Words in Progress

The how, when, where, what and why of their writing practices. With Tara June Winch, Charmaine Papertalk Green, Claire G. Coleman and moderated Declan Fry.

Free – bookings essential.

4.15pm—5.15pm @ The Wheeler Centre: Performance Space

Tara June Winch is a Wiradjuri writer based in France. Her first novel Swallow the Air, (UQP) 2006 was critically acclaimed. In 2008, she was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. The novel featured on the HSC syllabus for Standard and Advanced English from 2009 – 2019 and a tenth-anniversary edition was published in 2016. The short-story collection After the Carnage (UQP) was published in 2016 also to critical acclaim. In 2018 she wrote the script for the Indigenous dance documentary Carriberrie. Her latest novel The Yield, (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin) was published in 2019 and won the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award and Prime Minister’s Literary Award. The Yield is published in the US/CA/UK (HarperVia, HarperCollins), and translated into French, Dutch, and forthcoming in Mandarin, German, and Polish. www.tarajunewinch.com

Charmaine is a visual artist, poet and writer and began writing poetry in Mullewa in the late 1970’s. She writes under the name Charmaine Papertalk Green to honour both her parents. Her publications include Just Like That (Fremantle Art Press, 2007); Tiptoeing Tod the Tracker (Oxford University Press, 2014); collaboration with WA poet John Kinsella, False Claim of Colonial Thieves (Magabala Books, 2018); Nganajungu Yagu (Cordite Publishing Inc.’s, 2019); and numerous anthologies and other publications. In 2019 Charmaine was shortlisted in The Adelaide Festival John Bray Award 2020 and the ALS Gold Medal 2019 for False Claim of Colonial Thieves (Magabala Books). In 2020 Charmaine won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2020 poetry category, shortlisted for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (2020) winning the ALS Gold Medal 2020 and short listed in the 2020 Queensland Premiers Literary Award Judith Wright Calanthe Prize for Nganajungu Yagu (Cordite Publishing Inc.).

Claire G. Coleman (she/her) is a Noongar woman whose family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. She writes fiction, essays, poetry and art writing while either living in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road. During an extended circuit of the continent she wrote a novel, Terra Nullius, which won the black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship and was listed for 8 awards including a shortlisting for The Stella Prize. clairegcoleman.com

Declan Fry (he/him) is a writer, essayist, and poet. Born on Wongatha country in Kalgoorlie, Declan Fry has written for the Guardian, Saturday Paper, Overland, Australian Book Review, Liminal, Sydney Review of Books, Cordite, Kill Your Darlings, Westerly and elsewhere. His Meanjin essay “Justice for Elijah or a Spiritual Dialogue with Ziggy Ramo, Dancing” received the 2021 Peter Blazey Fellowship. He has been shortlisted for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize and lives on unceded Wurundjeri country with his partner and their cat, Turnip.