The Wheeler Centre

In this edition of Double Booked Club, hear from two outstanding First Nations literary voices discussing dispossession and the ties that bind generations.

Tara June Winch is a Wiradjuri author, now based in France, whose debut novel, Swallow the Air, and short-story collection, After the Carnage, have won many awards, critical acclaim – and the affection of readers. Her second novel, The Yield, is about an Aboriginal elder and his granddaughter. It’s a story about returning to country and reclaiming language.

Tony Birch is a poet, activist and academic, as well as a much-loved novelist, short-story writer and Wheeler Centre regular. His new book, The White Girl, is about the Stolen Generations and is set in 1960s rural Australia. It’s the story of Odette, and her fair-skinned granddaughter, who she must protect from authorities at all costs.

Winch and Birch speak with host Claire G. Coleman – author of The Old Lie and Terra Nullius.

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Australia is the only western democracy without a Charter of Human Rights or an equivalent legal protection. What’s holding us back? For this discussion, we brought together three panellists – Kristen Hilton, Teela Reid and Gillian Triggs – to discuss the push for a federal Charter of Human Rights. Hosted by Lee Carnie, they outline glaring problem areas in Australia’s human-rights record and make a case for legally enshrined and protected rights for all Australians.

Lee Carnie, Kristen Hilton, Teela Reid and Gillian Triggs at the Wheeler Centre

Australia is the only western democracy without a Charter of Human Rights or an equivalent legal protection. What’s holding us back?

For this discussion, we brought together three panellists – Kristen Hilton, Teela Reid and Gillian Triggs – to discuss the push for a federal Charter of Human Rights. Hosted by Lee Carnie, they outline glaring problem areas in Australia’s human-rights record and make a case for legally enshrined and protected rights for all Australians.

What can we learn from the existing charters in Victoria and ACT? What real-life and practical difference would a Charter of Human Rights make for everyday Australians? And, with successive Australian governments showing a sometimes lax attitude towards our international human rights obligations, what reason is there to believe that things might be different under a charter?

Presented in partnership with the Human Rights Law Centre.

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In this conversation, hosted by Daniel Browning, our panellists including Kelrick Martin, Aaron Fa'aoso, Vicki Couzens, Brendan Kennedy and Aunty Fay Stewart-Muir discuss campaigns across the country to revitalise and celebrate Indigenous languages. They talk about the utility, beauty and knowledge contained within both traditional and modern, changing languages – and the efforts to recognise and preserve them.

From left: Daniel Browning, Vicki Couzens, Fay Stewart-Muir, Aaron Fa'aoso, Kelrick Martin and Brendan Kennedy, with Auslan interpreter — Photo: Jon Tjhia

‘Budgerigar’, ‘quandong’, ‘Torana’, ‘Canberra’ – there are many Aboriginal words in everyday use by both non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians. What do we gain from knowing and learning First Nations words? And how can we embed more traditional language into the daily lives of all Australians?

At least 250 Indigenous Australian languages were spoken on this continent in 1788. Today only around 120 Indigenous languages are spoken in homes and most of these are considered endangered. For many years, elders have been working hard to document, share and promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island languages across the country. But in the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages there’s an especially strong momentum building around this issue.

In this conversation, hosted by Daniel Browning, our panellists including Kelrick Martin, Aaron Fa'aoso, Vicki Couzens, Brendan Kennedy and Fay Stewart-Muir discuss campaigns across the country to revitalise and celebrate Indigenous languages. They talk about the utility, beauty and knowledge contained within both traditional and modern, changing languages – and the efforts to recognise and preserve them.

Looking for Auslan? Check out the video of this event.

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Melanie Cheng is a GP as well as a writer and her debut short-story collection, Australia Day, won the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her new book, Room for a Stranger, is a novel set in Melbourne, about the unlikely friendship between an older woman and a young student from Hong Kong. Omar Sakr's second book of poetry, The Lost Arabs, has been described as a 'seething, urgent collection' about sexuality, divinity and redemption. His debut collection, These Wild Houses, was critically acclaimed and shortlisted for several awards including the Kenneth Slessor Prize. Hosted by Khalid Warsame, the pair discuss their work at a lunchtime session.

Khalid Warsame, Melanie Cheng and Omar Sakr at the Wheeler Centre

Omar Sakr and Melanie Cheng are two very different voices with very different styles, but over the past few years both have blasted welcome fresh air into the Australian literary scene.

Melanie Cheng is a GP as well as a writer and her debut short-story collection, Australia Day, won the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her new book, Room for a Stranger, is a novel set in Melbourne, about the unlikely friendship between an older woman and a young student from Hong Kong.

Omar Sakr's second book of poetry, The Lost Arabs, has been described as a 'seething, urgent collection' about sexuality, divinity and redemption. His debut collection, These Wild Houses, was critically acclaimed and shortlisted for several awards including the Kenneth Slessor Prize.

Hosted by Khalid Warsame, the pair discuss their work at a lunchtime session.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our second Group Texts event, celebrating great Australian genre writers, we hear from some of the stars of Australian crime writing; writers of thrillers, true-crime investigations and classic whodunnits. Each writer shares a short reflection or provocation on the crime genre, followed by a panel discussion. They discuss sub-genres, ethics and aesthetics – and what crime sriting can tell us about ourselves and the world we live in. Hosted by Emma Viskic, with Sulari Gentill, Mark Brandi, Rachael Brown, Laura Elizabeth Woollett and Gary Disher.

Left to right: Emma Viskic, Mark Brandi, Sulari Gentill, Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Rachael Brown and Garry Disher

It’s no mystery that Australian crime writers are on some kind of a rampage – some kind of a spree – filling bookshops, racing up bestseller lists and taking over big and small screens across the globe.

Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies has been a major TV hit. The series’ executive producer, Reese Witherspoon, is now working on a movie adaptation of Jane Harper's The Dry. Local audiences have been glued to the Jack Irish ABC TV series and to podcasts such as Trace and The Teacher’s Pet, and the last few years have seen a juggernaut of local book sales for established names and newcomers alike.

In our second Group Texts event, celebrating great Australian genre writers, we hear from some of the stars of Australian crime writing; writers of thrillers, true-crime investigations and classic whodunnits. Each writer shares a short reflection or provocation on the crime genre, followed by a panel discussion. They discuss sub-genres, ethics and aesthetics – and what crime writing can tell us about ourselves and the world we live in. Hosted by Emma Viskic, with Sulari Gentill, Mark Brandi, Rachael Brown, Laura Elizabeth Woollett and Gary Disher.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In conversation with Ellena Savage for our Mayhem series in April 2019, the extraordinary American literary author Rachel Kushner (Telex from Cuba, The Flamethrowers and, most recently, The Mars Room) talks crime, punishment and American institutions.