s song ‘Took the Children Away’ won an International Human Rights Achievement Award and his first album Charcoal Lane featured in US Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 50 in 1992, going gold in Australia and winning two ARIA awards. Archie’s recording history – including 12 al... Read more

Eddie Ayres

Eddie Ayres is a writer, music teacher and broadcaster. He was born on the White Cliffs of Dover and began playing violin when he was eight years old. He studied music in Manchester, Berlin and London, played viola professionally in the UK and Hong Kong and moved to Australia in 2003. Eddie is the p... Read more

Cate Kennedy

Cate Kennedy is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely. Her first collection, Dark Roots, was shortlisted for t... Read more

Alice Pung

Alice Pung OAM is the author of the bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson. Her debut novel Laurinda won the Ethel Turner Prize at the 2016 NSW ... Read more

Jack Charles

Jack Charles is an actor, musician, potter, Koori elder and national treasure. After Bastardy, a biographical documentary about Jack, was released in 2008, he rediscovered family members, and is now a respected elder of the Boon Wurrung clan and one of Australia’s foremost Indigenous stage an... Read more

Gregory Phillips

Gregory Phillips is from the Waanyi and Jaru peoples, and comes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa. He is a medical anthropologist, with thirty years’ experience in leading change in cultural safety, healing and decolonisation.Gregory is Chief Executive Officer of ABSTARR Consulting, is a Professor of... Read more

Sally Warhaft

Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year, a Wheeler Centre podcast about Australians’ lives in the fog of ... Read more

Sinéad Stubbins

Sinéad Stubbins is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and cultural critic, and the author of In My Defence, I Have No Defence. She made her name writing TV recaps for Junkee on shows such as The Bachelor and Game of Thrones, and she’s also on the writing team for The Weekly with Charlie Pic... Read more

Nevo Zisin

Nevo Zisin (they/them) is a storyteller, esteemed educator on transgender topics, TEDx speaker, poet, workshop facilitator in schools and workplaces, and award-winning author of Finding Nevo, a memoir on gender transition and The Pronoun Lowdown a useful guidebook on all things related to pronouns. ... Read more

Location

Athenaeum Theatre

188 Collins Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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The Wheeler Centre acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Centre stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their Elders, past and present, as the custodians of the world’s oldest continuous living culture.