The Wheeler Centre

In the opening address for the inaugural Blak & Bright Festival, Anita Heiss ‘unpacks the Blak’ – presenting 20 reasons why and how you should read Indigenous literature. She's joined by two of our finest Indigenous actors, reading excerpts from 20 Blak books. Listen in on a funny and challenging, rapid-fire event.

Kon Karapanagiotidis recalls his discovery, at age 14, of Martin Luther King's Strength to Love – a book which 'didn't just change my life, but kinda saved my life'.

Just after our 2016 Gala Night of Storytelling - The Book that Changed Me - here's a short story from SBS newsreader and culture buff Lee Lin Chin on discovering her 'terminal attachment to literature … where one communed very intimately with people, and their worlds,' plus William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

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Tom Bamforth believes literary travel writing that embraces context, complexity and contradiction can bring attention to parts of the world that urgently need it. Tom has worked in Pakistan, Sudan, the Philippines and the Pacific in emergency relief and disaster risk education programs. Can travel writing encourage audiences to engage with issues that might seem peripheral, but have global ramifications?

They grow up so fast! This year marks significant birthdays for three celebrated works of Australian queer literature. Holding the Man, the memoir by Timothy Conigrave turns 20. Loaded, the first novel by Christos Tsiolkas turns 20, too. The Monkey’s Mask, the verse novel by Dorothy Porter, turns 21. To mark these milestones, we’ll explore the cultural impact of these three works and discuss the evolution of queer literature in Australia in the years since. What’s changed? What hasn’t changed? And what’s coming next? Find out with this conversation between Tommy Murphy, Christos Tsiolkas and Andrea Goldsmith. Hosted by Dr Quinn Eades.

Holly Ransom, Ruchir Punjabi and Jan Owen discuss the policies, bodies, organisations, and individuals shaping the future for young Australians – in a full hour of questions from the audience. Hosted by Madeleine Morris.

Two of the best in the children’s book business, author Sally Rippin and author/illustrator Shaun Tan, will chat with Stevee and Keely, two young editors from children’s literary journal Early Harvest, as they explore writing, illustrating and commissioning for children.

Join Larissa Dubecki, in conversation with chefs George Calombaris, Rosa Mitchell and Elizabeth Chong, as they explore their own culinary heritage and Australia’s diverse food culture.

Join us for a bonafide Wheeler Centre tradition – in which we unravel and revel in the delights and lowlights, majesties and travesties of 2015. Follow sugar-tongued songbird Casey Bennetto and a bevy of the nation’s most charmed and charming entertainers and writers – Santilla Chingaipe, The Listies, Marc Fennell, Penny Wong, First Dog on the Moon, Nicholas J. Johnson, Toby Halligan, Jane Caro, Clare Wright, Tina Del Twist and Sami Shah – as they farewell the year in style ... one month at a time, in five-minute bursts of song, story and slam poetry.