Stella Day Out
Stella Day Out is a free one-day literary festival that celebrates and promotes the outstanding contributions of women and non-binary writers to Australian literature.
Stella Day Out Ballarat – 16 November 2024
Join 2024 Stella longlisted author Kate Midlenhall, as she has an exciting conversation about her recent novel The Hummingbird Effect. This conversation will be moderated by Van Badham. Reserve your spot here.
Kate Mildenhall is an author, writing teacher and podcaster. Her debut novel SKYLARKING was longlisted for Debut Fiction in The Indie Book Awards 2017 and the 2017 Voss Literary Award. Her second novel, THE MOTHER FAULT was longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and shortlisted for the 2021 Aurealis Science Fiction Novel of the Year. Her latest novel is THE HUMMINGBIRD EFFECT (2023), shortlisted for the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and longlisted for the Stella Prize and the Indie Book Awards Fiction, 2024. For the past six years Kate has co-hosted The First Time podcast. She is currently undertaking a PhD in creative process at RMIT University and working on her fourth novel. In October she will release her first picture book TO STIR WITH LOVE, illustrated by Jess Racklyeft. Kate lives on Wurundjeri lands in Hurstbridge with her partner and two children.
Van Badham is an internationally award-winning writer, theatremaker and occasional broadcaster. She is a featured columnist for The Guardian and has also written for The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Telegraph (UK) and The Age. She was a Walkley finalist for her non-fiction book debut, 2021’s best-selling QAnon And On: A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults and she was the first Australian to win Britain’s Harold Hobson prize for theatre criticism. As a commentator she’s appeared numerous times for the ABC’s Q And A and The Drum shows, for The Project on Ten, on Politics HQ for Sky and the Today Show on Channel 9, and regularly for ABC radio, while as a writer of radio drama she’s been broadcast both by the ABC and BBC. Presently, she co-hosts the award winning news/politics podcast The Week on Wednesday, which has had more than a million downloads as of August, 2023. Van is currently writing a second non-fiction book for Hardie Grant as well as being under commission for new work at Melbourne Theatre Company and developing episodic television with Jungle Entertainment in Sydney. Her new musical The Questions co-created with composer Richard Wise premieres this year at STCSA.
Do you need to be somewhere to write about it? Join Adriane Howell and Favel Parrett as they discuss their travels to Greece and Antarctica to write their books. Moderated by Fiona Sweet. Reserve your spot here.
Adriane Howell is a Melbourne-based writer. Her debut novel, Hydra, was shortlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize; the 2023 Readings New Australian Fiction Prize and the 2024 South Australian Literary Awards, National Awards for Fiction.
Favel Parrett‘s career was launched with her acclaimed debut PAST THE SHALLOWS. It was shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award and won the Dobbie Literary Award. THERE WAS STILL LOVE, Favel’s third novel, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and won Book of the Year – The Indie Book Awards 2020. She lives in Victoria and is passionate about surfing and dingoes.
Fiona Sweet is the Creative Director and CEO of Stella. She is the past Artistic Director and CEO of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and the inaugural Director of the National Centre for Photography. Fiona is an influential and in-demand public speaker, industry judge, photographic portfolio reviewer and assessor in Australia and internationally. She was the director and founder of Sweet Creative and is recognised for her inspiring and intelligent delivery of uniquely crafted festivals and arts events. She is also a former Board Director of the Australian Graphic Design Association, the Melbourne Fringe, and co-founded Melbourne’s Acland Street Projection Festival. Fiona currently sits on the LCI University Photographic Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Committee for the Discipline of Photography at RMIT and is a past recent board member of the Melbourne Jewish Book Week. She was the recipient of an Ian Potter Travel Grant in 2018 for her research on international art festival best practice.
Stella Day Out Orange – 23 November 2024
Fiona Wright, author of The World was Whole, discusses her writing journey with Fiona Sweet. Reserve your spot here.
Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic. Her book of essays Small Acts of Disappearance won the 2016 Kibble Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Stella Prize. Her poetry collections are Knuckled and Domestic Interior, and her most recent essay collection is The World Was Whole. She is currently the Judy Harris Writer in Residence at Sydney University’s Charles Perkins Centre.
Fiona Sweet is the Creative Director and CEO of Stella. She is the past Artistic Director and CEO of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and the inaugural Director of the National Centre for Photography. Fiona is an influential and in-demand public speaker, industry judge, photographic portfolio reviewer and assessor in Australia and internationally. She was the director and founder of Sweet Creative and is recognised for her inspiring and intelligent delivery of uniquely crafted festivals and arts events. She is also a former Board Director of the Australian Graphic Design Association, the Melbourne Fringe, and co-founded Melbourne’s Acland Street Projection Festival. Fiona currently sits on the LCI University Photographic Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Committee for the Discipline of Photography at RMIT and is a past recent board member of the Melbourne Jewish Book Week. She was the recipient of an Ian Potter Travel Grant in 2018 for her research on international art festival best practice.
Listen to Nardi Simpson talk about her novels and the influence on songwriting and music. Moderated by Fiona Sweet. Reserve your spot here.
Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay storyteller from New South Wales’ northwest freshwater plains. As a member of Indigenous duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has travelled nationally and internationally for the past 22 years. She is also a founding member of Freshwater, an all-female vocal ensemble formed to revive the language and singing traditions of NSW river communities. Nardi is a graduate of Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composers and is currently undertaking a PhD through the Australian National University’s School of Music in Composition. Nardi is the current musical director of Barayagal, a cross-cultural choir based at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Nardi’s debut novel, Song of the Crocodile, won the 2017 Black&Write! Fellowship and the ALS Gold Medal, and was longlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Belburd is her second novel. Nardi currently lives in Sydney and continues to be heavily involved in the teaching and sharing of culture in both her Sydney and Yuwaalaraay communities.
Fiona Sweet is the Creative Director and CEO of Stella. She is the past Artistic Director and CEO of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and the inaugural Director of the National Centre for Photography. Fiona is an influential and in-demand public speaker, industry judge, photographic portfolio reviewer and assessor in Australia and internationally. She was the director and founder of Sweet Creative and is recognised for her inspiring and intelligent delivery of uniquely crafted festivals and arts events. She is also a former Board Director of the Australian Graphic Design Association, the Melbourne Fringe, and co-founded Melbourne’s Acland Street Projection Festival. Fiona currently sits on the LCI University Photographic Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Committee for the Discipline of Photography at RMIT and is a past recent board member of the Melbourne Jewish Book Week. She was the recipient of an Ian Potter Travel Grant in 2018 for her research on international art festival best practice.
Stella Day Out Melbourne – 28 November 2024
Mandy Beaumont, author of The Furies, speaks to Jayne Tuttle about the strong female characters in her novels. Reserve your spot here.
Mandy Beaumont is an award-winning writer and a researcher in creative writing. Her debut novel The Furies was long-listed for the Stella Prize and shortlisted for the MUD Literary Prize as well as the Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book of the Year. Her collection of short stories, Wild, Fearless Chests, was shortlisted for the Richell Prize and the Dorothy Hewett Award. Stories from the collection also won the MOTH International Short Story Prize and were shortlisted for other notable awards. She was a convenor in creative writing and communications at Griffith University for over a decade, and holds a PhD and a Research Masters in creative writing. She is also a regular feature writer and book reviewer for The Big Issue. Her new true crime inspired novel, The Thrill of It, will be out in March 2025.
Jayne Tuttle is a writer, performer and bookseller. Her first book, Paris or Die, was published in 2020 and her second, My Sweet Guillotine, in 2022. A third, to complete the Paris trilogy, is set for publication in 2025. She has written for The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, and other international outlets. In 2023, Jayne was sponsored by the Ville de Paris to adapt and perform the play for an international audience. She has also received fellowships from the La Napoule Art Foundation and Bundanon Trust, and is a long-term artist-in-residence at the Centre les Récollets in Paris. In 2021, she was awarded the Varuna Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship. Jayne co-owns The Bookshop at Queenscliff.
Join Emily Bitto as she discusses how her research inspired her novel The Strays. Moderated by Sally Warhaft. Reserve your spot here.
Emily Bitto is an award-winning writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. She has a Masters in Literary Studies and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. Her debut novel, The Strays, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and the published novel went on to win the 2015 Stella Prize. Her second novel, Wild Abandon, won the Margaret and Colin Roderick Award and was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal. Emily has been teaching for over a decade, and is currently a tutor and course advisor at the Faber Writing Academy.
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer and the host of the Wheeler Centre’s live journalism series, The Fifth Estate, now in its third year. She is a former editor of The Monthly magazine and the author of the bestselling book Well May We Say: The Speeches that Made Australia. Sally is a regular host and commentator on ABC radio and has a PhD in anthropology. She did her fieldwork in Mumbai, India, living by the seashore with the local fishing community.
Join authors Jennifer Down, Jessie Tu and Katherine Brabon as they examine 13 years of Stella, and what it feels like to be a young writer listed for a national prize. Moderated by Corrie Perkins. Reserve your spot here.
Jessie Tu is a book critic at The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, and a journalist for Women’s Agenda. Her debut novel, A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, won the ABIA for 2020 Literary Fiction Book of the Year. The Honeyeater is her second novel.
Katherine Brabon is an author based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her latest novel, Body Friend, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize.
Jennifer Down is an author, editor and translator. Her most recent novel, Bodies of Light, received the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in the same year. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.
Corrie Perkin is a books advocate, editor, award-winning journalist, podcaster, interviewer, events host and communications advisor. For 12 years she owned a bookshop in Melbourne and continues her mission of bringing writers and readers together via her media projects. Corrie is a former board member of the Wheeler Centre. She is also the Director of the Sorrento Writers Festival.
Stella Day Out Sydney – 19 October 2024
Join 2023 Stella Prize shortlisted author Dr Debra Dank as she has a rich and stimulating discussion with the fabulous Mia Hull. Reserve your spot here.
Dr Debra Dank is Gudanji/Wakaja, from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory of Australia.
For almost 40 years she has worked in a variety of roles in primary, secondary and tertiary education across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory in urban and remote contexts. She is particularly interested in how narrative is practiced in Aboriginal communities and why semiotics is critical to understanding the breadth of communicative mechanisms and functions in this practice.
Her first book, We come with this place, won an unprecedented four categories in the 2023 NSW Premier’s awards, The University of Queensland 2023 Non-Fiction Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for 2023. It was also shortlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize, the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance and the People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award and the Nonfiction Award at the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Mia Hull is a Barkindji writer and radio maker from Ngemba Country in Far West NSW. Before joining AWAYE!, Mia presented FBi Radio’s flagship long-form interview program Out of the Box for three years, where she profiled some of Australia’s most fascinating people.
Mia’s work has been featured on BBC Sounds, ABC Radio Illawarra, RN Drive, Living Arts and Culture, Happy Mag and All The Best.
2020 Stella Prize longlisted author, Yumna Kassab, is interviewed by writer Michelle Law about intersecting poetry with fiction. Reserve your spot here.
Yumna Kassab is a writer from Western Sydney. She is the author of The House of Youssef, Australiana and The Lovers. Her latest book, Politica, is available from Ultimo Press. It is an imagined history of the Arab world or else a feminine telling of politics. Her books have been listed for The Stella, Miles Franklin Award, Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, QLD Literary Awards, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and NSW Premier’s Award. She is the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature.
Michelle Law is a writer and actor – working in print, screen and stage – currently based on Gadigal Land. Her works include the plays, Single Asian Female (La Boite Theatre Company), Top Coat (Sydney Theatre Company), and Miss Peony (Belvoir St Theatre); the television show Homecoming Queens (SBS); and the book Asian Girls are Going Places (Hardie Grant). Her awards include two Australian Writers Guild Awards, the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award, and the Arts & Culture 40 Under 40 Awards, which celebrates the country’s most influential Asian Australians. Michelle is also a widely published freelance author and a prolific speaker who regularly appears on panels and at festivals.
Watch 2024 Stella Prize winner Alexis Wright in conversation with Dr. Yves Rees in an invigorating pre-recorded interview. Reserve your spot here.
Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She is the author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and, most recently, Praiseworthy. Her works of non-fiction include Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory; and Tracker, the award-winning collective memoir of Aboriginal leader, Tracker Tilmouth. Her books have been published widely overseas, including in China, the US, the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Poland. Wright has won numerous literary awards, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Carpentaria and Praiseworthy, as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Queensland Literary Award for Praiseworthy, which was also shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Wright is the first author to win the Stella Prize twice (for Tracker and Praiseworthy), and Praiseworthy is the only book to have received both the Stella and the Miles Franklin awards. She held the position of Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, and has received honorary titles at universities including the University of Melbourne, Western Sydney University and the University of Queensland. She is the inaugural winner of the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, and a finalist for the 2024 Melbourne Prize for Literature.
Dr Yves Rees (they/them) is a writer and historian living in Naarm, on unceded Wurundjeri land. They are a Lecturer in History at La Trobe University, co-host of Archive Fever podcast, and author of All About Yves: Notes from a Transition (Allen & Unwin, 2021). They are also co-editor of Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2022) and Transnationalism, Nationalism and Australian History (Palgrave, 2017). Rees was awarded the 2020 ABR Calibre Essay Prize and a 2021 Varuna Residential Fellowship. Their writing has featured in the Guardian, The Age, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Meanjin, Griffith Review and Overland. They have judged the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the Calibre Essay Prize. Their next book is forthcoming with NewSouth in 2024.
Stella Day Out Canberra – 21 September 2024
Join Virginia Hausseger as she has an invigorating conversation with 2015 Stella Prize author Biff Ward for the first session of the day. Reserve your spot here.
Biff Ward’s memoir, The Third Chopstick: Tracks through the Vietnam War, was released in 2022. Her literary memoir, In My Mother’s Hands (Allen & Unwin, 2014), was short-listed for the NSW and WA Premiers’ literary awards and long-listed for The Stella Prize in 2015. In 1984, her ground-breaking expose, Father-Daughter Rape was published by The Women’s Press, UK. Her work has appeared in various anthologies and her novella, In1974, was a winner of the Griffith Review novella competition in 2017. She is grateful to live in Canberra on never-ceded Ngunnawal Country.
Virginia Haussegger AM is a passionate women’s advocate, and communication specialist with unique expertise in leading powerful conversations. She is also an award-winning television journalist, writer and commentator, whose extensive media career spans 30 years.
2021 Stella Prize-listed author Pitaya Chin, is interviewed by writer Zoya Patel about their writing journey. Reserve your spot here.
Pitaya Chin is a Stella-shortlisted (2021) and Barbara Jefferis (2022) award-winning novelist. Pitaya has had work published by New Socialist, Meanjin, Debris Magazine, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Burning House Press and Social Text Periscope.
Zoya Patel is the author of two books, No Country Woman (Hachette, 2018) and Once A Stranger (Hachette, 2023). She is the former editor of Lip Magazine, and founded literary journal Feminartsy, where she published and mentored emerging writers from 2014 – 2018. Zoya has also worked in strategic communications for a decade, dedicating her career to not-for-profits.
Join 2021 & 2018 Stella Prize-listed author Mirandi Riwoe in an inspiring discussion about her writing journey. Moderated by Beejay Silcox. Reserve your spot here.
Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Sunbirds. Her novel, Stone Sky Gold Mountain, won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. The Burnished Sun is a collection of her short stories and novellas. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies (QUT).
Beejay Silcox is a writer and literary critic. Her reviews and cultural commentary regularly appear in national arts publications, and are increasingly finding an international audience including in the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and The New York Times. She has been described as “the most significant new Australian critic in decades”. An award-winning creative writing teacher, Beejay has taught workshops across the globe, including in the US and Cairo. Her own short stories and essays have been selected for a number of high-profile Australian anthologies. Beejay has stories to tell. She eloped to Las Vegas, escaped from quicksand, and drove to Timbuktu in a car held together with a bra-strap. Beejay is the newly appointed Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival.
Stella Day Out Curban – 8 September 2024
Join award-winning author Maggie MacKellar for the first session of the day as she has an invigorating discussion about the rhythms of agricultural life and the dangerous seasonal land cycles. Reserve your spot here.
Take part in compelling conversation with award-winning writer Jessie Tu as she explores how the themes of sex, power and loneliness live and evolve in her writing. Reserve your spot here.
Stella Day Out Brisbane – 31 August 2024
Join award-winning authors Emily O’Grady, Kristina Olsson and Mirandi Riwoe for the first session of the day as they have an invigorating discussion about the stages of an author’s career.
Reserve a spot here.
Emily O’Grady’s debut novel, The Yellow House, won the 2018 Vogel Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. Her second novel, Feast (Allen & Unwin) was published in 2023 and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Stella Prize. In 2024 she was named as a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist.
Kristina Olsson is a journalist and the award-winning author of the novels Shell, In One Skin, and The China Garden, and two works of nonfiction, Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir and Kilroy was Here. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.
Mirandi Riwoe is the author of crime, literary and historical fiction novels including Stone Sky Gold Mountain, and her latest book Sunbirds. She has been shortlisted for the Stella prize twice and longlisted for the Miles Franklin as well as winning numerous other awards including the inaugural ARA Historical Fiction prize.
Join authors Kris Kneen and Laura Jean McKay as they unravel the mysterious art of poetry and short stories. This panel will be moderated by Raelee Lancaster.
Reserve a spot here.
Kris Kneen is the award-winning author of memoir: Affection, The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen and Fat Girl Dancinhg and their fiction titles: An Uncertain Grace, Steeplechase, Triptych, The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine, Wintering, as well as the Thomas Shapcott Award-winning poetry collection Eating My Grandmother. They have written and directed broadcast documentaries for SBS and ABC Television.
Raelee Lancaster is a writer/librarian based in Brisbane. Her creative writing crosses poetry, memoir, essay, criticism, and playwriting. She’s written for The Guardian, SBS Voices, The Griffith Review, The Big Issue, and more. As a librarian, Raelee’s research paper “Fact or Folklore? An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Framework to Cataloguing Indigenous Knowledge” was published in the Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association. Raised on Awabakal land, Raelee is descended from the Wiradjuri and Biripi people.
Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country – winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. The Animals in That Country has been shortlisted for The Kitschies, The Stella Prize, The Readings Prize and the ASL Gold Medal and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia and an Adjunct Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. She was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022. Her latest collection is Gunflower, named one of The Guardian’s best books of 2023.
Join award-winning authors Debra Dank and Anita Heiss as they explore the vital topic of reclaiming and revitalising First Nations languages. This session will be moderated by Cheryl Leavy.
Reserve a spot here.
Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman, married to Rick, with three adult children and two grandchildren. An educator, she has worked in teaching and learning for many years – a gift given through the hard work of her parents. She continues to experience the privilege of living with country and with family. Debra completed her PhD in Narrative Theory and Semiotics at Deakin University in 2021. Debra’s memoir We Come with This Place, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in 2023 among many other prestigious nominations.
Dr Anita Heiss is an internationally published, award-winning author of 23 books; non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction and children’s novels. She is a proud member of the Wiradyuri Nation of central New South Wales, an Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the GO Foundation, and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. Anita is also the Publisher at Large of Bundyi, an imprint of Simon & Schuster cultivating First Nations talent, and a board member of the National Justice Project and Circa Contemporary Circus. As an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre, she adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage. It premiered at the 2022 Brisbane Festival and was produced by Belvoir St for the Sydney Festival in 2024. Her novel, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, about the Great Flood of Gundagai, won the 2022 NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize and the 2022 ABIA Awards. Anita’s first children’s picture book is Bidhi Galing (Big Rain), also about the Great Flood of Gundagai. Anita enjoys running, eating chocolate and being a creative disruptor.
Cheryl Leavy is from the Kooma and Nguri Nations in western and central Queensland. A poet, Cheryl was the 2022 winner of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize. Several commissions followed, including for Camerata – Queensland’s chamber orchestra, Red Room’s Poetry Month, 2023, and most recently poetry activations for Daniel Boyd’s Rainbow Serpent (Version) at the Institute of Modern Art and Judy Watson’s exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery. Cheryl was a proud recipient of the inaugural FNAWN Varuna Residency Fellowships for 2024 to work on her poetry manuscript, Mudunja – Song Country. Cheryl’s first children’s book, Yanga Mother, written in Kooma and translated to English, will be published by UQP this year, with her second, For You Country, in 2025. Cheryl often writes in her Kooma language and is passionate about its revitalisation. Cheryl has enjoyed a long career in the arts and cultural sector, serving on many boards, including for the Brisbane Writers Festival, where she established and co-chaired the First Nations Advisory Committee. Cheryl has also achieved notable success in First Nations policy and rights advocacy, with her most recent focus on environmental and land justice.
Stella Day Out Hobart– 16 February 2024
1pm – 2pm | Exploring hope and trust in fiction
Award-winning author Amanda Lohrey sits down with poet and editor Michelle Cahill to talk about hope and trust in literature.
Michelle Cahill (she/they)
Michelle is a poet and novelist of Indian heritage. She is the 2023 Hedberg Writer-in-Residence. Her short story collection Letter to Pessoa was awarded the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing. Her novel Daisy & Woolf was longlisted in the ALS Gold Medal and the Voss Literary Prize. She has been shortlisted in the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize and received the KWS Hilary Mantel International Short Story Prize. Cahill is the artistic director of Mascara.
Amanda Lohrey (she/her)
Amanda lives in Tasmania and writes fiction. In November 2012 she received the 2012 Patrick White Award for literature. Her 2020 novel The Labyrinth won the 2021 Miles Franklin Award, the Voss Award for fiction, the Prime Minister’s Award for fiction and the Tasmanian Literary Award for fiction. Her most recent publication is a novel, The Conversion (2023). In 2022, Melbourne University Press published a critical study of her work, Lohrey, by Dr Julieanne Lamond of the Australian National University.
Hear the 2017 Stella Prize winner, Heather Rose, reflect on her stunning novel The Museum of Modern Love and her latest book Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here.
Heather Rose (she/her)
Heather is the author of nine novels and a memoir. Heather’s books have been shortlisted, longlisted or won awards for literary fiction, crime fiction, fantasy/sci fi and children’s literature. Her seventh novel, The Museum of Modern Love, won the 2017 Stella Prize, the Christina Stead Prize and the Margaret Scott Prize. It has been widely translated. Heather’s most recent novel Bruny won the ABIA 2020 General Fiction Book of the Year and is currently in production as a six-part tv series. The Museum of Modern Love is being adapted for film. The play of The Museum of Modern Love, written by Tom Holloway, debuted at the 2022 Sydney Festival. Heather’s latest book is the memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here. Heather’s next novel will be published in late 2024.
Danielle Wood (she/her)
Danielle is the author of the Vogel Prize-winning novel The Alphabet of Light and Dark, Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls, Housewife Superstar: the very best of Marjorie Bligh and Mothers Grimm. As ‘Minnie Darke’, she’s written the novels Star-crossed, The Lost Love Song, and With Love from Wish & Co, and the novellas Wild Apples and The Yellow Wood. With Heather Rose, she is ‘Angelica Banks’, author of the Tuesday McGillycuddy books for children. She is also the co-editor of two anthologies of Tasmanian writing, Deep South: Stories from Tasmania and Island Story: Tasmania in Object and Text. She lives in Hobart and teaches writing at the University of Tasmania.
Stella Day Out Melbourne – 9 November 2023
Join award-winning poets Thuy On and Lucy Van for an invigorating discussion about the poetry landscape in Australia. Hosted by Nadia Niaz.
What makes a graphic novel unforgettable? Stella Prize-listed authors Eloise Grills and Mandy Ord will explore the question and leave you with sound knowledge to use in your own writing. Hosted by Astrid Edwards.
Interested in literary prizes? Meet some of the Stella Prize founders in this event that promises to inspire future generations of writers and to delve into the future of this beloved prize. With Monica Dux, Jo Case, Christine Gordon and Fiona Sweet.
Join the 2023 Stella Prize winner, Sarah Holland-Batt, and host Astrid Edward as they discuss the stellar poetry collection The Jaguar.
Complimentary snacks before and after each session thanks to our sponsors Bonsoy and Charlie’s Fine Food Co.
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