Four incredible creative women share stories about the power of insight, inspiration and resilience. Featuring playwright and star of Black Comedy Nakkiah Lui, 2016 Stella Prize shortlistee Fiona Wright, 2016 Stella Prize winner Charlotte Wood and performance artist and poet Candy Royalle, and hosted by the charming Julia Zemiro.

This podcast was recorded at the Stella Sparks Party, an event celebrating Australian women writers who speak truth to power, reshape our understanding of the world, and reveal unexpected truths about their lives – and ours. The event was held in February 2017 in Sydney, and also included the announcement  of the 2017 Stella Prize Longlist.

Nakkiah Lui’s speech appeared in Tracey Moffatt: My Horizon, edited by Natalie King (Thames & Hudson).

The Stella Podcast theme music is by Geryon – you can find them on Facebook or Soundcloud.

Stella acknowledges the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was made, extends our respect to their elders past and present and to the sovereign Indigenous owners of the land wherever this podcast may reach.

When a lack of political voice leads to disempowerment, disengagement and disadvantage, personal voices speak up.

This episode features a panel from Girls Write Up 2017 in Melbourne called The Personal Is Political.

In this panel, YA and children’s author Rebecca Lim, disability and LGBTQ rights advocate and writer Jax Jacki Brown, and writer and activist Nayuka Gorrie offer personal testimony on the politics that affect them. With host Karen Pickering, the panel discuss ‘own voices’ in fiction, connecting structural disadvantage with personal experience, and using humour and anger as a political tools.

Girls Write Up is  a daylong festival from the Stella Schools Program for teens aged 12–18 that teaches empowerment through writing and sharing stories.

Stella acknowledges the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was made. We extend our respects to their elders past and present and to the sovereign Indigenous owners of the land wherever this podcast may reach.

The Stella Podcast’s theme music is by Geryon – you can find them on Facebook or Soundcloud.

When a lack of political voice leads to disempowerment, disengagement and disadvantage, personal voices speak up.

This episode features a panel from Girls Write Up 2017 in Melbourne called The Personal Is Political.

In this panel, YA and children’s author Rebecca Lim, disability and LGBTQ rights advocate and writer Jax Jacki Brown, and writer and activist Nayuka Gorrie offer personal testimony on the politics that affect them. With host Karen Pickering, the panel discuss ‘own voices’ in fiction, connecting structural disadvantage with personal experience, and using humour and anger as a political tools.

Girls Write Up is  a daylong festival from the Stella Schools Program for teens aged 12–18 that teaches empowerment through writing and sharing stories.

Stella acknowledges the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was made. We extend our respects to their elders past and present and to the sovereign Indigenous owners of the land wherever this podcast may reach.

The Stella Podcast’s theme music is by Geryon – you can find them on Facebook or Soundcloud.

The 2017 Stella Prize Award Night was held at the Arts Centre Melbourne on 18 April. Heather Rose was awarded the prize for her novel The Museum of Modern Love.

Hear highlights from the night, hosted by sports journalist Angela Pippos, including Heather Rose‘s breathtaking acceptance speech and a brilliant ode to Australian women writers by guest speaker Susan Carland.

The Stella Podcast’s theme music is by Geryon – you can find them on Facebook or Soundcloud.

Stella acknowledges the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was made. We extend our respects to their elders past and present and to the sovereign Indigenous owners of the land wherever this podcast may reach.

This episode of the Stella Podcast features the recording of a panel event titled No One Way To Be Asian In Australia, held at Northcote High School on Thursday 23 February. Stella Schools Manager Bec Kavanagh and Stella Ambassadors Alice Pung, Leanne Hall and Rebecca Lim discuss the danger in presenting a single story of a culture or group of people, and talk about how can we push back against cultural stereotypes and generalisations of what it means to grow up Asian in Australia.

This panel is a part of the Stella Schools Provocations, a series of online content to stimulate discussion and deepen understanding around a range of issues pertinent to young people, the society they are growing up in and the particular challenges they face. Each provocation will be discussed by three writers at a launch panel, which is recorded for the Stella Podcast, and a series on the Schools Blog will further explore the theme.

Find out more about the Stella Schools Provocations.

Stella Podcast’s theme music is by Geryon – you can find them on Facebook or Soundcloud.

Stella Schools Manager Bec Kavanagh talks about the Stella Schools Program and the inaugural Girls Write Up in 2016, and we hear from feminist writer Clementine Ford in her opening address at Girls Write Up in Melbourne, urging the audience to speak up, write up, and be brave.

Clementine is a feminist who writes a twice-weekly column for Fairfax’s Daily Life. She is a frequent guest on ABC 774, a semi-frequent guest at The Drum and has also appeared on Channel Nine’s Mornings and ABC’s Q&A. Clementine enjoys wine, cheese and the collected works of Connie Britton. Her first book, Fight Like a Girl, was released in October 2016.

Girls Write Up is a gender-inclusive, intersectional, daylong wordfest for teens that teaches empowerment through writing and sharing stories. Find out more about the Stella Schools Program at thestellaprize.com.au/schools and Girls Write Up at thestellaprize.com.au/schools/girls-write-up.

Stella Podcast’s theme music is by Geryon – you can find them on Facebook or Soundcloud.

At the 2016 Melbourne Writers Festival, the Stella Prize presented Winning Women, a conversation between Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction winner Eimear McBride and 2016 Stella Prize winner Charlotte Wood.

Joined by Aviva Tuffield, Stella’s Executive Director, they discussed Charlotte and Eimear’s acclaimed novels, their influences and sources of inspiration, and the importance of literary prizes.

Charlotte Wood is an Australian author of five novels and two books of nonfiction. Her Stella Prize-winning novel The Natural Way of Things is a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted.

Eimear McBride is an Irish author whose debut novel experienced international success. A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Her second novel, The Lesser Bohemians, is about innocence and the loss of it, and was published in 2016.

We’d like to thank The Monthly for providing this recording.