Outspoken Maleny

In The Titanic Story of Evelyn Lisa Wilkinson - one of Australia's most admired and respected media personalities - explores the life of the only Australian survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. She tells the story of a brave young nurse who wanted to see the world, fell in love, but then almost lost it all in one of the greatest maritime tragedies ever known.Somehow, the courageous role Evelyn Marsden played in the hours after the ship hit an iceberg has been forgotten. In this fascinating book Wilkinson brings together the drama of that night with Evelyn’s own extraordinary story.Lisa Wilkinson’s own story (told in the 2023 autobiography It Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This) is also remarkable. Hired as a girl Friday for the teen magazine Dolly, within two years she became the editor - the youngest-ever of a national magazine - a position she used to triple the circulation before being head-hunted over to Cleo by Kerry Packer himself. Many years later she was inevitably drawn into the world of television, co-hosting the Nine Network’s Today Show, before, eventually, joining the Ten Network as host of its prime-time award-winning news and current affairs program The Project. Currently focused on her writing, Lisa is married to journalist and bestselling author Peter FitzSimons. They have three children.

This is a book of great contemplation… inviting us into tricky and uncertain territory… places we generally shy away from. Its dual voices unfold along parallel and intersecting tracks, charting the complex dance steps of Father/Daughter, Mother/Son, as they try on different roles. Weaving memory, anecdote and reflection the book asks what it takes to live a meaningful life all the way to the finish line.Witty, cutting, meaningful, delightful.David Carlin’s previous books include Our Father Who Wasn’t There, The Abyssinian Contortionist, and The After-Normal. Peta Murray is known for plays Wallflowering, and Salt.

We are delighted - honoured in fact - to open our 2026 series of conversations with former journalist and State Premier, Bob Carr, speaking about his new memoir,  Bring Back Yesterday.In October 2023 Bob’s wife of more than fifty years, Helena, suddenly died . In this memoir  he records his attempt to deal with his grief, switching between the present moment - pacing the night-time streets of Sydney - and reflections on his shared past with Helena, including ruminations on travel, conversations and cultural curiosity. Bob Carr was the longest serving Premier of NSW. A committed conservationist, he used his term in power to create literally hundreds of National Parks, preserving vast areas of wilderness. He later held the position of Foreign Minister under Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. He is the author of four books, including  The Diary of a Foreign Minister. 

Maisie and Charlie meet at a life-drawing session as undergraduates: she’s the model, he’s an artist. Their immediate connection carries them across two decades as they navigate the slippery dynamics of friendship, estrangement and family.Emily Lighezzolo’s bold debut interrogates the collision of art and gaze, desire and consent, muse and meaning. This is a love story. At its core: a woman’s body – seen, touched, loved, hated, commodified and reclaimed.   Life Drawing is an award-winning and unflinching novel for our times. Hypothetically, would you want to live forever but be invisible, or have a short life and be seen? Hypothetically, would you give up wine forever or sex for ten years?Hypothetically, would you show a friend someone else’s nude?Emily Lighezzolo has worked in Australian publishing for nearly a decade.   Life Drawing won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the Queensland Literary Awards and is her first book. She lives in Meanjin/Brisbane.

Hugh Mackay, social psychologist  extraordinaire - ‘the man who explains us to ourselves’ has a new book.Just Saying is a series of twenty-five essays that take as their starting points statements from writers and thinkers as varied as Susan Sontag and Bertrand Russell, from Samuel Johnson to Gloria Steinem, from Plato to Miles Franklin.In these reflections Mackay explores themes ranging from kindness and humility to power and prejudice; from gender equality to ethnic diversity; from coping with change to the damage inflicted on ourselves by revenge, and the great gulf between propriety and virtue.Hugh Mackay is the bestselling author of twenty-five books, including The Way We Are and The Kindness Revolution. He had a sixty-year career in social research and was for thirty years a weekly newspaper columnist. In recognition of his pioneering work in social research, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by five Australian universities, as well as being appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia This is Hugh’s third visit to Maleny for Outspoken. Hugh, himself, requested to be included in our program, citing the openness and intelligence of the audience. We couldn’t be more delighted to have him return. Hugh is in conversation with Steven Lang. 

We are, tonight, discussing the new book written by Elaine Green, acclaimed local author of 14 books about community and local history. Unfortunately Elaine is unwell. In her absence Peter Stevens, President of Lake Baroon Catchment Care Group, and myself, will do our best to explain why it was important to have it written. Lake Baroon, Caring for Catchment, is a history of both Baroon Pocket, the dam that came to be built there, and of how a community undertook to improve the quality of the water throughout the catchment (along with lots of photos!) It shows how a different approach to catchment care - one that involved listening to those who live and farm in the region - delivered remarkable results. It explains how the group grew, over a period of 25 years, from having one person employed for half a day a week, to the single most successful catchment care group in Queensland, with four full-time and two part time staff and a frankly astonishing budget that matches their achievements. In a world of environmental woe this is a great story, one that deserves to be celebrated (and recreated in other catchments). 

How to begin to introduce Dr Bob Brown? I mean, clearly, you all know exactly who he is and so any introduction is redundant. But, at the same time, the sheer breadth of his achievements over the last six decades are probably not as well known as they should be, so, please, bear with me for a moment.After graduating from medicine in 1968, Bob worked in general practice in Canberra, London, Sydney and Perth. He moved to Tasmania in 1972, with his involvement in local environmental politics beginning in 1973, when he became an activist against the damming of Lake Pedder. Although the blockade was not successful, it was this initial clash that led to the formation of the Wilderness Society.Six years later he became the President and was responsible for organising the blockade of the dam-works on Tasmania’s Franklin River in 1982. During that blockade, 1500 people were arrested and 600 jailed, including Bob, who spent 19 days in Risdon Prison. On the day of his release from jail, he was elected as the first Green into Tasmania’s Parliament.In 1983, the Federal Government decided to intervene and gave the Franklin River heritage protection.As a State MP, Bob introduced a wide range of private member’s initiatives. These included his work towards Freedom of Information, Death with Dignity, and Gay Law Reform. In 1987 his bill to ban semi-automatic guns was voted down by both Liberal and Labor members of the House of Assembly, nine years before the Port Arthur massacre. Two years later the same legislation was proposed and passed by the Liberal Party.In 1993 he resigned from the Tasmanian Parliament and in 1996 was elected as a Tasmanian Senator to the Federal Parliament where he remained until 2012. In the meantime he was at the centre of the formation of the Australian Greens. After retiring he set up the Bob Brown Foundation, with the specific aim of ‘defending wild places, protecting wildlife, and empowering people to act for nature.’Throughout his career Bob has been a tireless campaigner for the environment, in particular for the protection of forests. He’s also written several books, most recently the one we’re going to speak about tonight, Defiance.

It is a few years now since Heather Rose came to Maleny to speak about her memoir  Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here. The book revealed that, aside from being a best-selling, internationally-published, award-winning novelist, she had also managed to live a truly remarkable life, pushing the boundaries of the extraordinary in her search for meaning.Now she has returned to the novel with  A Great Act of Love, a story that begins in 1839 when a young woman ‘of means’, Caroline Douglas, arrives in Hobart, with a young boy in her care. After leasing an old cottage next to an abandoned vineyard, she discovers that, in order to not just survive but flourish in her new life, she will have to navigate an insular colony of exiles and opportunists. But Caroline is carrying a secret of great magnitude and it will take all she is made of to bring it into the light. Moving from the champagne vineyards of revolutionary France to London and on to early colonial Australia,   A Great Act of Love is a spellbinding novel of legacy, passion and reinvention, inspired by true events. It is an immensely beautiful and heartrending saga of a father and daughter, and the enduring power of familial love.

These days Chris Hammer is best known for his ‘bush noir’ novels - a category which might even have been created to describe his books. They unravel in far-flung parts of Australia: in the opal fields of Lightning Ridge, out in north-western Victoria, in marginal country. They’re incredibly popular, selling several million to date, all over the world, and two of them have been adapted for television under the title of Scrublands.But it wasn’t always thus. Chris started out as a journalist, winning awards for his insights on the machinations in Canberra. By his own account that eventually got too much for him, and he took off, travelling the length of the Murray/Darling from the Paroo to Adelaide, and wrote a book about it, called The River, seeking to depict and understand the complexities of our longest and most important waterway.The book was much-lauded, and deservedly so, but its greatest gift might be the sense of the landscape and the people of the bush that has come to imbue his novels. Yes, there’s a crime been committed - and one of his protagonists, Nell Buchanan, or the investigative reporter Martin Scarsden - will have to figure out who done it, but the real hero is always going to be the richness of the place and of the people in which it all happens. There are no stereotypes, just people.In his new novel, Legacy, Martin Scarsden is the centre of the action, not because he’s caught the scent of wrong-doing, but because someone is out to kill him. He’s on the run, heading out into the desert, although it seems even there he isn’t safe. He has to simultaneously protect himself, and try to find out who it is that wants him dead.

Hugh White argues that, right now, we confront the world's most dangerous crisis in generations, with the old global order facing a direct challenge in three crucial regions: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and East Asia.And then there’s Donald Trump, under whose leadership America's retreat from any kind of coherence has been both swift and dramatic. For Outspoken Hugh will be discussing his June 2025 Quarterly Essay  : Hard New World, Our post-American Future. White examines the dynamics of the US–China rivalry, and the new regional order which is emerging. He explains the big strategic trends driving the war in Ukraine, and why America has already “lost” Asia. He discusses Albanese's record and Labor's future choices in this new world, and where they might lead. Hugh White is a former Deputy Secretary for Strategy in the Department of Defence, and was the founding Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He is now Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra and is widely regarded as Australia’s pre-eminent commentator on defence matters. In his 2022 essay  Sleepwalk to War: Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America, referring to AUKUS, he wrote: 'In the annals of defence policy failure, it is hard to recall anything more absurd than this whole sad mess.'

Our ‘introducing author’ is the wonderful Joanna Jenkins.Her first novel How To Kill a Client, became a massive best-seller. In her new novel, The Bluff, her focus moves from big-city legal firms to a small country town - but we’re still amongst the legal fraternity.  I've now read  The Bluff and can confirm it's a clever, rich, dynamic novel. So many books set in rural Australia, particularly thrillers, are full of weird stereotypes of bush characters. Joanna avoids this trap. The people in her novel are all believable and interesting, individuals caught up in events beyond their understanding. Highly recommended.

Jane Rawson has an interesting backstory (see below) and much of her recent output has been fiction. In the case of  Human/Nature, however, she presents a series of linked essays that delve, in a very idiosyncratic and personal way, into the many ways we interact with Nature. In deceptively simple language she prises open the faultlines between what we hope or wish those relationships might be, and the facts on the ground, presenting irrefutable arguments only to subtly pull the rug out from beneath them. She discusses, in no particular order, evolution and extinction, minds and exceptionalism, conservation and killing, and much more, drawing in ideas from right across the spectrum. The quality and - there’s that word again - the  nature, of her prose means that the questions she asks have the capacity to pierce our complacencies, if only because she admits, from the start, that they are also hers. Jane began her career as a writer by working for Lonely Planet, travelling to places as different as Prague and Phnom Penh, but eventually settled in Melbourne, taking up the position of editor of the environment and energy section of  The Conversation. Almost a decade ago she moved to Tasmania where she now works for a conservation organisation. In the meantime she has found the time to write four novels, including the Aurealis winning   From The Wreck, as well as the non-fiction work,  The Handbook: surviving and living with climate change.

Our introducing speaker tonight is Dr Barry Traill AM, (BJ). Barry is a long-term resident of Maleny, and is one of Australia’s most successful environmental advocates. He is the former Director of Pew Charitable Trusts’ Australian Outback Program and now leads the Solutions for Climate Australia project, part of the Climate Action Network, working towards creating enduring bi-partisanship in federal politics to achieve decisive action on climate. BJ's an ecologist by training, with a particular interest and expertise in the ecology of terrestrial birds and mammals. He has led many major environmental campaigns, including working with Indigenous peoples to protect Outback landscapes, (Country needs People) and greatly expanding Australia’s marine park network. He has attended several 'COPs' including the 2024 event in Azerbaijan. In 2023 he was, very deservedly, awarded an Order of Australia (AM) for his services to conservation and the environment. In this critical time he will be discussing the state of environmental politics in Australia and the world, focussing on how climate and conservation are being addressed in the campaign.

Our featured author tonight is Debra Oswald. Debra came to prominence, or maybe the right word is fame, with the production of the immensely popular television series Offspring in 2010, for which she was the Creator and Lead Writer. But Debra had already been immersed in theatre and television for many many years before that - we might come to that in a minute - writing several successful plays and episodes for other series. Since then she has shifted her attention to the writing of novels, the one we are talking about tonight, the excellent One Hundred Years of Betty, being her fourth. Previous works include Useful, The Whole Bright Year and The Family Doctor. She has also performed her own One-woman show, Is there something wrong with that woman? Debra has received numerous awards, including two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, a Qld Premier’s Literary Award and an AACTA Award for the screenplay of episondes in Offspring. She's talking tonight with Steven Lang about her new novel, 100 Years of Betty

Our first guest tonight is the fascinating Steve MinOn. Steve’s debut novel is First Name Second Name, which won the Glendower Award for an emerging Queensland writer at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards. He has also been a recipient of the 2021 Queensland Writers Centre’s Publishible program for emerging writers and his articles and short stories have appeared SBS Voices, Mamamia, Nightmare Fuel, WQ Magazine and the 2022 Right Left Write Anthology. Self-described as ‘a child of mixed-race Australia,’ he has at different times been a creative director, an advertising copywriter and a restaurateur. He lives in Brisbane and is currently working on a follow-up novel.

I'm going out on a limb here. I think Rick Morton’s Mean Streak is an important book. Its description of the creation, implementation and eventual dismantling of Robodebt reveals a long slow-motion train wreck – one mendacious cruel scheming carriage after another inevitably, inexorably, piling into the one before it. But it’s also necessary. If we want to live in a society which works (and after the events of this week who doesn’t?) we need to have strong, transparent institutions at its centre. Rick Morton has done something essential for all of us: drilled down into how something as individually damaging and nationally disgraceful as Robodebt could exist in a place like this. Morton is the senior reporter at The Saturday Paper. He has won two Walkley Awards for his coverage of the Royal Commission into Robodebt. He's also the author of the wonderful One Hundred Years of Dirt. He asks you to consider what it might be like to live in a country whose government callously, but deliberately, condemns its poorest citizens to a Kafkaesque nightmare. As some sort of idealogical crusade. To raise funds. That same government who, when it was revealed what they had done, was obliged to pay it all back. Nobody, as you will be well aware, has been punished for what happened. Just in the last fortnight it was announced that the NACC had been forced to reverse its decision not to investigate Robodebt because Commissioner Paul Brereton had not adequately removed himself from the process. Rick grew up on a remote cattle station in far-west Queensland. His childhood gave him an insight into the nature of class in Australia and he writes very lucidly on the subject. When I was growing up, he says, ‘I didn’t know there was a hierarchy because I couldn’t see the rest of the ladder from where I was.’ Rick is a remarkable writer and a great speaker, don't miss this event! Rick is in conversation with Steven Lang.

Siang Lu is the author of two novels, The Whitewash and Ghost Cities. The latter, which we'll be discussing, was inspired by the existence of several vacant uninhabited megacities of China. It follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney's Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn't speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. His first novel, The Whitewash, won the ABIA Audiobook of the Year in 2023 and the Glendower Award for an emerging writer in the Qld Literary Awards. Of Siang Lu, Chris Flynn wrote: 'A literary star is born in Siang Lu, although he'll probably be replaced by a white guy called Jeff at some point, so get in while you can.' Siang is in conversation with Steven Lang

Gina Chick has written a memoir. It’s titled we are the stars, and it follows her life from when she was almost seven years old, all the way through until she’s fifty, and there’s hardly a page you might choose to describe as conventional. Gina – with all that literary royalty in her blood – made her own way, a path which took her on a dance through the hidden world of 90s Sydney nightlife (right into the arms of a conman) and from there into the wilderness where she began a wondrous love affair with some of the deepest lessons life (and death) can offer. Literary royalty? Yes, because although Gina is most famous for having survived alone in the Tasmanian wilderness for 67 days, becoming the inaugural winner of the Alone Australia competition (and endearing herself to some five and a half million viewers), she is, also, the daughter of Suzanne Chick, author of Searching for Charmian. Suzanne, it turned out, was Charmian Clift’s daughter, given up for adoption at birth. Charmian was, of course, one of Australia’s great writers ( Peel Me a Lotus, Mermaid Singing), also famous for living on the island of Hydra with her partner of George Johnston, the author of My Brother Jack These days Gina describes herself as a rewilding facilitator, a writer and a speaker. She’s on the tele right now with Julia Zamero, doing great Australian walks. Gina is, in fact, a force unto herself. Her book is released at the beginning of October and we’re incredibly lucky to have her come to Maleny. Gina is in conversation with Steven Lang

Andrew Stafford’s book Pig City, about Brisbane music from the 70s through to the millennium, has been re-released for its twentieth anniversary. It is, in itself, a major Brisbane icon. Bernard Fanning wrote of it: ‘Twenty years on, Pig City reminds us of how deeply the political undercurrents (Joe Bjelke Peterson’s government) impacted the cultural output of Brisbane’s artists, and how the pioneers of the scene (unknowingly) laid the platform for the bands to come.' Paul Grabowsky: ‘I read Pig City in 2005, as part of my induction into the musical history of Brisbane. I couldn’t put it down. Any city lucky enough to be honoured with such a chronicle is a very lucky place.’ Andrew is in conversation with Steven Lang

Mark Newman was born and raised in South Africa. As a young man he completed a post-graduate philosophy degree at Johannesburg University (University of the Witwatersrand). This was during the time of Apartheid in South Africa, a regime that had a profound affect on him. As soon as he could he arranged to leave, being awarded a scholarship from the French Government to study film-making at the French National Film School. Over the next thirty or forty years Mark has produced and directed films in Africa, the UK and Australia. For the last decade or so – until very recently - he and his partner Robyn Hofmyer were very involved with the Baramba/Cherbourg Aboriginal Community, and the Ration Shed in particular. In recent years, however, Mark has followed a long-held dream to write novels. Dronikus, the novel we’re discussing tonight, is the first to see the light of day. Launched late last year it was short-listed for the Aurealis Award for the best Science-Fiction novel of the year.

Dr Norman Swan was born and raised in Glasgow, but he did his medical training at Aberdeen University, eventually going on to specialise in pediatrics. After he emigrated to Australia in the early 80s, however, he made the move into radio and television broadcasting, mainly with the ABC, and in this role, through a series of programs, including Life Matters, The 7.30 Report, Catalyst, Quantum, Four Corners, and, of course, The Health Report - which he has produced and presented since its inception in 1985, he has been given the label of Australia’s most trusted doctor. And that was before Coronacast. (Interestingly enough for all those in our audience who are lovers of Radio National, Norman is not simply a broadcaster, he was the station’s general manager for three years from 1990, during which time it saw a major revitalisation, bringing on board such luminaries as Philip Adams and Geraldine Doogue, amongst others. We have a lot to thank him for). More recently his focus – when not getting married on the island of Hydra – and many congratulations on that! - he has been the writing of a series of books about health, books which he describes not as giving advice, but presenting evidence. He’s here tonight to speak about So You Want to Know What’s Good for Your Kids?

In the autumn of 2023 Simon undertook to follow the course of the Brisbane River from its source to the sea, in the hope that, by walking its length he might better understand the power and impact of this immense waterway on the environment and communities who rely on it. In Everything is Water, Cleary takes us along on his journey, made both alone and with companions, and explores the way rivers connect landscapes, ecologies, histories, communities and myth. Over four eventful weeks and a serious weather event we are witness to the river in all its beauty and fury. Beautifully told, Everything is Water considers our complex relationship with nature through flood, drought, time and place.

Hugh Mackay has long been recognised as Australia’s leading social psychologist. In The Way We Are, his self-described ‘final book’, he presents a compelling portrait of the country as it stands today. Hugh argues that we have entered a critical period in our social evolution. He identifies several major issues: the unfinished march towards gender equality combined with the concurrent persistence of misogyny; the anti-social consequences of social media and the impacts of information overload; and the decline in religious faith and the things we look towards as a substitute. Some of his observations might not make easy reading, but his analysis goes further, to share his own perspective on the steps we need to take to contribute to the healing of our wounded society. Hugh has written more than twenty books, including Advance Australia… where?, The Art of Belonging, and Beyond Belief. He appears regularly on television, radio and newspapers as a commentator. The Way We Are demonstrates his deep affection for our country and is a marvellous book-end to his illustrious career.

Tyyni and I have now read Carly's memoir, Breath, and are furiously recommending it to everyone we meet. It really is an extraordinary book, telling the story of a remarkable, and some might say difficult, life, but Carly brings to the story a profound sense of humour, combined with a close grasp of something most of us find difficult to deal with, that is, in a word, death. She strikes me as utterly fearless, prepared to speak about everything and anything, which means there is a generosity in her words that is rare, and immensely valuable. Don't miss this opportunity to hear her speak. ‘The only thing more remarkable than Carly-Jay Metcalfe’s story is the way she tells it. Breath captures the privileges and pains of living in our transitory bodies. The absurdities. The cruelties. The bone-deep joys. This book is a love letter to the sublime human mess. An invitation to pay attention to every precious lungful.’ Beejay Silcox

Bri Lee writes investigative journalism, opinion, essays and art criticism. Her work has appeared in, amongst other places, The Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, The Saturday Paper, Crikey and The Guardian. She is the author of three non-fiction works, the memoir, Eggshell Skull, and the two more journalistic works, Beauty and Who Gets to Be Smart. Just nine days ago she launched her marvellous debut novel, The Work, which she’s here to talk about tonight. In publicising this event I described Bri as a phenomen but I think that is, in any objective analysis, an understatement. These four books - Eggshell Skull was a bona fide bestseller - have all been published since 2018. In the meantime she is undertaking a PhD in Law at the University of Sydney - where she lectures on media law - as well as taking literary journeys and running a weekly newsletter entitled News & Reviews, and being that much maligned thing - which hopefully we’ll also get to later - an influencer. As I mentioned at the start of the evening I’m delighted to have her here in Maleny as the guest of Outspoken, please welcome Bri Lee to Maleny.

Tony Birch is the acclaimed author of four novels, including The White Girl and Ghost River, as well as three short story collections and two books of poetry. Most recently his short story collection Dark as Last Night won the New South Wales Premier's Christina Stead Prize for fiction, the Queensland Literary Award Steele Rudd prize and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's literary prize. He has previously been awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for his contribution to Australian literature. Professor Tony Birch has recently been appointed the third Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. Tony will be the third to take up the mantle previously held by two other literary greats, Richard Flanagan and Alexis Wright. Women & Children follows the life of Joe Cluny. It is 1965 and he is living in a working-class suburb with his mum, Marion, and sister, Ruby, spending his days trying to avoid trouble with the nuns at the local Catholic primary school. One evening his Aunty Oona appears on the doorstep, distressed and needing somewhere to stay. As his mum and aunty work out what to do, Joe comes to understand the secrets that the women in his family carry, including on their bodies. Yet their pleas for assistance are met with silence and complicity from all sides. Women & Children is a novel about the love and courage between two sisters, and a sudden loss of childhood innocence.

Melissa is the best-selling author of The Birdman's Wife, which won many awards, including the Qld Premiers/University of Queensland Fiction Award and the Neilsen Bookscan Award. Her new novel is The Naturalist of Amsterdam. At the turn of the 18th century, Amsterdam is at the centre of an intellectual revolution, with artists and scientists racing to record the wonders of the natural world. Of all the brilliant naturalists in Europe, Maria Sibylla Merian is one of its brightest stars. For as long as she can remember, Dorothea Graff’s life has been lived in service to her mother, Maria: from collecting insects to colouring illustrations for Maria’s world-famous publications. While Dorothea longs for a life that is truly her own, she constantly finds herself drawn back into her mother’s world – and shadow. From the jungles of South America to the bustling artists’ studios of Amsterdam, Melissa Ashley charts an incredible period of discovery. With stunning lyricism and immaculate research, The Naturalist of Amsterdam gives voice to the long-ignored women who shaped our understanding of the natural world – both the artists and those who made their work possible.

Sunbirds is set in Java during the Second World War - at the time of Japan’s inexorable move southwards - it depicts the intricate web of identities and loyalties created by war and imperialism, the heartbreaking compromises that so often ensue. Mirandi’s previous novel, Stone Sky Gold Mountain, won the 2020 Queensland Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA History Novel Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

When David Marr set out to research the life of his great-grandmother the last thing he expected to find was a photograph of her father, dressed in the uniform of the Native Police. As he writes: ‘I was appalled and curious. I have been writing about the politics of race all my career. I know what side I’m on. Yet that afternoon I found, in the lower branches of my family tree, Sub-Inspector Reginald Uhr, a professional killer of Aborigines… and his brother D’arcy… also in the massacre business.’ That curiosity, and the sense of being appalled, led him to research the activities of the Native Police, and, from there, to the writing of his new book, Killing For Country. David is the author of a remarkable slew of books, which include his wonderful biography, Patrick White, a Life; Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson), and no less than six Quarterly Essays. He has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, and was a reporter for Four Corners. He is the winner of three Walkley Awards and two honorary Doctorates. He is one of this country’s most esteemed journalists and authors. We are more than simply thrilled he’s coming to Maleny for a conversation about his new book.

A quote from Bookseller + Publisher: 'When researching a new book on George Orwell, powerhouse writer Anna Funder noticed an interesting omission—Eileen Orwell, George’s first wife, was curiously absent. The basis of Wifedom is six newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Norah. It incorporates other letters and facts from the Orwells’ lives and Funder’s exquisite imagining of Eileen’s days. By reading between the lines, piecing together letters, clues and mentions in other people’s diaries, and analysing George’s books and biographies, Funder conjures Eileen as intelligent, funny, dry and self-effacing. Through this process, she provides insight into Orwell that other biographers staunchly avoid mentioning: his womanising, his weakness, his cruelty, and his selfishness. Wifedom also includes the author’s reflections and questions about creative expression and the nature of art. What do you do when your favourite author was a misogynist? What does that mean for you as a reader, writer and wife? What are the conditions required to create art? Are you the wife or the writer? Can you ever be both? In its innovation and coherence, it is reminiscent of Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts or Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time. This intriguing work is a mix of styles and genres, blending academic research, literary reading and philosophical reflection into a riveting biography that not only rediscovers Eileen and paints a picture of a volatile period of history but also poses questions about what we value in art.'

Angela O’Keeffe’s new novel  The Sitter begins with ‘the author’ in an apartment in Paris, looking out towards the burnt shell of the Notre Dame Cathedral. She is, ostensibly, researching the life of Marie-Hortense Fiquet, but Hortense, dead these hundred years, seems to have, in some way, taken over the process of writing. Hortense was, of course, better known as the wife of Cézanne. He painted 29 portraits of her, in none of which she smiles. This is a beautiful small novel, as tightly constructed as any of the portraits. ‘The Sitter is intricately crafted in this way – recurrences, transfigurations and adaptations of details are threaded across the work, their resonance and meanings shifting and changing along the way… For all of its interest in imagination and art, and in looking and being seen, The Sitter is at its heart a novel about grief and love – and their frequent intertwining – as well as the sacrifices that women are compelled to make for love, and the ways in which women might resist, and reclaim themselves – however long after the fact. ‘ Guardian Australia

Kim Mahood grew up in the 1950s and 60s on Mongrel Downs, a cattle station on the edge of the Tanami Desert. Much has changed in those parts in recent years: the land has been handed back to the traditional owners; the mining companies have arrived; Aboriginal art has flourished. Kim, now a writer and artist, still returns every year. Her new book, Wandering with Intent, is a collection of essays she describes as ‘the writer’s equivalent of hunting and gathering… a product of wandering among the contradictions of the cross-cultural world I have chosen to inhabit…’ It involves what she refers to as ground-truthing: ‘My version of that,’ she writes, ‘begins with the physical attributes of place, and moves onto what has happened there. It puts people into place, which brings into play science, stories, husbandry, history, metaphor, and myth. This form of mapping has been called various things — co-mapping, cross-cultural mapping, counter-mapping, radical cartography. The wordsmith in me likes the flamboyant suggestiveness of radical cartography, but my bullshit detector finds it pretentious. There’s nothing radical about what I do. The only surprising thing about it is that it hasn’t been done before.’ Kim is non-Indigenous herself, but grew up surrounded by First Nations people. A multi-award winning author, she writes with a refreshing honesty about important political, social and cultural issues, bringing a strong sense of irony and humour into difficult places, her bullshit detector always close by.

Louise speaks about her biography of Butjala artist Fiona Foley, a 'beautifully composed, intimate first-person account of the artistic practice of Badtjala artist, Fiona Foley. Each chapter meanders and unfolds, taking us on a vivid journey to place -K'gari or Fraser Island - combined with encounters and conversations with the artist, her family and affiliates. Carefully configured and tenderly composed, each chapter has its own rhythm and title extrapolating on how 'art' and 'life' intersect.’ Natalie King OAM Shortlisted for the Magarey Medal for Biography, awarded for an outstanding biographical work. Louise Martin-Chew has worked as a freelance writer, specialising in the visual arts and design, since 1992. She has contributed extensively to national art magazines, newspapers and catalogues and is the author of books on several Australian women artists, notably, Judy Watson, Linde Ivimey and Margot McKinney.

Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as Sandy, is one of the world’s most-loved authors. For many years he was a professor of Medical Law and worked in universities in the UK and abroad before turning his hand to writing fiction. Since then he has written more than 100 books including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular children’s books. His novels have sold tens of millions of copies and been translated into 46 languages. Some of his best-known are, of course, his The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, but also the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in the Scotsman newspaper and now the longest-running serial novel in the world. He is also the author of the Corduroy Mansions series, which started life as an engaging cross-media serial written for the Telegraph online. More recently he launched the Ulf Varg series of Scandi blanc novels set in Sweden.

When you think of compassion, what comes to mind? Kindness, understanding, tenderness, empathy, maybe warmth? Compassion can be all those things – but it is much more. Drawing on his many years of experience as a clinical psychologist and researcher, Dr James Kirby brings together hard science and real-life examples to offer a guide to a more compassionate life and society. Kirby debunks the myth that compassion is simply a feeling and shows us how it is a motivational force that can shape our behaviour and relationships with each other and the world. He considers how it might help with self-criticism, parenting and grief, and he explores what part artificial intelligence might play in a compassionate future. In this engaging and timely book, Kirby traverses philosophy, psychology and pop culture to show how we can choose compassion to make our lives healthier, happier and more meaningful.

Chris is a Gurang Gurang/Taribelang man and former Queenslander of the Year. His memoir tells the remarkable story of how a young boy from Bundaberg grew up to become Principal of the Cherbourg School, the founder of the Stronger Smarter Insitute and, now, to hold a senior position in the Queensland Government, where he is working to forge a path to Treaty. We’re more than simply delighted to have Chris come to Maleny to talk about his book, but also, in this year - when a referendum on a Voice to Parliament will be held - to talk about what are often considered the three pillars of effective reconciliation: Treaty, Truth-telling and the Voice.

Joanna is the author of the fast-paced and witty thriller How to Kill a Client. Gavin Jones is dead. As an in-house lawyer who controlled millions of dollars in fees per year, he wlelded power with manipulative contempt. The partners relied on his favour to fund their lavish lifestyles and, if sycophantic admiration was what it took to secure work from Gavin, well, that's what they delivered. But no-one liked him. The list of those who suffered from his cruelty (particularly the women) was long enough to include just about everyone who had contact with him. But who actually killed him? And why? A remarkable debut novel!

Peter Hudson is a landscape and portrait painter living and working in Maleny. Since the late 1990s he has explored aspects of the natural world, astronomy, mythology, and history to investigate ‘the deep mystery of existence and us being here’. In 1998, he made the first of many trips to the Aboriginal communities of Daguragu and Kalkarinji in Gurindji country in the Northern Territory. The Gurindji people, their land, and the story of the Wave Hill walk-off have been major influences on his work. Hudson exhibits regularly, has won a number of regional art prizes, and is represented in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and Parliament House, Brisbane, among others. His recent exhibition at the USC, The mystery of being here, is the most significant solo presentation of his work so far and responds to Hudson’s overarching interest in our relationship to the world around us. The exhibition was accompanied by a beautifully designed monograph with contributions by Christine Toussainte Morrow, Carol Schwarzman, Jeff McMullen, Charlie Ward and Kev Carmody.

Heather Rose is the award-winning author of Bruny and The Museum of Modern Love. Her new memoir, nothing bad ever happens here is deeply personal collection filled with reflections on love, death, creativity, and healing. Growing up on the remote island of Tasmania, Heather Rose falls in love with nature, but a tragedy that occurs when she is twelve sets her on a course to explore life’s mysteries. Here is a wild barefoot girl born for adventure, a curious seeker initiated in ancient rituals, a fledgling writer who becomes one of Australia’s most highly awarded authors, a businesswoman and a mother whose body may falter at any moment. Heartbreaking and beautiful, this is a love story brimming with courage and joy against all odds. Heather is the author of eight novels, spanning literary fiction, magical realism, crime fiction, political fiction and fantasy. Her novels have won numerous prizes including the Stella Prize, the Christina Stead Prize, the Margaret Scott Prize and the ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year. Her work has been published internationally and translated into numerous languages. She is a passionate teacher of writing and a mentor for developing novelists. She is also one half of the children’s author Angelica Banks. She lives by the sea in Tasmania.

We’re failing this continent. We have been for some time. The latest State of the Environment Report only confirms what we’ve all known for years. In Northern NSW, west of the Divide, it used to be brigalow scrub, growing on what turned out to be the richest soil in the country - not a coincidence as it happens - but it’s almost all gone, and the job of protecting what’s left falls to environmental officers. Late one afternoon in 2014, out near Croppa Creek, things come to a head. An 80 year old farmer, Ian Turnbull, shoots Glen Turner, an environmental officer, in the back. He hounds the wounded man until he’s dead, despite the pleas of his companion. This is the point at which Kate Holden starts her remarkable book The Winter Road. But don’t be confused. Holden's not interested in writing a true crime story. She wants to understand the forces at play here: the way we view land, who owns it, what it’s for, what our responsibility to it entails. And to comprehend those things she discovers she needs to delve into our philosophical and cultural roots, to drill down into our assumptions. She says she’s not a journalist, but the book won a Walkley Award. She says she’s not a historian, but the book won the NSW Premiers non-fiction award this year and is short-listed for the regional and community history award. This is an important book, written by one of our finest writers. ‘A gripping account of our land and ourselves,’ Tara June Winch Holden brilliantly telescopes centuries of history and law into fatal conversations at a farm gate. As one man stalks another on a winter road, the whole psyche of modern Australian settlement comes under trial. An enthralling and disturbing tale told with deep insight and compassion.’ Tom Griffiths

Katie’s first novel, The Mistake, was exceedingly well-received, with cover notes by such luminaries as Liane Moriarty - I absolutely loved this novel… fresh, funny and heartfelt… I didn’t want it to end. Now she returns with The Accident, revealing the inner lives of Grace, Zoe and Imogen, whose worlds are linked through shared but not always obvious connections. The Accident explores the ways in which our formative years shape our future, examining the influence of unrequited love and the healing power of friendship.

Outspoken is delighted to bring Dr Norman Swan to Maleny for a conversation about his new book, So You Want to Live Younger Longer? Trained in paediatrics, Dr Swan was one of the first medically qualified journalists in Australia, and has had a broadcast career spanning more than 30 years. He currently hosts Radio National's The Health Report while also reporting on 7.30 and several other ABC programs. In addition to being an active journalist and health broadcaster, Dr Swan has a deep strategic knowledge of the Australian healthcare system and is committed to evidence-based approaches to help young people, which is why he sits on the board of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. Many of us dream of staying as young as possible as long as possible, whether we're in our 40s, 70s or 80s, and there's a growing conga line of products and people offering to help with that. The dilemma is, which of the pills, mental and physical exercise programs, diets and superfoods actually work? Some of them do help to keep us young, healthy and living longer, others may work when the researchers get the portions right. Some are a downright waste of money. So how do we know what and who to trust? These are the questions Dr Norman Swan tackles - with his usual wit and insight - in So You Want to Live Younger Longer? Dr Swan brings together what's known, not known, hopeful but not harmful and harmful and not hopeful, summarised with quick takeaway messages backed up by the science and evidence.

Fiona Robertson is a writer and doctor (yes, two doctors for the price of one!). Her short fiction has been published in literary magazines and anthologies in Australia and the UK, and has been shortlisted for international competitions. Her collection of stories, If You’re Happy, won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the 2020 Queensland Literary Awards. Fiona lives in Brisbane with her husband and children. ‘Mapping a terrain of loneliness, compromise, ageing and tension, these short, sharp pieces create pockets of surprise and solace in unexpected places…’ Cate Kennedy ‘Robertson deftly delivers the complexity of contemporary life in clear-eyed, uncomplicated prose…’ Nick Earls

Kári Gíslason was born in Iceland. He’s the author of four books, two non-fiction and two novels. The Promise of Iceland tells the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, while Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the world, co-written with Richard Fidler, is an account of visits they made together to the places where the Icelandic sagas actually took place. It won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018. His novels include The Ash Burner and the book he will be discussing tonight, The Sorrow Stone, an epic and compelling novel that reimagines the fate of one of Iceland's famous women of history. Kári lectures in Creative Writing at QUT

The Honourable Kevin Rudd AC. Mr Rudd was first elected as Prime Minister in 2007. Early initiatives of his government were the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, A Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations, and the 2020 Summit. During the term of his government Labor also managed to keep Australia out of recession, despite the Global Financial Crisis, as well as commencing the roll-out of the National Broadband Network and the introduction of nationwide early childhood education, amongst many other programs. Since leaving office Mr Rudd has written two volumes of his autobiography but has also stayed active in politics. He is senior fellow of the JFK School of Government at Harvard where he leads research into US-China relations. In addition he is the chair of numerous boards such as the International Peace Initiative. He is the current president of the Asia Society. Now, when, last year, we first invited Mr Rudd to Outspoken it was to speak about his timely pamphlet, The Case for Courage, a call, no, an exhortation, for resistance to the egregious and ubiquitous power of News Corp, but also a commensurate call for a revitalisation of Australia on many different fronts; a shout-out to the Labor party to not just propose policies for a better, fairer Australia but also to tear down the myths of the Liberal party as the natural party of government, to stop shying away from giving them the criticism they deserve for the corruption and destruction of the norms of government that have occurred on their watch. Well, several months passed, and now he’s here to talk about The Avoidable War, an extraordinary work which really should be required reading for every politician in the western world, regardless of affiliation. Lots of books get called important. This one really is, because of its depth of geopolitical understanding, but also because of the case it puts for avoiding war.

Chinese history is long, sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, extraordinary cultural and scientific leaps and deep dark times. Linda Jaivin distils this vast history into a concise narrative that allows us a glimpse of its importance to the formation of China as we see it today. Right now in Australia, we desperately need this sort of understanding. Linda is the author of twelve books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include A Most Immoral Woman, Eat Me and The Empress Lover, and her non-fiction includes the memoir, The Monkey and the Dragon. She is also a renowned China scholar, working as both a foreign correspondent and translator for both of prose and film (she wrote the sub-titles for Farewell My Concubine, amongst many others).

Warren is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Queensland. His writing has appeared in many publications and he is a winner of the New Philosopher’s Award. His book, Lovers of Philosophy explores the intimate lives of seven philosphers, investigating the way their most personal experiences came to shape their ideas. Warren has a wonderful way of weaving the personal with the public, so that, while he tells the grim story of, for example, Nietzsche's emotional trials and Sartre and Foucault's struggles with love, he is also explaining very complex philosophical ideas in an accessible way. He manages to draw a narrative of thought from one philosopher to another, from Nietzsche's analysis of the failure of religion through Sartre's ideas of the freedom of the individual, to Foucault's understanding of how we are bound by our culture.

Kevin grew up on the western edge of the Snowy Mountains, in a small sawmill village. He has worked primarily in drama and theatre, as actor, writer and teacher. His poetry has been published in Australia and overseas but Awake to the Rest of My Days is his first anthology. His poems have been runners-up, finalists, short-listed, gained special mentions, commendations and honourable mentions in major competitions around the world. Mark Tredennick says that Kevin is ‘a rare voice in Australian poetry… his poems remind us what poetry is for.’ Kevin is well known in Maleny where he has lived for many years and we're very excited to have him at Outspoken, reading from and talking about his new collection.

The tag line on the cover of Scott’s remarkable new book, Full Circle, says simply: ‘Australia lost a Senator, the world gained a luminous writer’ and that just about sums it up. Ludlam proves to be more than just erudite, he’s prepared to enlist descriptions of the very foundations of life into his argument for a better understanding of our place in the world, and the responsibilities that come with it. In Full Circle Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane, regenerative and more in tune with nature. He shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here, taking the reader on a journey around the world, discovering that we stand at a unique moment in time, when billions of tiny actions by individuals and small groups have the chance to coalesce into a great movement with the power to transform history.

David Williamson is the most produced playwright in the history of Australian theatre. Now, after 50 years of mainstage productions and numerous film scripts – a remarkable body of work – David has written his long-awaited memoir, Home Truths. In the book he reveals how a childhood defined by marital discord sparked a lifelong fascination with the capacity for drama to explore emotional conflict; but also about the anxiety that plagued him as he crafted his plays, notwithstanding the joy of connecting with an audience. He writes, too, about the great love story that defined his personal life. Fearless, candid and witty, David discusses the plethora of odd, interesting, caustic and brilliant people – actors, directors, writers, theatre critics, politicians – who have intersected with his life and work: from the young Jacki Weaver and Chris Haywood in the first Sydney production of The Removalists in 1971 to Nicole Kidman on the brink of stardom in the 1988 feature film of Emerald City, of the lively dinners with Paul Keating, through eventful overseas travels with Gareth Evans, Peter Carey and Tim Winton to a West End production of Up for Grabs starring Madonna.