The Wheeler Centre Storytelling Gala: 2020 Hindsight

Alison Lester grew up on a farm by the sea, and first rode a horse as a baby in her father's arms. Her picture books mix imaginary worlds with everyday life, encouraging children to believe in themselves and celebrate the differences that make them special. Alison is involved in many community art projects and spends part of every year travelling to remote Indigenous communities, using her books to help children and adults write and draw about their own lives.

In 2012, Alison became Australia's first Children's Book Laureate, a position she shared with Boori Monty Pryor. In 2016, she was awarded the Dromkeen Medal for her outstanding achievement in the creation of Australian children's and young adult literature, and in 2018 she became the first children's book writer to win the Melbourne Prize for Literature, for her outstanding contribution to Australian literature and cultural and intellectual life. In 2019, Alison was awarded an Australia Post Legends Award and featured on a stamp, as well as being the recipient of a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Australia Day Honours List.

Archie Roach’s song ‘Took the Children Away’ won an International Human Rights Achievement Award and his first album Charcoal Lane featured in US Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 50 in 1992, going gold in Australia and winning two ARIA awards. Archie’s recording history – including 12 albums, soundtracks, film and theatrical scores – has been hugely successful, hitting ARIA charts and winning awards, year in, year out.

Eddie Ayres is a writer, music teacher and broadcaster. He was born on the White Cliffs of Dover and began playing violin when he was eight years old. He studied music in Manchester, Berlin and London, played viola professionally in the UK and Hong Kong and moved to Australia in 2003.

Eddie is the presenter of ABC Classic’s weekend breakfast show.

Eddie has written three books – Cadence, about his journey by bicycle from England to Hong Kong with only a violin for company, Danger Music, describing his year teaching music in Afghanistan, and a children’s book, Sonam and the Silence. He is currently working on a new book about the benefits of music in our lives.

Eddie was born Emma, and transitioned just before his 50th birthday. Better late than never.

Cate Kennedy is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely ...

Alice Pung OAM is the author of the bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson ...

Jack Charles is an actor, musician, potter, Koori elder and national treasure.

After Bastardy, a biographical documentary about Jack, was released in 2008, he rediscovered family members, and is now a respected elder of the Boon Wurrung clan and one of Australia's foremost Indigenous stage and film actors.

As a member of the Archie Roach Foundation’s Council of Elders, Jack has taken his place as a Kadaitcha man — a traditional lawman — and works to help Indigenous prisoners see a better life beyond jail. 

Jack was in and out of Pentridge, and other jails, most of his life. He spent his 20th, 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays in jail. Under the Australian government’s forced assimilation program, he was taken from his Indigenous mother as a baby.

Along with Bob Maza, Jack was a co-founder of Australia’s first Indigenous theatre company, Nindethana, in 1972. He became a well-known performer, and, in those days, it was not uncommon for Jack to take a bow in some of the nation’s most prestigious theatres and then leave through the stage door looking for a bridge to sleep under.

Gregory Phillips is from the Waanyi and Jaru peoples, and comes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa. He is a medical anthropologist, with thirty years’ experience in leading change in cultural safety, healing and decolonisation.
Gregory is Chief Executive Officer of ABSTARR Consulting, is a Professor of First People’s Health, and serves on several boards and committees, including chairing the Ebony Institute, the Cathy Freeman Foundation and AHPRA’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health strategy group.

Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...

Sinéad Stubbins is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and cultural critic, and the author of In My Defence, I Have No Defence. She made her name writing TV recaps for Junkee on shows such as The Bachelor and Game of Thrones, and she’s also on the writing team for The Weekly with Charlie Pickering on the ABC. She has written for The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, frankie, The Big Issue, New York Magazine and many other publications.

Nevo Zisin (they/them) is a storyteller, esteemed educator on transgender topics, TEDx speaker, poet, workshop facilitator in schools and workplaces, and award-winning author of Finding Nevo, a memoir on gender transition ...