The Wright Stuff

Alexis Wright reads from her award winning oeuvre and a special treat – an excerpt from a new work. Moderated by Jane Harrison.

Free – bookings essential.

3.45pm—4.45pm @ The Wheeler Centre: Performance Space

Alexis Wright (she/her) is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria and The Swan Book, Wright has published three works of non-fiction: Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory; and Tracker, an award-winning collective memoir of Aboriginal leader, Tracker Tilmouth. Her books have been published widely overseas, including in China, the US, the UK, Italy, France and Poland. She has held the position of the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne since 2018. Wright is the only author to win both the Miles Franklin Award (in 2007 for Carpentaria) and the Stella Prize (in 2018 for Tracker).

Jane Harrison is descended from the Muruwari people. Her first play Stolen, toured internationally and was co-winner of the 2012 RAKA Kate Challis Award. Rainbow’s End won the 2012 Drovers Award for best touring production, and both Stolen and Rainbow’s End have been featured on secondary school curricula. Harrison’s most recent play The Visitors premiered at Sydney Festival in 2020 and will be published as a novel in 2022. Her novel Becoming Kirrali Lewis won the 2014 Black & Write! Prize, and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Jane is the Artistic Director of Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival and believes that stories have the power to reframe our national identity.