Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Friday 30 April
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Now in its third year, The Next Chapter writers’ scheme provides emerging writers with time, space and support in which to thrive. Join three recipients and their mentors – Dan Hogan and Rebecca Giggs, Oliver Reeson and Maria Tumarkin, and Jonathon Slottje and Bruce Pascoe – to discuss the varied forms support for writers can take, and the unique qualities of writing mentorships. Hosted by Sophie Black.
Presented by the Wheeler Centre with support from the Aesop Foundation, The Next Chapter gives ten outstanding writers the time and space to write, and a 12-month mentorship with an experienced writer. Through these mentorships, tomorrow’s great voices are steered and supported by today’s literary icons.
Presented in partnership with Sydney Writers’ Festival
Featuring
Rebecca Giggs
Rebecca Giggs is a writer from Perth, Western Australia. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Science Writing, Granta, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, and Griffith Review. Rebecca's non-fiction focuses on how people connect with animals in a time of technological and ecological change. Her debut book is Fathoms: The World in the Whale.
Oliver Reeson
Oliver Reeson is an essayist and screenwriter. They are currently one of the recipients of the Next Chapter Fellowship, and mentored by Maria Tumarkin. Their work has appeared in publications such as Overland, Meanjin, Autostraddle, Literary Hub, and The Saturday Paper. In 2018 they co-created and wrote the SBS web series Homecoming Queens.
View Profile
Maria Tumarkin
Maria Tumarkin writes books, essays, reviews, and pieces for performance and radio; she collaborates with sound and visual artists and has had her work carved into dockside tiles. She is the author of four books of ideas. Her fourth ...
Jonathon Slottje
Jonathon was born at the Brisbane Women’s Hospital in 1947 to Cecile Walker who lived in Wolvi, Queensland. His grandmother was Eleanor Ryan, daughter of Gubbi Gubbi midwife Christina Copson and Irishman Michael Ryan. Due to severe abuse at the hands of his Russian stepfather Walter Lucas, Jonathon was taken in and raised by his grandmother Eleanor and her partner Frank Wild in Redcliffe.
The effects of the abuse he was subjected to, along with the racism rife in Australian society at the time, led to many stints of incarceration from the late 1960s until the late 1980s. Jonathon married in the 1970s, and he and his wife moved to New Zealand where his four sons were born. He believed his children would grow up less risk of the racism he had experienced in my country of birth. However, ghosts of the past caught up with him and he was deported back to Australia where he served more time, while his marriage broke up and he lost contact with his children. Jonathon met his current wife Elizabeth in Brisbane in 1992, and together they began the business that they still run today.
Bruce Pascoe
Bruce Pascoe is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man born in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. He’s the author of the best-selling Dark Emu, Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia ...
Sophie Black
Sophie Black is a writer, journalist and Crikey’s editor-in-chief. She has worked in senior management across cultural and media organisations, and has written for outlets such as The Guardian and The Monthly. As the Wheeler ...