Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 19 March
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
The space between pure fiction and fact harbours many curious things. When it comes to famous (or infamous) historical events, we may know broadly what happened – but the inner lives and private worlds of key players are literally left to the imagination. Enter fiction.
For this edition of The Next Big Thing, we’ll hear stories of real lives reimagined. How can we make sense of history, and lend humanity to its most influential (or discreet) figures? When legacy overshadows experience, how might we fill in the gaps? Come and find out – with readings from Kelly Gardiner (Goddess), Marija Pericic (The Lost Pages), Bram Presser (The Book of Dirt) and Joey Bui ('Dinosaurs').
Readings will be our bookseller for this event.
Featuring
Stella Charls
Stella is the Wheeler Centre's Programming Coordinator.
An emerging arts manager and event producer, Stella was previously the Marketing and Events Coordinator for Readings, and the Festival Manager for the National Young Writers’ Festival, Australia’s largest gathering of young and innovative writers working in both new and traditional forms.
Drawn to both programming and operations, with a particular interest in education and support for young creatives, she has worked for Teach for Australia, Melbourne Writers Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival. She really likes festivals.
Stella has a BA in Philosophy, Political Science and Literature and a Diploma of Italian from the University of Melbourne, but has definitely learnt more useful things working on the floor as a both a front of house manager and a bookseller for Readings since 2012.
Kelly Gardiner
Kelly Gardiner writes historical fiction and fantasy for all ages. Her latest middle-grade series is The Firewatcher Chronicles and her other books include 1917, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Young People’s History Prize ...
Marija Pericic
Marija Pericic grew up in Perth, Western Australia, the child of German and Croatian immigrants. She holds a Masters degree in English Literature. She now lives in Melbourne where she teaches English as a foreign language. The Lost Pages is her first novel.
Bram Presser
Bram Presser is a semi-reformed punk rocker, recovering academic, lapsed criminal lawyer and two-time cartoon character. For ten years he fronted the internationally-acclaimed punk band, Yidcore, before turning to writing ...
Joey Bui
Joey Bui is a Vietnamese-Australian writer. She graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi where she completed her first collection of short stories, Lucky Ticket, based on interviews with Vietnamese refugees around the world. Joey has been published in journals and magazines in the US and Australia. She is currently studying at Harvard Law School. Lucky Ticket was longlisted for the 2020 Stella Prize and the Booktopia Favourite Australian Book Award, shortlisted for the 2020 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the 2020 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing NSW Premier's Literary Awards and was the winner of the University of Southern Queensland Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection Queensland Literary Awards 2020.