Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 21 March
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
What Men Really Think About ... , a series of public discussions aimed at lifting the lid on issues close to the hearts of Australian men, comes to the Wheeler Centre for an investigation of fatherhood. What makes a good father? Who and what do we want our fathers to be? How do you protect your children and teach them resilience at the same time? And how and when do you let them go?
Three remarkable men speak with frank honesty about their fathers' impact on their lives, where they find themselves today as fathers, and their struggle to become fathers they can be proud of.
What Men Really Think About … Fatherhood promises to be an honest, public, emotionally confronting, yet humorous look at this most central of men’s issues, in a society famous for male repression.
Featuring
Martin Flanagan
Martin Flanagan is one of Australia’s most respected sports journalists. He was a regular AFL columnist for the Age for many years, and is the author of over a dozen books – most recently The Short Long Book and On Listening – and A Wink From the Universe, about the Western Bulldogs’ remarkable 2016 premiership win.
Martin was born in Tasmania in 1955 and graduated in law from the University of Tasmania in 1975. He lives in Melbourne.
Martin’s other books include a collection of poetry, two collections of his newspaper writing and an autobiographical novel, Going Away. He co-wrote The Line with his 91-year-old father, Arch Flanagan, based on Arch’s experience of the Burma Railway.
Kevin Fitzgerald
Kevin started business life as a secondary school teacher, graduated to tertiary teaching and found himself as a trained accountant, teaching computing to business students and business to computer students.
He has run his own Information Security consultancy for over 30 years and often runs across former students in boardrooms and corporate cafés. After football and athletics Kevin is now a keen skier (water and snow), he has a small tree farm outside of Mansfield, regularly practices yoga and meditation and is learning to play the piano.
He is also a father of five having been through adoption, divorce and remarriage.
Timothy O'Leary
Timothy O'Leary is an educator and therapist in private practice. He originally trained as a social worker and has a Masters in couples and relationships counselling and a graduate diploma in infant mental health.
Timothy’s work ranges from running ‘Father’s Time’ ante-natal classes for expectant dads, to therapeutic group-work with mothers and babies who have experienced family violence.
He is married with two children and is an ever-optimistic Collingwood supporter. He is currently finishing Fathers who Triumph, a book for new fathers.
Kim Farrant
Kim Farrant writes and directs drama, documentaries and commercials for film and TV.
Kim’s work has screened and sold all over the world. Her credits include the TV drama series Rush, as well as the documentaries Naked on the Inside, The Secret Side of Me and Out of the Saddle. She is renowned for unearthing and exploring the core of people, something she loves dearly.