Think about the children’s books that you see on the selves of Australian bookstores. How many of these books provide insight into non-Western cultures? How many are translations? Multicultural books are important because they can provide windows into other cultures and introduce readers to new ideas. They can also help readers from under-represented groups see themselves reflected in literature. This talk will highlight a range of multicultural picture books that celebrate cultural diversity, focusing on the relationship between word and image and how the verbal and the visual elements work together to produce a dynamic story.

In conversation with writer Chris Hammer, internationally best-selling crime writer Michael Connelly brings to life - once again - Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renee Ballard in the impalpable case of The Night Fire.

In association with Allen & Unwin.

Burbang is the Wiradjuri word for Ceremony. In a ceremony, the ritual repeats unchanged, however, the participant arrives each time with greater wisdom and hierarchical standing and can 'peel back' the significance of the ceremony's embedded knowledge. Independent choreographer and dancer, Joel Bray, will share his research into traditional Indigenous ceremonial practices and how it will inform his new project, Burbang, a work of immersive dance-theatre.

Joel Bray is the National Library’s 2019 Creative Arts Fellow. He a choreographer, a performer with CHUNKY MOVE, a NEXT GEN creator of BlakDance, and a proud Wiradjuri man whose work and performances have been seen and toured nationally and internationally.

The 2019 Creative Arts Fellowship is generously supported by the Friends of the National Library of Australia Inc.

We are despised, yet we grow. We are tortured and crucified and yet we flourish. We are hated and still we multiply. Why is that? You must wonder, how is it we survive?'

Christos Tsiolkas' stunning new novel Damascus is a work of soaring ambition and achievement, of immense power and epic scope, taking as its subject nothing less than events surrounding the birth and establishment of the Christian church. Based around the gospels and letters of St Paul, and focusing on characters one and two generations on from the death of Christ, as well as Paul (Saul) himself, Damascus nevertheless explores the themes that have always obsessed Tsiolkas as a writer: class, religion, masculinity, patriarchy, colonisation, refugees; the ways in which nations, societies, communities, families and individuals are united and divided - it's all here, the contemporary and urgent questions, perennial concerns made vivid and visceral.

In Damascus, Tsiolkas has written a masterpiece of imagination and transformation: an historical novel of immense power and an unflinching dissection of doubt and faith, tyranny and revolution, and cruelty and sacrifice.

Dr Laura Millar, independent consultant and scholar in records, archives, and information management, discussed her new publication A Matter of Facts: the Value of Evidence in an Information Age.

The safeguarding of authentic facts is essential, especially in this disruptive Orwellian age, where digital technologies have opened the door to a post-truth world in which “alternative facts” can be so easily accepted as valid.

As Dr. Millar argues in her book, because facts matter, evidence matters. In her talk, she made the case that authentic and accurate records, archives, data, and other sources of documentary proof are crucial in supporting and fostering a society that is respectful, democratic, and self-aware.

Dr Millar has consulted with governments, universities, professional associations, and other agencies around the world, from advising national governments on electronic records management to consulting with aboriginal communities on the preservation of indigenous sources of evidence. She is the author of several award-winning publications and has taught in several universities in Canada and internationally.

Kerry Reed-Gilbert, Wiradjuri woman, writer, artist and activist, passed away on July 2019 shortly before her memoir and final piece of writing was published.

Fellow writers and activists, Yvette Holt and Samantha Falkner, joined us to pay their respects to Aunty Kerry. Reflecting on and celebrating her life and writing, they spoke to Kerry’s latest and final piece of work The Cherry Picker’s Daughter.

The Cherry Picker’s Daughter explores Kerry’s story of love and loss, repeated dislocation, dispossession and the impact of life as an Aboriginal state ward living under the terror of Protection laws.

During her childhood, fruit-picking meant the difference between going hungry or having a roof over your head. Kerry’s final piece of writing encompasses her early life, leading us through memories of losing her mother, her father imprisoned for her the murder of her mother, and the vital strength of family ties in Aboriginal communities while surviving the White Australia Policy and everyday racism.

Kerry Reed-Gilbert was a Wiradjuri woman, writer, artist and activist and the inaugural Chairperson of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN). She was a member of the ACT Us Mob Writing (UMW) group and was FNAWN co-editor for the Ora Nui Journal collaboration between First Nations Australia writers and Maori writers.

Kerry conducted writing workshops nationally and internationally and her poetry and prose have been published in many journals and anthologies internationally.

Yvette Henry Holt is a national multi-award-winning poet, academic, serial photographer and habitual hiker, heralding from the Yiman, Wakaman and Bidjara Nations’ of Queensland. Her poetry has been widely published, translated and anthologised in both in print and online. In 2005 Yvette was awarded the Queensland Premier’s David Unaipon Award for her manuscript, anonymous premonition (UQP), the Victorian Premier’s Literary for Indigenous Writing in 2008, Scanlon Poetry Prize NSW 2008, Kate Challis RAKA Award 2010.

Samantha Falkner is the current Chairperson for US Mob Writing Group of which Kerry was a member. Samantha is a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman from the Wuthuthi / Yadhaigana peoples, Cape York Peninsula and Badu and Moa Islands, Torres Strait. She is the author of Life Blong Ali Drummond: A Life in the Torres Strait, published in 2007 by Aboriginal Studies Press. She has performed at several festivals and conferences and has had poetry and prose published: locally and nationally.

Why did Mr Chicken go to Paris? Why do two blankets change the way we see the world? Why do animals give us insights into ourselves?

Join our star-studded panel as illustrators Freya Blackwood, Leigh Hobbs and Alison Lester discuss the ways in which characters are created and go on to warm the hearts of children and readers worldwide. As children, the ways in which we see the world are often shaped from our favourite children’s books and characters, leaving us with a nostalgic vulnerability well into adulthood. Take the opportunity to hear about the creative process from three industry leading illustrators.

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1. Leigh Hobbs at Drawing board, photo by Robert Littlewood

NAIDOC Week celebrations (NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’) on 7-14 July are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

We were joined by Dr Lynette Riley, Aunty Diane Riley-McNaboe and Shannan Dodson for part two of our NAIDOC Week event. They discussed the struggles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in campaigning for their rights and recognition of their cultures.

NAIDOC Week celebrations (NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’) on 7-14 July are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

Join Dr Elizabeth Burrows in part 1 of this presentation as she discusses her research.

Carry on to Part 2 with Shannan Dodson, Lynette Riley and Diane Riley-McNaboe for a seminar about the struggles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in campaigning for their rights and recognition of their cultures.

Public Life, Private Man: Writing the Biography of Alfred Deakin

The core challenge of political biography is to answer the question, ‘why politics?’. What inner need did it fulfil, and what emotional and psychological resources were mustered for its accomplishment?

These questions are harder to answer for Alfred Deakin than for less complex political leaders. Deakin was a gifted orator and successful politician who was a father of federation and Australia’s most significant prime minister until the Second World War. Yet he was also a deeply private man, with an intense intellectual and spiritual life, who wondered often if politics was the right path for him.

The 2019 Seymour Biography Lecture was delivered by emeritus professor and political historian Judith Brett, who will discussed the tensions and synergies between Deakin’s public and private lives. In 2017, Brett published The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, the final addition to her trilogy of books on the history of Australian Liberals. The first full-length study of Deakin in more than 50 years, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin went on to win the 2018 National Biography Award. Brett’s prior publications include Robert Menzies' Forgotten People, Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard and this year’s From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting.

The Seymour Biography Lecture is supported by Dr John Seymour and Mrs Heather Seymour AO.