Melbourne
Melbourne – August 18 2025
Queen Victoria Womens Centre, Melbourne CBD
Stella is partnering with QVWC to bring another Stella Day Out to Melbourne. The day will be jam packed with brilliant sessions, featuring Emily Maguire, Clare G. Coleman, Louisa Lim & Maxine Beneba Clarke. Reserve your spot to not miss out!
Session 1:
11:30am – 12:30pm
Claire G. Coleman in conversation about her Stella listed book TerraNullis, and how speculative fiction can be used as a tool for resistance, empathy, and truth-telling. Moderated by Sarah L’Estrange.
Session 2:
1:30pm – 2:30pm
2025 Longlisted author Emily Maguire will be in conversation with Jaclyn Crupi, discussing all things Rapture and Emily’s writing journey.
Session 3:
3pm – 4pm
Join Stella listed authors Maxine Beneba Clarke & Louisa Lim as they discuss the politics of memory and the power of storytelling as resistance – in Australia, Hong Kong and beyond. Moderated by Sophie Cunningham.
Emily Maguire is the author of seven novels and three non-fiction books. Her novel An Isolated Incident was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and her 2022 book Love Objects was shortlisted for the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
She was the 2018/2019 Writer-in-Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and the 2023 HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Emily has an MA in literature and works as a mentor to young and emerging writers.
Her latest book is the novel, Rapture.
Jaclyn Crupi is a book editor, event moderator, awards judge and bookseller. She has worked in publishing and bookselling since 2002. Jaclyn has written numerous books for both children and adults. Her book, Garden Like a Nonno, was shortlisted for an Indie Book Award and longlisted for an Australian Book Industry Award. Her most recent children’s book, The ABC Kids Guide to Loving the Planet, won the Environment Award for Children’s Literature. Jaclyn’s work has appeared in The Guardian, SBS Voices, At Home, The Canberra Times, PIP Magazine and Frankie, as well as the anthology Family published by Text Publishing. Her latest book is called Planting for Native Birds, Bees and Butterflies.
Louisa Lim is an award-winning journalist and podcaster who reported from China for a decade for BBC and NPR. Her second book, Indelible City; Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong (Text publishing, 2022) was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary awards, among others. It won the 2024 OpenBooks Award in Taiwan and was named a New York Times Notable book. Her first book The People’s Republic of Amnesia; Tiananmen Revisited was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. She is an Associate Professor in Audiovisual Journalism at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism and co-hosts the Little Red Podcast.
Sophie Cunningham is the author of ten books. Her most recent novel is This Devastating Fever (Ultimo Press) and her third book for children, Mango and Hopscotch – The Inspiring Story of a Brave Kangaroo and Her Joey Rescued from Floodwaters (Albert Street Books) has just been released. Her essay collection City of Trees (Text Publishing) was published in 2019. A Member of the Order of Australia for her contributions to literature, Sophie is the Chair of the Australian Society of Authors and a non- executive director of the Copyright Agency. Sophie was a co-founder of The Stella Prize.
Sarah L’Estrange is a producer and broadcaster at ABC Radio National and has been steeped in books and writing for almost 20 years. As producer of The Book Show she has interviewed many Australian and international authors including Helen Garner, Christos Tsiolkas, Min Jin Lee and Salman Rushdie. She has also produced and presented special series for Radio National including “Fakes and Frauds” about Australian literary scandals and “Banned Books” which looks at the forces driving book bans worldwide. She also produced “The Books that Changed Us” short series which takes a fresh look at five influential books of the 20th century.
Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman whose family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. She writes fiction, essays, poetry and art criticism while either living in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road.
Born in Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar (Perth), away from her ancestral country she has lived most of her life in Victoria and most of that in and around Naarm (Melbourne).
During an extended circuit of the continent she wrote a novel, influenced by certain experiences gained on the road. She has since won a Black&Write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship for that novel, Terra Nullius. Terra Nullius was published in Australia by Hachette Australia and in North America by Small Beer Press.
Claire’s second novel, The Old Lie, was written in response to what she learned when traveling and was published in 2019 by Hachette Australia.
Lies, Damned Lies, Claire’s first non-fiction book, unpacking the effects of the history of Australia’s colonisation, was released on the 1st of September 2021.
Enclave is her third novel.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of over fifteen books for adults and children, including the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award winning poetry collection Carrying The World, and the ABIA winning poetry collection for young people It’s the Sound of the Thing, and the recent follow up Stuff I’m Not Sorry For, the bestselling memoir The Hate Race, and the ABIA and Indie Award winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil. Her books for children include the Boston Globe Horn Prize winning picture book The Patchwork Bike, and the illustrated poem When We Say Black Lives Matter, which was longlisted for the UK’s Kate Greenaway Medal. She is currently the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne.
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