The Perth Writers Festival program 2016 has landed in our hot little hands, and we're delighted to be able to share that we have a bunch of UWA Publishing people addressing audiences this year across a range of topics.
To break down the weekend for you, we've compiled a guide to UWA Publishing at Perth Writers Festival. The first guide takes you through the festival by author, and the second presents the information chronologically. Click on the event graphics to be taken to the corresponding pages on the Perth Festival website.
BY AUTHOR
David Carlin is a writer, creative artist, teacher and researcher. His widely acclaimed memoir Our Father Who Wasn’t There (Scribe) was published in 2010, and in 2015 he released The Abyssinian Contortionist (UWA Publishing). His creative non-fiction, essays and articles have appeared in various journals and he has previously written and directed for theatre, film and circus.
Amanda Curtin is the author of two novels, Elemental and The Sinkings, and a short story collection, Inherited. Elemental was shortlisted for the 2014 WA Premier’s Books Awards (Fiction and People’s Choice categories) and will be published in the UK in 2016.
Suzanne Falkiner is the author of Mick: A life of Randolph Stow, the first biography of this Australian literary great. She grew up on a sheep station in central New South Wales and now lives in Sydney, where she divides her time between writing, reviewing, editing and occasional travel journalism. Extensively travelled, Suzanne has lived in Paris, Italy, and New York, where she completed postgraduate short courses in Fiction, Non Fiction and Editing at Columbia University in 1985. Suzanne was a finalist in the Australian Vogel Literary Awards in 1980 and 1981, and was among the founding members of Redress Press in the early 1980s.
Thor Kerr is a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Cultural Studies at Curtin University’s School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Western Australia. Dr Kerr’s research focuses on media and public representation in negotiations of urban space, particularly in relation to environmental issues, colonisation and Aboriginal heritage. His latest book, To the Beach, examines public controversy and policy making around ‘sustainable’ coastal property development. His previous (co-authored) book, Setting up the Nyoongar Tent Embassy: a Report on Perth Media, investigated the systemic shaping of popular news reports that criminalised Aboriginal activists.
Victoria Laurie is an award-winning journalist. Her career began in ABC radio and TV current affairs, followed by print journalism forThe Bulletin, The Australian newspaper, Weekend Magazine and other publications. She has been a Walkley Award finalist three times, is a recipient of an Equal Opportunity Media Award and numerous state awards. Her latest non-fiction title is The Southwest: Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspot.
Michelle Michau-Crawford debut collection of short fiction is called Leaving Elvis and other stories. Michelle's writing has been published in Australian Book Review, Westerly and Spiny Babbler, and she has also published poetry and non-fiction and had one of her plays performed. In 2013 she won the prestigious ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. She has also worked as a university lecturer, speechwriter, researcher and public relations officer, and has a PhD in Comparative Literature. Michelle lives with her menagerie in a house surrounded by vegetable gardens and fruit trees.
Susan Midalia is a writer and freelance editor who conducts workshops on short story writing. She grew up in the Western Australian wheatbelt, and has lived in Perth for most of her adult life. Her first short story collection, A History of the Beanbag and other stories, was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards in 2007, and her second collection, An Unknown Sky and other stories (2012), was shortlisted for the 2013 Queensland Literary Award (Steele Rudd Award). Her latest release is Feet to the Stars and other stories (2015). Susan studied at the University of Western Australia and Cambridge University and holds a PhD in contemporary Australian women’s fiction. She has also taught literature at secondary and tertiary levels over many years.
Ian Reid is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, including the novels The End of Longing, That Untravelled World and The Mind’s Own Place. An Adjunct Professor in Humanities at the University of Western Australia, he was awarded the 2015 Battye Memorial Fellowship for historical fiction.
Peter Rose is a poet, memoirist and novelist who grew up in country Victoria. Throughout the 1990s he was the publisher at Oxford University Press and since 2001 he has been Editor of Australian Book Review. His first poetry collection, The House of Vitriol, was published in 1990; The Subject of Feeling (2015) is his sixth collection since then. He has published two novels, the most recent being Roddy Parrin 2010, and his family memoir, Rose Boys, published in 2001, won the 2003 National Biography Award.
Annamaria Weldon is a widely published poet, essayist and freelance writer. Born in Malta, she spent her childhood in North Africa, Central America and the United Kingdom, before moving to Australia in 1984. She has previously published two collections of poetry, The Roof Milkers (2008) and Ropes of Sand (1984), won the inaugural Nature Conservancy Australia’s Prize for Nature Writing in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Peter Porter Poetry Prize in 2012. In 2009 she was writer-in-residence at SymbioticA’s eco-art project, ‘Adaptation’. The Lake's Apprentice is her latest release.
Terri-ann White is a writer and Director of UWA Publishing.
Sophie Zalokar was born and raised in the Barossa Valley in South Australia and trained as a chef under Australian food icon Maggie Beer at her and her husband Colin Beer’s famed restaurant, The Pheasant Farm. At the beginning of 2005, Sophie and her family moved to a 18 1⁄2 acre smallholding with holiday cottages in Pemberton within the Southern Forests region of Western Australia. With the assistance of a federal tourism grant, Sophie and her husband Chris opened Foragers Field Kitchen & Cooking School in April 2011, offering residential cooking school and dinner events throughout the year, promoting the culinary heritage and produce grown in the Southern Forests. Sophie’s work as a chef, food writer, teacher and produce judge is underpinned by her commitment to nurturing real food created with a deep respect for the land, primary producers and local food heritage and culinary traditions. Her latest book is Food of the Southern Forests.
Special event: in 2015 we brought you the Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. This award recognises literary talent in and connected to Western Australia, and goes some way to ameliorating the gap left by the Western Australian Premier's Awards. At the 2016 Perth Writers Festival we will be awarding the $10,000 prize at a special ceremony. We will also be conducting a workshop with the judges and winner on the mechanics of literary awards (a perfect opportunity for aspiring writers and those intending to submit to the Hewett Award in 2016).
BY DATE AND TIME
Friday 19th February
Saturday 20th February
Sunday 21st February
