The Wheeler Centre

On Sunday 2 July, crowds filled the Melbourne Town Hall to pay tribute – and share in the humour of – the late satirist John Clarke. Today, we're sharing a full audio recording of the event.

Jane Gilmore, Rebecca Shaw, Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Lucy Valentine are writers who put their words, beliefs and opinions on social media – with the intention of connecting, challenging others and pursuing change. With host Sophie Black, they talk about #writingwhilefemale. How do women participate in digital discussion? How do they end up in arguments, decide when to continue them … and what do they do when argument becomes abuse? And, in this odd amalgam of public and private space, how do women edit their own balance of the political and personal?

What do our minds retain, what do they discard, and why? Diving deep into the subconscious for this discussion, we explore the latest in psychology and neuroscience to gain some novel perspectives around forgetting. Is memory loss a natural part of ageing? When is forgetting a brain malfunction, and when it is a healthy, cleansing act of the subconscious? Can forgetting be as valuable as remembering? Can forgetting spur creativity? Join us for a fresh and memorable conversation on the psychological, scientific and even psychoanalytical processes of forgetting. Physician and writer Leah Kaminsky hosts a panel including psychiatrist and Alzheimer's researcher Ashley Bush, behavioural neuroscientist Jee Hyun Kim and psychoanalyst Leonardo Salvador Rodríguez.

What does it mean to write the self, or to write about nationhood – and how do we best fight to ensure others understand how we want to be seen? Host Jane Caro talks with three acclaimed international authors and artists – Paul Beatty, Susan Faludi and Ivan Coyote – whose work is driven by a challenge to interrogate how we move between categories, or are forced to inhabit them.

In this conversation, Slate Culture Gabfest's Dana Stevens and Stephen Metcalf join Bhakthi Puvanenthiran, Mel Campbell and Cerise Howard for a chat about the form and craft of criticism, exploring new and evolving formats and the implications for artists, audiences and working critics themselves. Our panelists – who work across podcast, radio and prose – will weigh up the differences between conversational criticism versus the traditional model of the solo, written perspective.

Matar’s latest book, The Return, describes this hideous quest with exquisite skill and sorrow. In April, it won a Pulitzer Prize. His previous books, the Booker-shortlisted novel In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance, dealt with similar themes, winning praise from the likes of J.M. Coetzee. In this episode of the Wheeler Centre podcast, this extraordinary writer makes his second visit to the Wheeler Centre to discuss his life, career and the art of recollection with Hilary Harper.

In conversation with Emily Sexton, Brit Bennett talks about the duties of writers, the politics of art, the burdens of identity, and her stunning debut novel, The Mothers.

At Northcote Town Hall, the singular Roxane Gay talks politics, pop culture and Beyoncé with Santilla Chingaipe.

What’s working in our drug policy and what isn’t? What is the research telling us? What can we learn from other jurisdictions? Our panel tackle questions from the audience in a full hour of Q&A. Hosted by Madeleine Morris, with Stan Winford, Rick Nugent and Nicole Lee.

There is only one living writer whose work has traversed the subjects of slavery, poker, commercial nomenclature and zombies. Colson Whitehead is audacious, inventive and utterly unpredictable. This singular voice in American literature joins host Michael Williams for a conversation about race and resistance in fiction.