Melbourne
Melbourne – Thursday 9 November 2023
Session 1 – The Language of Poetry
11am – 12pm
Award-winning poets Thuy On and Lucy Van had a refreshing discussion about the poetry landscape in Australia. Moderated by Nadia Niaz.
Session 2 – Talking Graphic Novels
12:15pm – 1:15pm
What makes a graphic novel unforgettable? Stella Prize-listed authors Eloise Grills and Mandy Ord explored that question in discussion with Astrid Edwards.
Session 3 – The Stella Prize Story
2:30PM – 3:30PM
Some of the Stella Prize founders got together to inspire future generations of writers and to delve into the future of this beloved prize. With Monica Dux, Jo Case, Christine Gordon and moderated by Fiona Sweet.
Session 4 – After the Jaguar
4PM
2023 Stella Prize winner, Sarah Holland-Batt, and moderator Astrid Edward discussed the stellar poetry collection The Jaguar.
Thuy On is an arts journalist, critic, editor and poet. She’s the Reviews Editor for online publication, ArtsHub. She has two poetry collections published by University of Western Australia Publlishing (UWAP). Turbulence (2020) and Decadence (2022).
Lucy Van is the poet speaking on the Figures EP produced by Laila Sakini (Purely
Physical, 2017; expanded vinyl Boomkat, 2022), and the writer of The Open (Cordite,
2021), which was longlisted for the Stella Prize, shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore Award
and highly commended by the Anne Elder Award. Her poems and essays have appeared
in places including Best of Australian Poems, Debris, Cordite Poetry Review, Australian Poetry Journal, Rabbit, Axon, Meanjin, Australian Book Review, Liminal Review of Books, History of Photography, Journal of Australian Studies, and Southerly. She has been a writer in residence at Overland and a Melbourne Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, where she also teaches poetry.
Nadia Niaz is the author of The Djinn Hunters (2023, Rabbit Press) and the founder and editor of the Australian Multilingual Writing Project. Her academic and creative work explores multilingual creative expression, the practicalities and politics of translation, and the idea of ‘belonging’ in multiple contexts. She has been a Wheeler Centre Fellow and a member of the West Writers Group, has worked collaboratively with visual artists to produce original work, and has been a commissioned poet for the School of Anatomy’s Body Donation Program at the University of Melbourne. Nadia teaches creative writing at the University of Melbourne and is committed to creating opportunities for emerging writers in Australia. When she’s not working with words, she’s usually lifting heavy things or dancing.
Eloise Grills is a writer and artist interested in comics and multimodal storytelling. Her work has been published widely, in places like the New Yorker, Meanjin, the Guardian and the Rumpus. Her illustrated memoir, big beautiful female theory, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Indie Book Award for Illustrated Nonfiction.
Mandy Ord is a Naarm (Melbourne) based illustrator and cartoonist with a long history of self publishing. Her book When One Person Dies The Whole World Is Over published by Brow Books was longlisted for The Stella Prize in 2020 and shortlisted for the Small Press Book Network Book of the Year in 2021. Her first illustrated children’s book Chalk Boy, published by Allen & Unwin and written by Margaret Wild was shortlisted for Picture Book of the Year in 2019 by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Her most recent book of short stories Bulk Nuts is published by Gazebo Books.
Astrid Edwards is a bibliophile, critic and academic. She hosts The Garret podcast, teaches writing at RMIT University, and is undertaking her PhD on barriers to publishing climate fiction in Australia. She was a judge for The Stella Prize in 2023 & 2025.
Monica Dux is the author of two memoirs: Lapsed: losing your religion is harder than it looks (HarperCollins ABC Books, 2021) and Things I Didn’t Expect (when I was expecting) (MUP, 2013). She is the co-author of The Great Feminist Denial (MUP, 2008) and editor of the anthology Mothermorphosis (MUP, 2015). Monica was a founding board member of the Stella Prize and the Feminist Writers Festival. From 2013 until 2022 she was a columnist for The Saturday Age. She is currently working on a third memoir and doing a PhD in Creative Practice at RMIT.
Jo Case is an Adelaide-based writer, editor and critic who is Deputy Editor, Books & Ideas at The Conversation. She has been associate publisher at Wakefield Press, deputy editor of Australian Book Review, books editor of The Big Issue and associate editor of Kill Your Darlings. A former program manager of Melbourne Writers Festival, Jo was a co-founder of the Feminist Writers Festival and a founding board member of the Stella Prize. She is the author of the memoir Boomer and Me (2013) and co-editor, with Clem Bastow, of a forthcoming anthology of essays by autistic women and gender-diverse writers for UQP. Her personal essays have been published in the anthologies Mothermorphosis (MUP, 2015) and Rebellious Daughters (Ventura Press, 2016). Her cultural criticism has been published in Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Guardian, Australian Book Review and The Monthly and she writes a monthly books column for Adelaide’s InReview.
Christine Gordon is the Programming and Community Engagement Manager for Readings, a role she has held for many years. Prior to realising the role of her dreams, Christine worked for many years in public women’s health. She is one of the founding board members of the Stella Prize, sits on the board of the Emerging Writers Festival, The Victorian Women’s Trust and the Readings Foundation. She has been the recipient of two City of Literature international travel grants. In 2020 she completed a Women in Leadership certificate. Apart from a life -long devotion to feminism, Christine is an avid reader and gardener.
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. She was the recipient of an Ian Potter Travel Grant in 2018 for her research on international art festival best practice.
Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning poet, editor, critic and academic, and the author of three books of poems—most recently The Jaguar (UQP, 2023) which won the 2023 Stella Prize and the 2023 Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance—and a book of essays, Fishing for Lightning, a collection of her columns on contemporary Australian poetry written for The Australian. Educated at New York University and the University of Queensland, she is the recipient of a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, the W.G. Walker Memorial Fulbright Scholarship, residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell colonies in the United States, and an Australia Council Literature Residency at the B.R. Whiting Studio in Rome, among other honours. Recently, she was the 2022 Judy Harris Writer in Residence at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre, and she is currently Professor of Poetry at QUT.
Astrid Edwards is a bibliophile, critic and academic. She hosts The Garret podcast, teaches writing at RMIT University, and is undertaking her PhD on barriers to publishing climate fiction in Australia. She was a judge for The Stella Prize in 2023 & 2025.
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