Name: Writing Blak Legacies: A First Nations Literature Gala
Start: 2023-07-06
End: 2023-07-06
Location: The Capitol

Event and Ticketing Details

Dates & Times

Thursday 06 July

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Location

The Capitol

113 Swanston Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

Get directions

Accessibility

Auslan Interpreted

Wheelchair accessible

Accessible toilets available

Assistive Listening

You can learn more about accessiblity at The Capitol at rmit.edu.au. Please notify us of all access requirements when booking online so we can assist you with your visit. If you require further information, please contact reception on 03 9094 7800 or ticketing@wheelercentre.com.

Additional Notes

Published by UQP, the First Nations Classics is inspired by the richness and cultural importance of First Nations writing. The First Nations Classics series currently includes: Unbranded by Herb Wharton, introduced by Kev Carmody Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Nugi Garimara (Doris Pilkington), introduced by Tara June Winch Blood by Tony Birch, introduced by Larissa Behrendt Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven, introduced by Alison Whittaker Don't Take Your Love to Town by Ruby Langford Gibini, introduced by Nardi Simpson The Window Seat by Archie Weller, introduced by Ernie Dingo Purple Threads by Jeanine Leane, introduced by Evelyn Araluen Holocaust Island by Graeme Dixon, introduced by Ali Cobby Eckermann Readers can look forward to more First Nations Classics in 2024. You can learn more about the series at uqp.com.au. The bookseller for this event is Amplify Bookstore.

Event Notes

Please note: Kev Carmody, Larissa Behrendt and Tara June Winch will appear via video.

About the event

This year, the University of Queensland Press released the first instalment of its First Nations Classics series, recognising the brilliant and vital literary contributions made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers across the decades. To mark the publication of this landmark series, the Wheeler Centre and Blak & Bright present a vibrant evening of reflections, readings and performance featuring many of the series authors and contributors, hosted by acclaimed author Tony Birch. Hear from Evelyn Araluen, Larissa Behrendt, Ellen van Neerven, Alison Whittaker, Jeanine Leane, Archie Weller, Kev Carmody and Tara June Winch, alongside series editor Yasmin Smith and series designer Jenna Lee, with a special musical performance by Nardi Simpson and Yarn Bomb by Zerene Jaadwa. Together they will celebrate the 2023 NAIDOC theme ‘For Our Elders’, recognising the importance of intergenerational knowledge and storytelling and bringing renewed attention to timeless works of literature that are as important, engaging and relevant today as they were on first publication. Kev Carmody, Larissa Behrendt and Tara June Winch will appear via video. Artwork by Jenna Lee. Presented in partnership with Blak & Bright. Supported by RMIT Culture.

In the Foyer: Yawa

As part of this event, in the foyer of The Capitol, audiences will have the opportunity to play Yawa, a four-player arcade game created in a collaboration between N'arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM, artist Troy Innocent with Jarra Karalinar Steel (art) and Narayana Johnson (music). Yawa means journey in Boonwurrung language. To play, four players explore an abstract map of Country and collect words in the Boonwurrung language as they go. Learn more about YAWA here.

Featuring

Evelyn Araluen

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal.

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Larissa Behrendt

Larissa Behrendt AO is the Laureate Fellow at Jumbunna Research, UTS. She is an award winning author and filmmaker and the host of Speaking Out on ABC Radio.

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Tony Birch

Tony Birch is the author of four novels, five short fiction collections, and two poetry books. His most recent book is the novel, Women and Children (UQP).

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Kev Carmody

Celebrated Indigenous singer-songwriter Kev Carmody was born in 1946 to an Irish-Australian father and Aboriginal mother. Carmody is particularly well-known for co-writing From Little Things Big Things Grow with Paul Kelly in 1991, which shares the story of the fight for land rights by the Gurindji people in the Northern Territory, led by Vincent Lingiari. His experiences with the bush life, tradition of oral storytelling from his Aboriginal family and love of language from his Irish heritage provided an invaluable foundation for his career in music. Alongside many recognitions for his music, he was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2009.

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Zerene Jaadwa

Zerene has always been taught by her mother to stand tall and proud, not only as a Woman, but as a Blak Queer Woman. As an Activist, Actor, Educator and Creative Zerene has fought long and hard to ensure all voices, stories and truths are told. Zerene Jaadwa is loud, proud and deadly. This can intimidate people but it has also gotten Zerene very far in her short career. Zerene loves what she does, she does it not for herself but for the people, with the people, as the people. The inclusion and diversity of our country is something to be celebrated, not feared, and that is why Zerene fights so hard to make sure everyone is seen and heard. Zerene continues to tell stories and share truth, as her ancestors have done, through many different mediums. Zerene believes in the power of knowledge and standing together as one.

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Jeanine Leane

Jeanine Leane belongs to the Wiradjuri people from the Murrumbidgee River in south west NSW. She is a writer poet and teacher whose prose, essays and poetry have been published widely in Australia and abroad. She is the editor ...

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Jenna Lee

Jenna Lee is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater woman with mixed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. Using art to explore and celebrate her many overlapping identities, Lee works across sculpture, installation, and body adornment. She also works with moving images, photography and projection in the digital medium.

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Nardi Simpson

Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay storyteller from New South Wales' (NSW) northwest freshwater plains. As a member of Indigenous duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has travelled nationally and internationally for the past 22 years. She ...

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Yasmin Smith

Yasmin Smith is an editor, writer and poet of South Sea Islander, Kabi Kabi, Northern Cheyenne and English heritage. Beginning her publishing career at the national black&write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project, she has worked across literary fiction, non-fiction, children’s books and poetry with a focus on supporting First Nations creatives and their stories. She has been a judge for the David Unaipon Award, and was a recipient of the Australian Publishers Association’s Residential Editorial Program in 2022. Yasmin was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize in 2020, and her most recent poem was published in Australian Poetry Journal’s Best of Australian Poems 2022. She is currently an editor at University of Queensland Press where her work includes overseeing their groundbreaking First Nations Classics series.

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Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. They have written two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which was shortlisted in 2021 for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Ellen also won the Queensland Literary Awards – Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award and the University of Melbourne’s Australian Centre Literary Awards – Peter Blazey Fellowship in 2019.

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Archie Weller

Aged twenty-one Archie Weller won runner-up in the inaugural Vogel Bread prize with The Day of the Dog, written in just six weeks and later he worked on the film script of what became the movie Blackfellahs based on his book. But he had been writing short stories and poetry since the age of thirteen, many published in various anthologies, several winning awards. The fantasy novel The Land of the Golden Clouds won the Human Rights Award and lastly his book The Unknown Soldier comprises poetry, some winning awards overseas. Since then he has been translated in Chinese, German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian and Indian in both his own work and in anthologies. Also published in many First Nation works. He has written several plays - one of which - Purple Dreams - opened the Brisbane Festival. His short stories Going Home and The Window Seat are taught in schools.

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Alison Whittaker

Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi multitasker. Between 2017–2018, she was a Fulbright scholar at Harvard Law School, where she was named the Dean’s Scholar in Race, Gender and Criminal Law. Alison is a Senior Researcher at the Jumbunna Institute at UTS. Her debut poetry collection, Lemons in the Chicken Wire, was awarded the State Library of Queensland’s black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship in 2015. Her latest book, Blakwork, was published in 2018 and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and won the QLA Judithe Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection. Alison was also the co-winner of the 2017 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for ‘Many Girls White Linen’. She was the Indigenous Poet-in-Residence for the 2018 Queensland Poetry Festival.

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Tara June Winch

Tara June Winch is a Wiradjuri author, born in Australia in 1983 and based in France. Her first novel, Swallow the Air, was critically acclaimed and she was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist, and has won numerous literary awards. A tenth anniversary edition was published in 2016. In 2008, Tara was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her second book, the story collection After the Carnage, was published in 2016. It was longlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, and shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Queensland Literary Award for a story collection. Her most recent novel, The Yield, won the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

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