Outspoken Maleny: Recent Episodes
Steven Lang
Jane Rawson has an interesting backstory (see below) and much of her recent output has been fiction. In the case of Human/Nature, however, she presents a series of linked essays that delve, in a very idiosyncratic and personal way, into the many ways we interact with Nature.In deceptively simple language she prises open the faultlines between what we hope or wish those relationships might be, and the facts on the ground, presenting irrefutable arguments only to subtly pull the rug out from beneath them. She discusses, in no particular order, evolution and extinction, minds and exceptionalism, conservation and killing, and much more, drawing in ideas from right across the spectrum. The quality and - there’s that word again - the nature, of her prose means that the questions she asks have the capacity to pierce our complacencies, if only because she admits, from the start, that they are also hers.Jane began her career as a writer by working for Lonely Planet, travelling to places as different as Prague and Phnom Penh, but eventually settled in Melbourne, taking up the position of editor of the environment and energy section of The Conversation. Almost a decade ago she moved to Tasmania where she now works for a conservation organisation. In the meantime she has found the time to write four novels, including the Aurealis winning From The Wreck, as well as the non-fiction work, The Handbook: surviving and living with climate change.
Our introducing speaker tonight is Dr Barry Traill AM, (BJ). Barry is a long-term resident of Maleny, and is one of Australia’s most successful environmental advocates. He is the former Director of Pew Charitable Trusts’ Australian Outback Program and now leads the Solutions for Climate Australia project, part of the Climate Action Network, working towards creating enduring bi-partisanship in federal politics to achieve decisive action on climate.BJ's an ecologist by training, with a particular interest and expertise in the ecology of terrestrial birds and mammals. He has led many major environmental campaigns, including working with Indigenous peoples to protect Outback landscapes, (Country needs People) and greatly expanding Australia’s marine park network.He has attended several 'COPs' including the 2024 event in Azerbaijan.In 2023 he was, very deservedly, awarded an Order of Australia (AM) for his services to conservation and the environment.In this critical time he will be discussing the state of environmental politics in Australia and the world, focussing on how climate and conservation are being addressed in the campaign.
Our featured author tonight is Debra Oswald. Debra came to prominence, or maybe the right word is fame, with the production of the immensely popular television series Offspring in 2010, for which she was the Creator and Lead Writer. But Debra had already been immersed in theatre and television for many many years before that - we might come to that in a minute - writing several successful plays and episodes for other series. Since then she has shifted her attention to the writing of novels, the one we are talking about tonight, the excellent One Hundred Years of Betty, being her fourth. Previous works include Useful, The Whole Bright Year and The Family Doctor. She has also performed her own One-woman show, Is there something wrong with that woman? Debra has received numerous awards, including two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, a Qld Premier’s Literary Award and an AACTA Award for the screenplay of episondes in Offspring.She's talking tonight with Steven Lang about her new novel, 100 Years of Betty
Our first guest tonight is the fascinating Steve MinOn. Steve’s debut novel is First Name Second Name, which won the Glendower Award for an emerging Queensland writer at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards. He has also been a recipient of the 2021 Queensland Writers Centre’s Publishible program for emerging writers and his articles and short stories have appeared SBS Voices, Mamamia, Nightmare Fuel, WQ Magazine and the 2022 Right Left Write Anthology. Self-described as ‘a child of mixed-race Australia,’ he has at different times been a creative director, an advertising copywriter and a restaurateur. He lives in Brisbane and is currently working on a follow-up novel.
I'm going out on a limb here. I think Rick Morton’s Mean Streak is an important book. Its description of the creation, implementation and eventual dismantling of Robodebt reveals a long slow-motion train wreck – one mendacious cruel scheming carriage after another inevitably, inexorably, piling into the one before it. But it’s also necessary.If we want to live in a society which works (and after the events of this week who doesn’t?) we need to have strong, transparent institutions at its centre.Rick Morton has done something essential for all of us: drilled down into how something as individually damaging and nationally disgraceful as Robodebt could exist in a place like this.Morton is the senior reporter at The Saturday Paper. He has won two Walkley Awards for his coverage of the Royal Commission into Robodebt. He's also the author of the wonderful One Hundred Years of Dirt. He asks you to consider what it might be like to live in a country whose government callously, but deliberately, condemns its poorest citizens to a Kafkaesque nightmare. As some sort of idealogical crusade. To raise funds. That same government who, when it was revealed what they had done, was obliged to pay it all back.Nobody, as you will be well aware, has been punished for what happened. Just in the last fortnight it was announced that the NACC had been forced to reverse its decision not to investigate Robodebt because Commissioner Paul Brereton had not adequately removed himself from the process. Rick grew up on a remote cattle station in far-west Queensland. His childhood gave him an insight into the nature of class in Australia and he writes very lucidly on the subject. When I was growing up, he says, ‘I didn’t know there was a hierarchy because I couldn’t see the rest of the ladder from where I was.’ Rick is a remarkable writer and a great speaker, don't miss this event!Rick is in conversation with Steven Lang.
Siang Lu is the author of two novels, The Whitewash and Ghost Cities. The latter, which we'll be discussing, was inspired by the existence of several vacant uninhabited megacities of China. It follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney's Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn't speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. His first novel, The Whitewash, won the ABIA Audiobook of the Year in 2023 and the Glendower Award for an emerging writer in the Qld Literary Awards. Of Siang Lu, Chris Flynn wrote: 'A literary star is born in Siang Lu, although he'll probably be replaced by a white guy called Jeff at some point, so get in while you can.'Siang is in conversation with Steven Lang
Gina Chick has written a memoir. It’s titled we are the stars, and it follows her life from when she was almost seven years old, all the way through until she’s fifty, and there’s hardly a page you might choose to describe as conventional. Gina – with all that literary royalty in her blood – made her own way, a path which took her on a dance through the hidden world of 90s Sydney nightlife (right into the arms of a conman) and from there into the wilderness where she began a wondrous love affair with some of the deepest lessons life (and death) can offer.Literary royalty? Yes, because although Gina is most famous for having survived alone in the Tasmanian wilderness for 67 days, becoming the inaugural winner of the Alone Australia competition (and endearing herself to some five and a half million viewers), she is, also, the daughter of Suzanne Chick, author of Searching for Charmian. Suzanne, it turned out, was Charmian Clift’s daughter, given up for adoption at birth. Charmian was, of course, one of Australia’s great writers ( Peel Me a Lotus, Mermaid Singing), also famous for living on the island of Hydra with her partner of George Johnston, the author of My Brother JackThese days Gina describes herself as a rewilding facilitator, a writer and a speaker. She’s on the tele right now with Julia Zamero, doing great Australian walks. Gina is, in fact, a force unto herself. Her book is released at the beginning of October and we’re incredibly lucky to have her come to Maleny.Gina is in conversation with Steven Lang
Andrew Stafford’s book Pig City, about Brisbane music from the 70s through to the millennium, has been re-released for its twentieth anniversary.It is, in itself, a major Brisbane icon. Bernard Fanning wrote of it:‘Twenty years on, Pig City reminds us of how deeply the political undercurrents (Joe Bjelke Peterson’s government) impacted the cultural output of Brisbane’s artists, and how the pioneers of the scene (unknowingly) laid the platform for the bands to come.'Paul Grabowsky: ‘I read Pig City in 2005, as part of my induction into the musical history of Brisbane. I couldn’t put it down. Any city lucky enough to be honoured with such a chronicle is a very lucky place.’Andrew is in conversation with Steven Lang
Mark Newman was born and raised in South Africa. As a young man he completed a post-graduate philosophy degree at Johannesburg University (University of the Witwatersrand). This was during the time of Apartheid in South Africa, a regime that had a profound affect on him. As soon as he could he arranged to leave, being awarded a scholarship from the French Government to study film-making at the French National Film School. Over the next thirty or forty years Mark has produced and directed films in Africa, the UK and Australia. For the last decade or so – until very recently - he and his partner Robyn Hofmyer were very involved with the Baramba/Cherbourg Aboriginal Community, and the Ration Shed in particular.In recent years, however, Mark has followed a long-held dream to write novels. Dronikus, the novel we’re discussing tonight, is the first to see the light of day. Launched late last year it was short-listed for the Aurealis Award for the best Science-Fiction novel of the year.
Dr Norman Swan was born and raised in Glasgow, but he did his medical training at Aberdeen University, eventually going on to specialise in pediatrics. After he emigrated to Australia in the early 80s, however, he made the move into radio and television broadcasting, mainly with the ABC, and in this role, through a series of programs, including Life Matters, The 7.30 Report, Catalyst, Quantum, Four Corners, and, of course, The Health Report - which he has produced and presented since its inception in 1985, he has been given the label of Australia’s most trusted doctor. And that was before Coronacast.(Interestingly enough for all those in our audience who are lovers of Radio National, Norman is not simply a broadcaster, he was the station’s general manager for three years from 1990, during which time it saw a major revitalisation, bringing on board such luminaries as Philip Adams and Geraldine Doogue, amongst others. We have a lot to thank him for). More recently his focus – when not getting married on the island of Hydra – and many congratulations on that! - he has been the writing of a series of books about health, books which he describes not as giving advice, but presenting evidence. He’s here tonight to speak about So You Want to Know What’s Good for Your Kids?
In the autumn of 2023 Simon undertook to follow the course of the Brisbane River from its source to the sea, in the hope that, by walking its length he might better understand the power and impact of this immense waterway on the environment and communities who rely on it.In Everything is Water, Cleary takes us along on his journey, made both alone and with companions, and explores the way rivers connect landscapes, ecologies, histories, communities and myth. Over four eventful weeks and a serious weather event we are witness to the river in all its beauty and fury.Beautifully told, Everything is Water considers our complex relationship with nature through flood, drought, time and place.
Hugh Mackay has long been recognised as Australia’s leading social psychologist. In The Way We Are, his self-described ‘final book’, he presents a compelling portrait of the country as it stands today.Hugh argues that we have entered a critical period in our social evolution. He identifies several major issues: the unfinished march towards gender equality combined with the concurrent persistence of misogyny; the anti-social consequences of social media and the impacts of information overload; and the decline in religious faith and the things we look towards as a substitute.Some of his observations might not make easy reading, but his analysis goes further, to share his own perspective on the steps we need to take to contribute to the healing of our wounded society.Hugh has written more than twenty books, including Advance Australia… where?, The Art of Belonging, and Beyond Belief. He appears regularly on television, radio and newspapers as a commentator. The Way We Are demonstrates his deep affection for our country and is a marvellous book-end to his illustrious career.
Tyyni and I have now read Carly's memoir, Breath, and are furiously recommending it to everyone we meet. It really is an extraordinary book, telling the story of a remarkable, and some might say difficult, life, but Carly brings to the story a profound sense of humour, combined with a close grasp of something most of us find difficult to deal with, that is, in a word, death.She strikes me as utterly fearless, prepared to speak about everything and anything, which means there is a generosity in her words that is rare, and immensely valuable. Don't miss this opportunity to hear her speak. ‘The only thing more remarkable than Carly-Jay Metcalfe’s story is the way she tells it. Breath captures the privileges and pains of living in our transitory bodies. The absurdities. The cruelties. The bone-deep joys. This book is a love letter to the sublime human mess. An invitation to pay attention to every precious lungful.’Beejay Silcox
Bri Lee writes investigative journalism, opinion, essays and art criticism. Her work has appeared in, amongst other places, The Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, The Saturday Paper, Crikey and The Guardian. She is the author of three non-fiction works, the memoir, Eggshell Skull, and the two more journalistic works, Beauty and Who Gets to Be Smart. Just nine days ago she launched her marvellous debut novel, The Work, which she’s here to talk about tonight. In publicising this event I described Bri as a phenomen but I think that is, in any objective analysis, an understatement. These four books - Eggshell Skull was a bona fide bestseller - have all been published since 2018. In the meantime she is undertaking a PhD in Law at the University of Sydney - where she lectures on media law - as well as taking literary journeys and running a weekly newsletter entitled News & Reviews, and being that much maligned thing - which hopefully we’ll also get to later - an influencer. As I mentioned at the start of the evening I’m delighted to have her here in Maleny as the guest of Outspoken, please welcome Bri Lee to Maleny.
Tony Birch is the acclaimed author of four novels, including The White Girl and Ghost River, as well as three short story collections and two books of poetry.Most recently his short story collection Dark as Last Night won the New South Wales Premier's Christina Stead Prize for fiction, the Queensland Literary Award Steele Rudd prize and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's literary prize. He has previously been awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for his contribution to Australian literature. Professor Tony Birch has recently been appointed the third Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. Tony will be the third to take up the mantle previously held by two other literary greats, Richard Flanagan and Alexis Wright. Women & Children follows the life of Joe Cluny. It is 1965 and he is living in a working-class suburb with his mum, Marion, and sister, Ruby, spending his days trying to avoid trouble with the nuns at the local Catholic primary school. One evening his Aunty Oona appears on the doorstep, distressed and needing somewhere to stay. As his mum and aunty work out what to do, Joe comes to understand the secrets that the women in his family carry, including on their bodies. Yet their pleas for assistance are met with silence and complicity from all sides. Women & Children is a novel about the love and courage between two sisters, and a sudden loss of childhood innocence.
Melissa is the best-selling author of The Birdman's Wife, which won many awards, including the Qld Premiers/University of Queensland Fiction Award and the Neilsen Bookscan Award. Her new novel is The Naturalist of Amsterdam. At the turn of the 18th century, Amsterdam is at the centre of an intellectual revolution, with artists and scientists racing to record the wonders of the natural world. Of all the brilliant naturalists in Europe, Maria Sibylla Merian is one of its brightest stars.For as long as she can remember, Dorothea Graff’s life has been lived in service to her mother, Maria: from collecting insects to colouring illustrations for Maria’s world-famous publications. While Dorothea longs for a life that is truly her own, she constantly finds herself drawn back into her mother’s world – and shadow.From the jungles of South America to the bustling artists’ studios of Amsterdam, Melissa Ashley charts an incredible period of discovery. With stunning lyricism and immaculate research, The Naturalist of Amsterdam gives voice to the long-ignored women who shaped our understanding of the natural world – both the artists and those who made their work possible.
Sunbirds is set in Java during the Second World War - at the time of Japan’s inexorable move southwards - it depicts the intricate web of identities and loyalties created by war and imperialism, the heartbreaking compromises that so often ensue. Mirandi’s previous novel, Stone Sky Gold Mountain, won the 2020 Queensland Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA History Novel Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
When David Marr set out to research the life of his great-grandmother the last thing he expected to find was a photograph of her father, dressed in the uniform of the Native Police.As he writes: ‘I was appalled and curious. I have been writing about the politics of race all my career. I know what side I’m on. Yet that afternoon I found, in the lower branches of my family tree, Sub-Inspector Reginald Uhr, a professional killer of Aborigines… and his brother D’arcy… also in the massacre business.’That curiosity, and the sense of being appalled, led him to research the activities of the Native Police, and, from there, to the writing of his new book, Killing For Country.David is the author of a remarkable slew of books, which include his wonderful biography, Patrick White, a Life; Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson), and no less than six Quarterly Essays. He has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, and was a reporter for Four Corners. He is the winner of three Walkley Awards and two honorary Doctorates. He is one of this country’s most esteemed journalists and authors. We are more than simply thrilled he’s coming to Maleny for a conversation about his new book.
A quote from Bookseller + Publisher: 'When researching a new book on George Orwell, powerhouse writer Anna Funder noticed an interesting omission—Eileen Orwell, George’s first wife, was curiously absent. The basis of Wifedom is six newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Norah. It incorporates other letters and facts from the Orwells’ lives and Funder’s exquisite imagining of Eileen’s days. By reading between the lines, piecing together letters, clues and mentions in other people’s diaries, and analysing George’s books and biographies, Funder conjures Eileen as intelligent, funny, dry and self-effacing. Through this process, she provides insight into Orwell that other biographers staunchly avoid mentioning: his womanising, his weakness, his cruelty, and his selfishness. Wifedom also includes the author’s reflections and questions about creative expression and the nature of art. What do you do when your favourite author was a misogynist? What does that mean for you as a reader, writer and wife? What are the conditions required to create art? Are you the wife or the writer? Can you ever be both? In its innovation and coherence, it is reminiscent of Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts or Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time. This intriguing work is a mix of styles and genres, blending academic research, literary reading and philosophical reflection into a riveting biography that not only rediscovers Eileen and paints a picture of a volatile period of history but also poses questions about what we value in art.'
Angela O’Keeffe’s new novel The Sitter begins with ‘the author’ in an apartment in Paris, looking out towards the burnt shell of the Notre Dame Cathedral. She is, ostensibly, researching the life of Marie-Hortense Fiquet, but Hortense, dead these hundred years, seems to have, in some way, taken over the process of writing. Hortense was, of course, better known as the wife of Cézanne. He painted 29 portraits of her, in none of which she smiles.
This is a beautiful small novel, as tightly constructed as any of the portraits.
‘The Sitter is intricately crafted in this way – recurrences, transfigurations and adaptations of details are threaded across the work, their resonance and meanings shifting and changing along the way… For all of its interest in imagination and art, and in looking and being seen, The Sitter is at its heart a novel about grief and love – and their frequent intertwining – as well as the sacrifices that women are compelled to make for love, and the ways in which women might resist, and reclaim themselves – however long after the fact. ‘ Guardian Australia
Kim Mahood grew up in the 1950s and 60s on Mongrel Downs, a cattle station on the edge of the Tanami Desert. Much has changed in those parts in recent years: the land has been handed back to the traditional owners; the mining companies have arrived; Aboriginal art has flourished. Kim, now a writer and artist, still returns every year. Her new book, Wandering with Intent, is a collection of essays she describes as ‘the writer’s equivalent of hunting and gathering… a product of wandering among the contradictions of the cross-cultural world I have chosen to inhabit…’ It involves what she refers to as ground-truthing:‘My version of that,’ she writes, ‘begins with the physical attributes of place, and moves onto what has happened there. It puts people into place, which brings into play science, stories, husbandry, history, metaphor, and myth. This form of mapping has been called various things — co-mapping, cross-cultural mapping, counter-mapping, radical cartography. The wordsmith in me likes the flamboyant suggestiveness of radical cartography, but my bullshit detector finds it pretentious. There’s nothing radical about what I do. The only surprising thing about it is that it hasn’t been done before.’Kim is non-Indigenous herself, but grew up surrounded by First Nations people. A multi-award winning author, she writes with a refreshing honesty about important political, social and cultural issues, bringing a strong sense of irony and humour into difficult places, her bullshit detector always close by.
Louise speaks about her biography of Butjala artist Fiona Foley, a 'beautifully composed, intimate first-person account of the artistic practice of Badtjala artist, Fiona Foley. Each chapter meanders and unfolds, taking us on a vivid journey to place -K'gari or Fraser Island - combined with encounters and conversations with the artist, her family and affiliates. Carefully configured and tenderly composed, each chapter has its own rhythm and title extrapolating on how 'art' and 'life' intersect.’ Natalie King OAMShortlisted for the Magarey Medal for Biography, awarded for an outstanding biographical work. Louise Martin-Chew has worked as a freelance writer, specialising in the visual arts and design, since 1992. She has contributed extensively to national art magazines, newspapers and catalogues and is the author of books on several Australian women artists, notably, Judy Watson, Linde Ivimey and Margot McKinney.
When you think of compassion, what comes to mind? Kindness, understanding, tenderness, empathy, maybe warmth? Compassion can be all those things – but it is much more.Drawing on his many years of experience as a clinical psychologist and researcher, Dr James Kirby brings together hard science and real-life examples to offer a guide to a more compassionate life and society. Kirby debunks the myth that compassion is simply a feeling and shows us how it is a motivational force that can shape our behaviour and relationships with each other and the world. He considers how it might help with self-criticism, parenting and grief, and he explores what part artificial intelligence might play in a compassionate future.In this engaging and timely book, Kirby traverses philosophy, psychology and pop culture to show how we can choose compassion to make our lives healthier, happier and more meaningful.
Chris is a Gurang Gurang/Taribelang man and former Queenslander of the Year. His memoir tells the remarkable story of how a young boy from Bundaberg grew up to become Principal of the Cherbourg School, the founder of the Stronger Smarter Insitute and, now, to hold a senior position in the Queensland Government, where he is working to forge a path to Treaty. We’re more than simply delighted to have Chris come to Maleny to talk about his book, but also, in this year - when a referendum on a Voice to Parliament will be held - to talk about what are often considered the three pillars of effective reconciliation: Treaty, Truth-telling and the Voice.
Joanna is the author of the fast-paced and witty thriller How to Kill a Client. Gavin Jones is dead. As an in-house lawyer who controlled millions of dollars in fees per year, he wlelded power with manipulative contempt. The partners relied on his favour to fund their lavish lifestyles and, if sycophantic admiration was what it took to secure work from Gavin, well, that's what they delivered. But no-one liked him. The list of those who suffered from his cruelty (particularly the women) was long enough to include just about everyone who had contact with him. But who actually killed him? And why?A remarkable debut novel!
Peter Hudson is a landscape and portrait painter living and working in Maleny. Since the late 1990s he has explored aspects of the natural world, astronomy, mythology, and history to investigate ‘the deep mystery of existence and us being here’. In 1998, he made the first of many trips to the Aboriginal communities of Daguragu and Kalkarinji in Gurindji country in the Northern Territory. The Gurindji people, their land, and the story of the Wave Hill walk-off have been major influences on his work. Hudson exhibits regularly, has won a number of regional art prizes, and is represented in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and Parliament House, Brisbane, among others.
His recent exhibition at the USC, The mystery of being here, is the most significant solo presentation of his work so far and responds to Hudson’s overarching interest in our relationship to the world around us. The exhibition was accompanied by a beautifully designed monograph with contributions by Christine Toussainte Morrow, Carol Schwarzman, Jeff McMullen, Charlie Ward and Kev Carmody.
We’re failing this continent. We have been for some time. The latest State of the Environment Report only confirms what we’ve all known for years. In Northern NSW, west of the Divide, it used to be brigalow scrub, growing on what turned out to be the richest soil in the country - not a coincidence as it happens - but it’s almost all gone, and the job of protecting what’s left falls to environmental officers. Late one afternoon in 2014, out near Croppa Creek, things come to a head. An 80 year old farmer, Ian Turnbull, shoots Glen Turner, an environmental officer, in the back. He hounds the wounded man until he’s dead, despite the pleas of his companion. This is the point at which Kate Holden starts her remarkable book The Winter Road. But don’t be confused. Holden's not interested in writing a true crime story. She wants to understand the forces at play here: the way we view land, who owns it, what it’s for, what our responsibility to it entails. And to comprehend those things she discovers she needs to delve into our philosophical and cultural roots, to drill down into our assumptions. She says she’s not a journalist, but the book won a Walkley Award. She says she’s not a historian, but the book won the NSW Premiers non-fiction award this year and is short-listed for the regional and community history award. This is an important book, written by one of our finest writers. ‘A gripping account of our land and ourselves,’ Tara June Winch Holden brilliantly telescopes centuries of history and law into fatal conversations at a farm gate. As one man stalks another on a winter road, the whole psyche of modern Australian settlement comes under trial. An enthralling and disturbing tale told with deep insight and compassion.’ Tom Griffiths
Katie’s first novel, The Mistake, was exceedingly well-received, with cover notes by such luminaries as Liane Moriarty - I absolutely loved this novel… fresh, funny and heartfelt… I didn’t want it to end. Now she returns with The Accident, revealing the inner lives of Grace, Zoe and Imogen, whose worlds are linked through shared but not always obvious connections. The Accident explores the ways in which our formative years shape our future, examining the influence of unrequited love and the healing power of friendship.
Outspoken is delighted to bring Dr Norman Swan to Maleny for a conversation about his new book, So You Want to Live Younger Longer? Trained in paediatrics, Dr Swan was one of the first medically qualified journalists in Australia, and has had a broadcast career spanning more than 30 years. He currently hosts Radio National's The Health Report while also reporting on 7.30 and several other ABC programs. In addition to being an active journalist and health broadcaster, Dr Swan has a deep strategic knowledge of the Australian healthcare system and is committed to evidence-based approaches to help young people, which is why he sits on the board of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. Many of us dream of staying as young as possible as long as possible, whether we're in our 40s, 70s or 80s, and there's a growing conga line of products and people offering to help with that. The dilemma is, which of the pills, mental and physical exercise programs, diets and superfoods actually work? Some of them do help to keep us young, healthy and living longer, others may work when the researchers get the portions right. Some are a downright waste of money. So how do we know what and who to trust? These are the questions Dr Norman Swan tackles - with his usual wit and insight - in So You Want to Live Younger Longer? Dr Swan brings together what's known, not known, hopeful but not harmful and harmful and not hopeful, summarised with quick takeaway messages backed up by the science and evidence.
Fiona Robertson is a writer and doctor (yes, two doctors for the price of one!). Her short fiction has been published in literary magazines and anthologies in Australia and the UK, and has been shortlisted for international competitions. Her collection of stories, If You’re Happy, won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the 2020 Queensland Literary Awards. Fiona lives in Brisbane with her husband and children.
‘Mapping a terrain of loneliness, compromise, ageing and tension, these short, sharp pieces create pockets of surprise and solace in unexpected places…’ Cate Kennedy ‘Robertson deftly delivers the complexity of contemporary life in clear-eyed, uncomplicated prose…’ Nick Earls
Kári Gíslason was born in Iceland. He’s the author of four books, two non-fiction and two novels. The Promise of Iceland tells the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, while Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world, co-written with Richard Fidler, is an account of visits they made together to the places where the Icelandic sagas actually took place. It won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018.
His novels include The Ash Burner and the book he will be discussing tonight, The Sorrow Stone, an epic and compelling novel that reimagines the fate of one of Iceland's famous women of history.
Kári lectures in Creative Writing at QUT
The Honourable Kevin Rudd AC. Mr Rudd was first elected as Prime Minister in 2007. Early initiatives of his government were the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, A Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations, and the 2020 Summit. During the term of his government Labor also managed to keep Australia out of recession, despite the Global Financial Crisis, as well as commencing the roll-out of the National Broadband Network and the introduction of nationwide early childhood education, amongst many other programs.
Since leaving office Mr Rudd has written two volumes of his autobiography but has also stayed active in politics. He is senior fellow of the JFK School of Government at Harvard where he leads research into US-China relations. In addition he is the chair of numerous boards such as the International Peace Initiative. He is the current president of the Asia Society.
Now, when, last year, we first invited Mr Rudd to Outspoken it was to speak about his timely pamphlet, The Case for Courage, a call, no, an exhortation, for resistance to the egregious and ubiquitous power of News Corp, but also a commensurate call for a revitalisation of Australia on many different fronts; a shout-out to the Labor party to not just propose policies for a better, fairer Australia but also to tear down the myths of the Liberal party as the natural party of government, to stop shying away from giving them the criticism they deserve for the corruption and destruction of the norms of government that have occurred on their watch.
Well, several months passed, and now he’s here to talk about The Avoidable War, an extraordinary work which really should be required reading for every politician in the western world, regardless of affiliation. Lots of books get called important. This one really is, because of its depth of geopolitical understanding, but also because of the case it puts for avoiding war.
Chinese history is long, sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, extraordinary cultural and scientific leaps and deep dark times. Linda Jaivin distils this vast history into a concise narrative that allows us a glimpse of its importance to the formation of China as we see it today. Right now in Australia, we desperately need this sort of understanding.
Linda is the author of twelve books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include A Most Immoral Woman, Eat Me and The Empress Lover, and her non-fiction includes the memoir, The Monkey and the Dragon. She is also a renowned China scholar, working as both a foreign correspondent and translator for both of prose and film (she wrote the sub-titles for Farewell My Concubine, amongst many others).
Warren is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Queensland. His writing has appeared in many publications and he is a winner of the New Philosopher’s Award.
His book, Lovers of Philosophy explores the intimate lives of seven philosphers, investigating the way their most personal experiences came to shape their ideas.
Warren has a wonderful way of weaving the personal with the public, so that, while he tells the grim story of, for example, Nietzsche's emotional trials and Sartre and Foucault's struggles with love, he is also explaining very complex philosophical ideas in an accessible way.
He manages to draw a narrative of thought from one philosopher to another, from Nietzsche's analysis of the failure of religion through Sartre's ideas of the freedom of the individual, to Foucault's understanding of how we are bound by our culture.
Kevin grew up on the western edge of the Snowy Mountains, in a small sawmill village. He has worked primarily in drama and theatre, as actor, writer and teacher. His poetry has been published in Australia and overseas but Awake to the Rest of My Days is his first anthology.
His poems have been runners-up, finalists, short-listed, gained special mentions, commendations and honourable mentions in major competitions around the world. Mark Tredennick says that Kevin is ‘a rare voice in Australian poetry… his poems remind us what poetry is for.’
Kevin is well known in Maleny where he has lived for many years and we're very excited to have him at Outspoken, reading from and talking about his new collection.
The tag line on the cover of Scott’s remarkable new book, Full Circle, says simply: ‘Australia lost a Senator, the world gained a luminous writer’ and that just about sums it up. Ludlam proves to be more than just erudite, he’s prepared to enlist descriptions of the very foundations of life into his argument for a better understanding of our place in the world, and the responsibilities that come with it.
In Full Circle Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane, regenerative and more in tune with nature. He shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here, taking the reader on a journey around the world, discovering that we stand at a unique moment in time, when billions of tiny actions by individuals and small groups have the chance to coalesce into a great movement with the power to transform history.
David Williamson is the most produced playwright in the history of Australian theatre.
Now, after 50 years of mainstage productions and numerous film scripts – a remarkable body of work – David has written his long-awaited memoir, Home Truths. In the book he reveals how a childhood defined by marital discord sparked a lifelong fascination with the capacity for drama to explore emotional conflict; but also about the anxiety that plagued him as he crafted his plays, notwithstanding the joy of connecting with an audience. He writes, too, about the great love story that defined his personal life.
Fearless, candid and witty, David discusses the plethora of odd, interesting, caustic and brilliant people – actors, directors, writers, theatre critics, politicians – who have intersected with his life and work: from the young Jacki Weaver and Chris Haywood in the first Sydney production of The Removalists in 1971 to Nicole Kidman on the brink of stardom in the 1988 feature film of Emerald City, of the lively dinners with Paul Keating, through eventful overseas travels with Gareth Evans, Peter Carey and Tim Winton to a West End production of Up for Grabs starring Madonna.
Anthony is a BAFTA and AWGIE award-winning screen-writer. His first short film STOP! was selected for Official Competition at Cannes, and one of his first television gigs was writing webisodes for the ground-breaking US television series LOST. Anthony has been a script producer and script editor on numerous award-winning shows, including Safe Harbour – which won the 2019 International Emmy for best Mini-Series. He has a doctorate in visual arts from the Queensland College of the Arts, where he teaches regularly.
Ian Lowe AO is a bona fide Australian treasure. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society (and former Head of Science) at Griffith University; the author of ten books and uncounted articles; a former President of the Aust Conservation Society and the recipient of the Konrad Lorenz Gold Medal, awarded by the International Academy of Sciences. Just to begin with.
His new book, Long Half-life is a timely and riveting account of the political, social and scientific complexities of the nuclear industry, revealing the power of vested interests, the subjectivities of scientists and the transformative force of community passion.
Australia has been directly involved in the nuclear industry for more than a century, but our involvement has never been comprehensively documented. Long Half-life tells the social and political history of Australia’s role, from the first discovery of radioactive ores in 1906 to contemporary contentious questions. Quite presciently he discusses whether the next generation of submarines should be nuclear powered (hint: no) But he also talks about whether nuclear energy could help to slow global climate change, and if we should we store radioactive waste from nuclear power stations in our region.
Please Note: this conversation was rudely interrupted by a power failure about half way through (we had very strong winds on this particular evening). We continued recording on an iphone and then reverted to professional equipment when the power was restored. We apologise for any defects in the recording - it’s still very much worth listening to!
Hugh Mackay is probably Australia’s best-known ‘social psychologist’. He’s written twenty-two books, including Advance Australia… where?, The Art of Belonging, and Beyond Belief. He appears regularly on television, radio and newspapers as a commentator. Being multi-talented he doesn’t stop there, he’s also published seven novels. His new book, however, is The Kindness Revolution, in which he examines the way our society is developing, asking if it might be possible that Australia be not simply the Lucky Country, if it might become the Loving Country, a place where compassion reigns.
‘Revolutions,’ Mackay writes, ‘never start at the top. If we dare to dream of a more loving country – kinder, more compassionate, more cooperative, more respectful, more inclusive, more egalitarian, more harmonious, less cynical – there’s only one way to start turning that dream into a reality: each of us must live as if this is already that country.’
Luke Stegemann is an award-winning Australian Hispanist, author of The Beautiful Obscure, recipient of the Malaspina Award for his outstanding contribution to the development of cultural relations between Australia and Spain.
His new book, Amnesia Road - winner of the Queensland Literary award for non-fiction this year - is a compelling literary examination of historic violence in rural areas of Australia and Spain. It is also an unashamed celebration of the beautiful landscapes where this violence was carried out. Travelling and writing across two locations – the seldom-visited mulga plains of south-west Queensland and the backroads of rural Andalusia - Luke uncovers neglected history and its many neglected victims, and asks what place such forgotten people have in contemporary debates around history, nationality, guilt and identity.
'This book will come to be regarded as a classic of Australian literature.'
Nicolas Rothwell
Melanie is a Brisbane-based writer, editor, academic and occasional actor. She is a graduate of QUT’s nationally acclaimed acting program and has a Doctorate in Creative Writing. In 2018, she won the Qld Literary Awards Glendower for an Emerging Writer for her manuscript 'Garrison Town', which was published as Meet Me at Lennon’s by UQP in 2019. Meet Me at Lennon's was shortlisted for the 2020 Qld Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance and the 2020 Courier-Mail’s People Choice Award.
Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Arena Magazine, Griffith Review and Hecate, and her short fiction has won or been shortlisted for various literary awards.
Russell McGregor is Associate Professor of history at James Cook University in Townsville. He has published extensively on the history of settler Australian attitudes toward Aboriginal people. His other research interests are in Australian nationalism and environmental history. Here he speaks about his biography of Alec Chisholm, Idling In Green Places.
Alec Chisholm was a naturalist, journalist, newspaper editor and author, but, above all an ornithologist with a passion for Australian birds and the Australian landscape. All but forgotten now Chisholm was once one of the most well-known writers, editors and conservationists in the country. He started early; by the age of 17 he was being paid to write for the magazine Emu, in this case campaigning against the killing of egrets. In 1907 there was a great trade in their feathers for women’s hats. He held in disdain the idea that 'the moving finger of civilisation must move on over the bodies of the loveliest and the best of Nature's children.' He remained a vigorous campaigner for birds and the natural world his whole life, inspiring Australians to see nature anew. His book Mateship with Birds is a classic of nature writing.
Russell McGregor’s biography is the first ‘life’ of this remarkable Australian. It was short-listed for the National Biography Award.
While he’s best known for his radio and television work Karl also has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery. He has worked as a physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and as a medical doctor at the Kids’ Hospital in Sydney. He is the present Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University, where his ‘mission’ is to spread the good word about science and its benefits. He is one of only 100 ‘Apple Masters’ an award which celebrates the achievements of people who are changing the world through their passion and vision, while inspiring new approaches to creative thinking. He has been awarded an ig-Noble Prize, a doctorate from USC, the Australia Skeptic Of The Year Prize and has an asteroid named after him.
He is the author of more than 45 books. I’m not going to list them, but two of the most recent, Dr Karl’s Random Road Trip through Science and Dr Karl’s Surfing Safari both include augmented reality.
In April he will be launching his Little Book of Climate Science. This little book is remarkable. Karl lays out the history of our understanding of climate change, the science of it - why it’s happening - what its effects will be and what we can do about it, all in the most simple, succint, unemotional language imaginable. It is an extraordinary resource. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Marian Wilkinson is regarded as one of the most distinguished journalists in Australia. She has won two Walkley Awards and was the first executive producer of Four Corners. She was a senior journalist for many years with The Sydney Morning Herald, was the Washington correspondent for The National Times and The Age and a senior reporter for The Australian. She is the author of three books of investigative journalism, including Dark Victory, co-authored with David Marr.
In the summer of 2019/20, as Australia burned and smoke from its fires encircled the planet, a lot of people wondered why a country with so much to lose through climate change was doing so little.
The Carbon Club explores the reasons behind inaction, and investigates the small group of key players who determined it.
This is the story of how influential climate science sceptics, politicians and business leaders fought to control Australia's response to the climate crisis and why they were so determined to do so.
Central to their strategy was an international campaign to undermine climate science and the urgency of the climate crisis. The sustained success of the carbon club over two decades explains why Australian governments failed to deal with the challenge of climate change. But at what cost to us and the next generation?
As Wilkinson notes: ‘This is a story we need to know because we are still trapped in it’.
We're delighted to introduce debut novelist Katie McMahon, talking about her novel, out in March, The Mistake.
While Bec and Kate are sisters, they couldn’t be less alike. Bec is living the domestic dream with her surgeon husband Stuart and three perfect children. So why does she find herself so attracted to free-spirited Ryan?
Kate’s life is hardly a dream. But when she meets Adam – tall, kind, funny – things start looking up. Until she finds out he’s been keeping secrets from her.
‘I absolutely loved this novel: fresh, funny and heartfelt. I didn't want it to end!’ Liane Moriarty
'Addictive storytelling from an exciting new talent.' Fiona McIntosh
Leigh Robshaw is a journalist, free-lance writer, copywriter, business blogger and sub-editor. She writes for a remarkable range of magazines and publications. Now she has written a fast-paced, colourful and sometimes shocking memoir, You Had Me at Hola, set in South America and Mexico.
A young Australian woman meets a beautiful Peruvian artisan in a market in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. Sensing a deep connection, they fall in love and begin a new life together. Over a period of three years, they travel the continent selling handmade jewellery in the streets and squares of Latin America, dodging police and bandits, mixing with drug dealers and narrowly escaping death.
You Had Me at Hola is a love story between two very different people, with different ways of being. It is about the search for one’s life purpose and the universal quest for belonging.
Clare Bowditch is a musician, an actor, radio presenter, educator and now author (on her website she calls herself music maker/story baker/educator). She visited Maleny to talk about her memoir, Your Own Kind of Girl, a revealing story of a childhood punctuated by grief, anxiety and compulsion, a story that tells how these forces shaped her life for better and for worse. It is a heartbreaking, wise and at times playful. In this podcast she also sings a couple of her songs.
Clare won an Aria Award for Best Female Artist in 2006, was nominated for a Logie for her role in the TV series Offspring, was named Woman of the Year by Rolling Stone, as well as touring with Leonard Cohen, Paul Kelly and Gotye. She is also the founder Big Hearted Business, a love project designed to support creative people in their businesses, and businesses with their creative thinking.
Mary Garden was born and raised in New Zealand, but has lived in Australia for much of her adult life. She also spent several years in India, on a spiritual quest. Her experiences in that country were the subject of her first memoir The Serpent Rising: a journey of spiritual seduction. She moved to Maleny in 1989 and has had strong connections to the town ever since.
Her new book, Sundowner of the Skies, is a memoir/biography of her father, a famous aviator who achieved notoriety when he became the youngest and most inexperienced pilot to fly solo from England to Australia. Fellow pilots ranked his 1930 flight along with the achievements of Charles Kingsford Smith and Amy Johnson. Writing the book was a journey of discovery for Mary. Until she started her research she knew little of his life and his extraordinary history.
Before turning to writing full-time in the late 1990’s, Anna Funder worked as an international lawyer for the Australian Government, focusing on human rights, constitutional law, and treaty negotiation. After jettisoning her legal career to write Stasiland, she jobbed for a time as a radio and television documentary producer at the ABC.
Stasiland describes the period Anna spent in the former East Germany, after the wall came down. It tells the stories of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi. Shortlisted for many awards in Australia and Britain, in 2004 Stasiland won the world’s most significant prize for non-fiction, the Samuel Johnson Prize. Hailed as ‘a masterpiece’ and ‘a classic,’ Stasiland has been published in 25 countries and translated into 16 languages, adapted for radio and CD in the UK and Australia.
In 2011 Anna published the novel All That I Am, set in pre-war Britain. When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they find refuge in London. Here they take breath-taking risks in order to continue their work in secret. But England is not the safe-haven they think it to be, and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart… Based on real people and events, All That I Am is a masterful and exhilarating exploration of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs, and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places. All That I Am went on to win many awards, including the Miles Franklin.
Anna lives in Sydney with her husband and three children.
I was born into a world that expected very little of women like me. We were meant to tread lightly on the earth, influencing events through our husbands and children, if at all. We were meant to fade into invisibility as we aged. I defied all of those expectations and so have millions of women like me.’
Anne Summers has been prominent in Australian media, politics and feminist activism for more than four decades. She is the author of eight books, including the remarkable Damn Whores and God’s Police, still in print forty-four years after it was first published.
Anne has had a remarkable career. She has been Editor of Good Weekend, written for the Australian Financial Review, Far Eastern Economic Review, Le Monde and the National Times. She is currently a regular contributor to what was recently the Fairfax Press. She is the winner of a Walkley Award for journalism and, in the United States, where she lived from 1986-1992, she was Editor in Chief of Ms Magazine. She was a political advisor to Prime Minister Paul Keating and ran the Office of the Status of Women in the Hawke Labor government. For six years she was chair of Greenpeace International.
Her other books include Gamble for Power, Ducks on a Pond and the recently released Unfettered and Alive, a memoir, which she discusses here with Steven Lang.
For all who know Brisbane, McWhirters, a once celebrated department store in Fortitude Valley, is an icon. For Melissa Fagan it is also the starting point for a remarkable exploration of her mother and grandmother’s lives, a poignant reminder of the ways in which retail stores and fashion have connected women’s lives across the decades.
Behind the dusty shop counters of an Art Deco treasure, Melissa discovered both what had been lost and what continued to shine. Her book is, ultimately, a tender exploration of self and family, speaking of the ways in which life surprises us and of how the legacies of others can truly enrich our own relationships and lives.
In his intimate ground-breaking memoir, told with wit and insight, Kerry O’Brien reflects on the big events he has observed, on lessons learned and ignored, on the foibles and strengths of the public figures who construct our world. The end result is an engrossing study of a life lived in the public eye, a life intrinsically bound up in nearly three-quarters of a century of social and political history.
Kerry is one of Australia’s most respected journalists. He has won six Walkley awards including the Gold Walkley and the Walkley for outstanding leadership in journalism. In a career spanning more than fifty years, he has worked for a wire service, newspapers, television and as a foreign correspondent. Thirty-three of those years were at the ABC where he worked on current affairs programs such asThis Day TonightandFour Corners. He was the inaugural presenter of Lateline and the editor and presenter of 7.30 for fifteen years.
Shelley discusses her recently published memoir Shadow Sisters.
During the terrifying years of Apartheid in South Africa, Shelley Davidow’s family was a crime. At a time when it was illegal for black and white people to live together, Shelley’s social activist parents took in Rosie, an abandoned black three-year-old. Rosie grew up as a beloved daughter and sister in a white household. Against the backdrop of racist laws and ever-present threats of violence, Shelley’s parents did all they could to provide a safe, happy home for their five children. But when Rosie was sixteen, devastating truths came to light, shattering the family’s understanding of the past.
'Davidow's memoir is not only a vivid, stark and resonant reminder of those days, but a rites-of-passage tale about growing up in the midst of violence and killing – as well as experiencing the pangs of first love.' Sydney Morning Herald
Patrick Nunn is here to talk about his recently published book The Edge of Memory, Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World.
Patrick is the author of several other books, including the popular Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific. He is, at present, Professor of Geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast but is well known for the work he undertook in the Pacific Islands where he was, for 25 years, part of the faculty of the University of the South Pacific, holding the positions of Professor of Oceanic Geoscience and pro-Vice Chancellor. His early work on the Quaternary geology and tectonics of many islands and island groups in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu still represents the latest word on many of these issues today.
Patrick has been a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on several occasions, and, in that role, he was a co-recipient of its 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland, and his world-class research in climate change has been extended with the announcement that he will be Lead Author on the ‘Small Islands’ chapter of the next Assessment Report of the IPCC, scheduled for completion in 2022.
Gillian Triggs has had a long and diverse career in International Law. Born in London she migrated along with her parents to Australia in 1958, when she was thirteen. She attended school in Melbourne and studied law at Melbourne University, then went to Texas to do a Masters in Law, working with the Dallas Police Force on the implementation of the Civil Rights Act. She completed a doctorate a decade or so later. In 1982 she was admitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria as a barrister and solicitor. Soon after that she joined Mallesons Stephen Jaques as a consultant on International law practicing with them for ten years before joining the Melbourne Law School as a professor of International Law. While there she produced papers on a range of subjects, including the WTO, energy and resources law, the law of the sea, international criminal law, international environmental law and human rights.
In 2007 she took on the role of Dean of the University of Sydney’s Law School. In 2012, as we all know, she was appointed the President of Australia’s Human Rights Commission, a position she held for five years. She is now the Acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and is here with us today to talk about her recently published memoir Speaking Up.
Kristina Olsson is a Brisbane-based writer. She worked as a journalist for many years, writing for The Australian, The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Telegraph. She has written both novels and memoirs, including The China Garden and Boy, Lost, the memoir about her mother and about Kristina’s missing brother, which won the 2014 NSW Premier's Prize for nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Just this month Simon & Schuster have chosen Kristina’s new novel, Shell, to launch the literary imprint of Scribner in Australia.
Kristina has been to Maleny several times, some of you may remember her visiting Rosetta Books in the 2000s to talk about her novel In One Skin and the book she co-wrote with Debbie Kilroy, Kilroy was here.
We begin with Josepha Dietrich whose memoir In Danger was published by UQP earlier this year. By way of introduction I’m going to take the unusual step of reading the author note from the front of her book as a way of describing her because, honestly, I can’t think of a better description:
Josie Dietrich is an English immigrant to Australia. She lives in Brisbane in the home she and her partner built on passive house principles. After coming out of a long reign as a carer, she’s worked as a research assisant for universities on projects to improve psychiatric discharge planning and women’s wellness after cancer. Her prior long-term work was in the After Hours Child Protection Unit, assessing children’s risk of harm alongside the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Unit of Victoria Police. To remain sane during this period, she flitted off overseas for months at a time to climb cliff faces while sleeping on beaches or in abandoned shepherd’s huts. After her cancer treatments finished and in light of her experience caring for her dying mother, Josie joined the advisory committee of CanSpeak Queensland as a cancer and consumer advocate.
This memoir, In Danger, is about her own journey through a diagnosis of breast cancer, following on from the death of her mother from the same disease fourteen years previously. It is not by any means a grim book, in fact it’s quite the opposite, probably, or possibly because of Josie’s familiarity with the illness and her lack of sentimentality towards it.
Gareth Evans was a representative for the Australian Labor Party in both the Senate and the House of Representatives for twenty-one years, from 1978 to 1999. During that time he served as a member of Cabinet for fourteen years in the Hawke and Keating governments, including seven and a half as Foreign Minister, a role in which, it is univerally acknowledged, he excelled.
After leaving politics he became President and CEO of the International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, during which period the organisation grew to become the pre-eminent international non-government organisation (NGO) working on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict.
He is presently the Co-Chair of the international advisory organisation The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), from 2010 to 2015 he was Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Canberra-based Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and remains the Patron and Emeritus Convenor of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He is also the Chancellor of the Australian National University.
He has written or edited eleven books including A Cabinet Diary, Inside the Hawke-Keating Government, and the new book he discusses in this podcast Incorrigible Optimist.
In this podcast Outspoken organiser and interviewer swaps chairs and is interviewed by Kate Evans from ABC Radio National about his new novel, Hinterland, which is set in the fictional town of Winderran. Kate came to Maleny for the occasion.
Shelley Davidow is the author of Whisperings in the Blood, a memoir in which immigrant voyages, repeated from one generation to the next, form the basis of an extraordinary story that explores the heartache and emotional legacies created by those who leave their homelands forever. It tells the story of her grandfather, Jacob Frank, who leaves his village in Lithuania to sail to America, of her mother, leaving America to go to South Africa, and her own voyage repeating these and other journeys before settling in Australia. Shelley now lives on the Sunshine Coast.
A C Grayling is a genuine example of that much bandied about thing, a most remarkable man. Born in Rhodesia, raised in Nyasaland, he discovered a love for philosophy at the age of twelve, going on to study at ever more prestigious institutions, culminating in Magdelene College, Oxford.
Apart from being the author of thirty books he writes widely on contemporary issues, including war crimes, euthenasia, secularism, the legalisation of drugs and human rights. He founded the New College of The Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London, where he is presently the Master, and was, just this year, awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to philosophy.
His most recent book, The Age of Genius, the Seventeenth Century and the Invention of the Modern Mind, argues that the mind-set of modern times was established in the 1600s, amid terrible war and great injustice. His contention is that, despite such turmoil, this was the period in which ideas of magic and revelation, and the dead hand of religious law, first gave way to science and the rational, leading the way to the Enlightenment and the modern world as we know it. It is a work of philosophy but also of history, following the lives of some of the most significant figures from the period.
Malachy Tallack is from the Shetland Isles, as far north in Scotland as you can go. He attracted a lot of attention with his first book, 60 Degrees North, an account of his journey around the world along the line of the 60th latitude. It was a book that Robert MacFarlane described as brave and beautiful, chosen by BBC Radio 4 as Book of the Week. He was in Australia to promote his new work, The Un-Discovered Islands, a study on islands of imagination, deception and human error. Also well-known as a singer songwriter with four albums to his name, in the final ten minutes of this podcast Malachy plays a couple of his songs.
Richard Fidler is best known these days for his Conversations with Richard Fidler on ABC radio. Conversations is the most podcast program on the ABC, with 1.8m podcasts downloaded a month, which, by any standards, is a lot of podcasts. But Richard had an earlier career, before he morphed into Australia’s best interviewer. He started out in the trio the Doug Anthony All Stars in the 80s, playing guitar in the ensemble with Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson. All three of them have gone on to be significant figures in Australian cultural life, but at the time DAAS was an iconoclastic group who tore into, and apart, every taboo they stumbled across during the eighties and early nineties, and, I think it is fair to say, they bumped into a fair few. DAAS was, at the start, better known overseas than it was in Australia, at least until they joined up with the comedy show The Big Gig. The British comedian Al Murray said of seeing the group at the Edinburgh Festival in 1988, "they came onstage with the attitude of feral invaders … they were an insanely hot act who sang, cursed, sweated and insulted each other and their audiences with a level of commitment and polish that seemed exotically charged and almost transgressive…” Hard to imagine when you see the demure Mr Fidler sitting next to me on the stage here. But he has morphed once again, now, into a historian. In 2014 he went to Istanbul with his son Joe and, on his return sat down to write an account of their travels while seeking out the location of many of the crucial moments in Byzantine history. Richard says of himself that the label is not appropriate, he is more of a history enthusiast than a historian, but you’d be hard pressed I think, once you’ve read Ghost Empire, to argue the point, for this is a history begging to be told, a history that picks you up and engages you on so many levels, demanding a rethink of how we view our past, and, really, there’s little else you can ask from a history book.
Kári Gíslason was born in Iceland. He’s the author of four books, two non-fiction and two novels. The Promise of Iceland tells the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, while Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world, co-written with Richard Fidler, is an account of visits they made together to the places where the Icelandic sagas actually took place. It won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018. Here he discusses his new novel, The Ashburner. Kári comes back onto the stage to answer questions at the end of Richard Fidler's podcast.
Tallking about her book Wasted, Text 2016
In 2009 Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother, Alexander, finished his last university exam and went out with some mates on the town. Later that night he wandered to the Story Bridge. He put his phone, wallet, T-shirt and thongs on the walkway, climbed over the railing, and jumped thirty metres into the Brisbane River below.
Three days passed before police divers pulled his body out of the water. When Alexander had drowned, his blood-alcohol reading was almost five times the legal limit for driving.
Why do some of us drink so much, and what happens when we do? Fewer young Australians are drinking heavily, but the rates of alcohol abuse and associated problems—from blackouts to sexual assaults and one-punch killings—are undiminished.
The World Without Us, Mireille's third novel, is set somewhere in the Hinterland of NSW's north coast, and concerns the Muller family, Stefan, Evangeline and their two daughters. Stefan, a beekeeper, is originally from Germany, while Evangeline grew up on a commune in the hills behind where they live. The story is woven around the absence of a third daughter, Pip, and the way they each deal with the grief her loss has provoked. At the same time it also braids within its cloth the radically changing landscape wrought by the work miners and loggers, as well as the mysterious failing of Stefan’s hives.
The novel has attracted remarkable reviews:
Alberto Manguel, writing in the Guardian says, Juchau’s style is perfectly poised, elegant and restrained. Almost any page of this astonishing novel offers proof of a writer of great poetic power… [it is] a revelation, a masterly story involving the refuge of silence, the fate of bees, and the shadows of old sins.
Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s most beloved performers, most famous for her role in Kath and Kim as Sharon Strzelecki, but also for her work in the comedy sketch programs Fast Forward, the D-Generation, and, of course, as Esme Hoggett in the film Babe.
In this new and extraordinary memoir, Reckoning, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities and the secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on. Heartbreaking, joyous, intimate and utterly captivating, Reckoning, announces the arrival of a fearless writer and natural storyteller. It will touch the lives of its readers.
Paul Williams is Program Coordinator in Creative Writing at Sunshine Coast University and the author of several short stories and novels. His most recent book is Cokcraco, an exhilarating, playful and witty novel about writing, identity and literary KritiKs.
Some comments from reviews:
'Ever since Don Quixote, novelists have been taking the piss. In Cokcraco Paul Williams does exactly that, turning the full beam of his satirical spotlight on the civil wars in university departments, the cultish bunkum of literary theory, the self-obsession of creative writing courses and the self-flagellation of white liberal guilt… a strange, funny, intelligent and quite unforgettable novel. What Flaubert did for parrots, Mr Williams has done for the humble roach.' Jeffrey Poacher
Kate Holden is the author of the memoirs In My Skin and The Romantic, Italian Nights and Days. In My Skin was nominated for many awards and was published in twelve countries. Her stories and columns have appeared regularly in The Age as well as The Monthly, Cleo, New Woman and the Weekend Australian. The biography on her website begins with the tantalising entry: I was born in Melbourne in 1972 and, apart from some time in Rome, Shanghai and London, I have always lived here. I went to progressive community schools and the University of Melbourne, where I got an Honours degree in literature and classics. I had jobs as a dish-pig in a café in a patisserie, as a hair model and in a bookshop before turning to an unexpected career in heroin addiction and, a little later, as a professional sex worker.
Professor Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading writers on climate change. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he was named Australian of the Year in 2007.
He has held various academic positions including Professor at the University of Adelaide, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum and Visiting Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
His books include Throwim Way Leg, Here on Earth, The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers. Under the Gillard government he was appointed Climate Change Commissioner, with the specific task of communicating the science of climate change to the public, explaining the reasons why it is necessary to price carbon. In this podcast Professor Flannery talks about his new book The Atmosphere of Hope, which, in the lead up to the December talks in Paris, gives an overview of where climate science is now and what can be done.
Olivera Simic is the author of Surviving Peace, a Political Memoir, a heartfelt account of life before, during and after the Bosnian War and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Simić provides a greater understanding of the Balkan Wars while ensuring we don’t forget the horrors and enduring impact of any war. Combining an academic sensibility with personal experience she describes how she found the determination to build a new life when the old one was irretrievable.
Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most popular and best-known writers. Her novel The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was short-listed for the Man Booker, the Miles Franklin and the IMPAC Awards. Her earlier novel, The Idea of Perfection, won The Orange Prize in 2001. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History.
In this podcast she discusses her new book: One Life: My Mother's Story, a deeply moving homage to her mother by one of Australia’s finest writers.
Andrew’s journalism has been published in, amongst other places, Rolling Stone, Good Weekend, Wired, The Guardian, The Monthly, The Australian, Qweekend, GQ Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, Backchannel and, The Saturday Paper.
John Birmingham is the author of the cult classic He Died With a Falafel in His Hand; the award-winning history Leviathan; the Axis of Time series and the Disappearance trilogy. He contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Brisbane Times and The Monthly on topics as diverse as the future of coal (and media) as well as national security. He began his working life as a research officer with the Defence Department's Office of Special Clearances and Records.
In 2015 he's taken the radical step of publishing the three Dave Hooper books all at once (none of this business of waiting around for a year for the sequel with Mr Birmingham).
The starting point for these books is our insatiable thirst for energy… out in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil rigs are working overtime. One of them (Deepwater Horizon, if you like) has drilled too deep. But what they’ve released isn’t oil, it’s all the monsters of mythology, and I mean all of them, spewing out of holes broken through the wall between the worlds. Fortunately, or perhaps not, one of the things that emerged has got itself killed by Dave Hooper, the balding, overweight, over-sexed safety manager on the rig, and, in the moment of dying, has transferred its nature and power to him. The three novels (which Birmingham coyly states, get better with altitude) Emergence, Resistance and Ascendance follow the journey Dave has to make to save humanity, and himself.
The thing about Birmingham is that he has no, or few, pretensions. This extravagant scenario becomes, in his hands, a witty, clever, incredibly fast-paced re-working of the super-hero save-the-world-action genre.
Henry Reynolds is Australia’s pre-eminent historian. In the early eighties he single-handedly changed the way Australian history was conducted when he shone a light on the way the country had been settled with his book The Other Side of the Frontier.
His work prompted a flowering of study about Aboriginal-White relations throughout the two hundred years since white settlement. Reynolds himself went on to write more than twelve books focusing on the subject, including the best selling Why Weren’t We Told?, a very personal account of how he came to understand that he, like most people in Australia, had a distorted view of the country’s past. The research he undertook played a major part in the Wik and Mabo judgements, indeed he was a close friend of Eddie Mabo.
Mr Reynolds is in conversation here about his most recent book, Forgotten War. This work draws on the many studies undertaken in recent years to tell the story of the Frontier Wars, and to ask why it is there are no official memorials or commemorations to them; indeed, why it should be that it is even more controversial to discuss them now than it was a hundred years ago. Kate Grenville writes of the book: ‘A brilliant light shone into a dark forgetfulness: ground-breaking, authoritative, compelling.'
A conversation with last year’s David Unaipon Award winning author Ellen van Neerven about her debut novel Heat and Light. Ellen’s writing has appeared widely in publications such as McSweeney’s and the Review of Australian Fiction. She works at the State Library of Queensland as part of the ‘black&write’ Indigenous writing and editing project. She’s the editor of the digital collection Writing Black: New Indigenous Writing from Australia.
Sally's novel Grace's Table is a 'wise and tender novel about food, friendship and marriage...'
It's a delightful slow burn of a book, which places the kitchen at the centre of the home, the room in which nourishment is given and received and, in the end, everything is revealed.
‘the women in this novel don’t heed the rules for ageing quietly… they pull us into their past and present with their wise-cracking talk and acerbic wit...'
Kristina Olsson author of Boy Lost
Australian author Graeme Simsion’s first novel, The Rosie Project, was an international publishing phenomenon, selling over a million copies in more than forty countries. The novel's hero is, according to The Guardian, one of those rare fictional characters – like Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones – destined to take up residence in the popular consciousness. In the highly anticipated sequel, The Rosie Effect, Don Tillman and Rosie are married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her secondyear at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that his philandering best friend from Australia is coming to stay, he discovers Rosie is pregnant.
Don instantly becomes an expert in all things obstetric. But between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version) Don’s old weaknesses resurface. While he strives to get the technicalities right he gets the emotions wrong, and risks losing Rosie.
Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and four collections of short stories. She's the winner of several major awards, including two Nebulas and the PEN/Faulkner, this last for We Are All completely Beside Ourselves, the novel she was primarily discussing on her tour of Australia. At the time of the interview the book had been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Two days later it was bumped up into the short-list.