Fresh Takes: Winter ’24

Discover some of the best new works publishing this season — featuring readings from established and emerging writers in the Library Bar.

Library Bar opens: from 5pm
Event commences: 6pm
Please note: this event is 18+

Fresh Takes is a seasonal showcase of some of the best new pieces of publishing, featuring writers reading from their new works and reflecting on the writers and creators who have shaped them.

READ MORE

Barbara Minchinton in conversation with Emily Westmoreland

Join us for an evening with author and historian Barbara Minchinton as she chats with Emily Westmoreland about the life and times of Melbourne’s most notorious woman.

Limited tickets available

When: 6:45 for a 7pm start Wednesday 17th July

Where: The Eminence Restaurant, 139 Nelson Place, Williamstown

Your ticket price includes a drink, and canapes after the talk. 

Madame Brussels by Barbara Minchinton will be available from July 2nd, pre-order your copy here. Books will also be available for purchase on the night.

Book Launch & In Conversation with Aarti Betigeri

Aarti Betigeri and contributors Kavita Nandan, Zoya & Ikebal Patel will be In Conversation with Meera Ashar on Growing Up Indian in Australia (Black Inc.) 

About the Book

To be Indian growing up in Australia is to tread the narrow line between here and there, to constantly code-switch and navigate between filling the needs and aspirations of your family, your community – and yourself.'

'Indian-Australian' is not a one-size-fits-all descriptor. Given the depth and richness of diversity of the Indian subcontinent, it is fitting that its diaspora is similarly varied.

Growing Up Indian in Australia reflects and celebrates this vibrant diversity. It features contributions from Australian-Indian writers, both established and emerging, who hail from a wide range of backgrounds, religions and experiences. This colourful, energetic anthology offers reflections on identity, culture, family, food and expectations, ultimately revealing deep truths about both Australian and Indian life.

Contributors include Sunil Badami, Swagata Bapat, Kavita Bedford, Elana Benjamin,Tejas Bhat, Nicholas Brown, Michelle Cahill, Tasneem Chopra, Shaheen De Souza Hughes, Hardeep Dhanoa, Rakhee Ghelani, Kavita Ivy Nandan, Rachael Jacobs, Jessica Joseph, Joseph Jude, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, Meenal Khare, Sneha Lees, Daizy Maan, Preeti Maharaj, Kishor Napier-Raman, Zoya Patel and Ikebal Patel, Mia Pandey Gordon, Natasha Pinto, Shamna Sanam, Priya SaratChandran, Shreya Tekumalla and Sharon Verghis.

About Aarti Betigeri

Aarti Betigeri is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and former foreign correspondent, born in Melbourne to parents from Maharashtra and Karnataka. After an early career as a radio and television news presenter and producer with SBS and the ABC, she moved to India to fulfill a long-held dream to report on South Asia and lived in New Delhi for almost a decade. Currently, she works as a journalist and advisor focusing on international relations. Her name is surprisingly easy to pronounce.

About Meera Ashar

Meera Ashar is a historian of ideas at the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of history, political theory and literary studies.

Meera is currently the Director of the South Asia Research Institute (SARI). She has previously worked as an Assistant Professor at the City University of Hong Kong and was the LM Singhvi Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Guest Speakers

Zoya Patel is the author of No Country Woman (Hachette, 2018) and Once a Stranger (Hachette, 2023). She is co-host of the podcast Margin Notes alongside Yen Eriksen, a columnist for RiotACT, and a regular book critic and writer for The Guardian, The Canberra Times, SBS Voices, Refinery29 and more

Ikebal Patel is an engineer based in Canberra. Ikebal has held various volunteer roles, including as the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, and has represented the Australian government on interfaith engagement and trade. He has been on various national and international committees and advisory bodies. Ikebal owns a motel and is a commercial vegetable grower.

Kavita Nandan is a writer and a teacher. She was born in New Delhi, grew up in Suva and migrated to Australia in 1987 after the Fiji military coups. She completed her PhD on V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie at the Australian National University. Kavita is the author of Return to What Remains and Home after Dark. She is also the editor of Stolen Worlds and co-editor of Unfinished Journeys: India File. Her poetry, short stories and creative non-fiction are published in a range of Australian and international magazines.

About the Event

• Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
• Registration is required for this event.
• Accessible parking spaces directly below the Harry Hartog ANU Bookshop are available should you require them. Kambri ANU / Parking
• If you do not feel well, please refrain from attending this event.
• Disability Access available - please ask in-store.

Aarti Betigeri in conversation with Jeremy Fernandez

Join us with Aarti Betigeri to celebrate the release of Growing Up Indian in Australia! Aarti will be joined by Jeremy Fernandez, followed by readings from contributors of the book.

**

Growing Up Indian in Australia reflects and celebrates this vibrant diversity. It features contributions from Australian-Indian writers, both established and emerging, who hail from a wide range of backgrounds, religions and experiences. This colourful, energetic anthology offers reflections on identity, culture, family, food and expectations, ultimately revealing deep truths about both Australian and Indian life.

Our event space is wheelchair accessible via a stair lift. Please contact [email protected] with any additional access requirements and/or questions.

Aarti Betigeri is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and former foreign correspondent, born in Melbourne to parents from Maharashtra and Karnataka. After an early career as a radio and television news presenter and producer with SBS and the ABC, she moved to India to fulfill a long-held dream to report on South Asia, and lived in New Delhi for almost a decade. Currently, she works as a journalist and advisor focusing on international relations. Her name is surprisingly easy to pronounce.

Jeremy Fernandez is an Australian journalist and television news presenter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He is currently weeknight presenter of ABC News NSW in Sydney.

Book Launch: Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New

Join us for a discussion between authors Gari Tudor-Smith, Paul Williams, Felicity Meakins and moderator Daniel Browning for the book Bina.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Australia's language diversity is truly breathtaking. This continent lays claim to the world's longest continuous collection of cultures, including over 440 unique languages and many more dialects. Sadly, European invasion has had severe consequences for the vitality of these languages.

Amid devastating loss, there has also been the birth of new languages such as Kriol and Yumplatok, both English-based Creoles. Aboriginal English dialects are spoken widely, and recently there has been an inspiring renaissance of First Nations languages, as communities reclaim and renew them.

Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New tells this story, from the earliest exchange of words between colonists and First Nations people to today's reclamations. It is a creative and exciting introduction to a vital and dynamic world of language.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Gari Tudor-Smith is a Barada, Yiman, Gangulu and Gureng Gureng linguist. Gari's focus is on language and cultural reclamation and empowering First Nations communities. They are currently working as a linguist at the University of Queensland, contributing to the development of a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Language Revitalisation and working on legacy language collections.

Paul Williams is a Gamilaraay man from Tamworth, New South Wales. Since 2020, Paul has worked as a linguist at the University of Queensland, where he has contributed to a number of Indigenous language projects including dictionaries and grammars and working with archival materials.

Felicity Meakins is a professor of linguistics at the University of Queensland. She has worked for over two decades with Indigenous communities documenting their languages. This work extends beyond the traditional boundaries of linguistic research, such as dictionaries and grammars, to projects grounded in the artistic, cultural and land-based practices of these communities.

Book Launch: The Shortest History of Music

An entertaining and thought-provoking trip through the fascinating history of music. From award-winning broadcaster and composer Andrew Ford, The Shortest History of Music is a lively, authoritative tour through several thousand years of music.

Packed with colourful characters and surprising details, it sets out to understand what exactly music is – and why humans are irresistibly drawn to making it. This is not a traditional chronological account. Instead, Andrew Ford focuses on key themes in the history of music and considers how they have played out across the ages.

How has music interacted with other social forces, such as religion and the economy? How have technological changes shaped the kinds of music humans make? From lullabies to concert halls, songlines to streaming services, what has music meant to humans at different times and in different places?

Andrew Ford OAM is a composer, writer and broadcaster who has won awards in each of those capacities. He has been composer-in-residence for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. In 2014 he was Poynter Fellow and visiting composer at Yale University, in 2015 visiting lecturer at the Shanghai Conservatory, and in 2018 HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Ford has written widely on all manner of music and published eleven books. He has written, presented and co-produced five radio series for the ABC and, since 1995, presented The Music Show each weekend on Radio National.

Former Principal Double Bass of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra for 20 years, Kirsty McCahon is Australia’s leading practitioner of Historical Performance Practice on the double bass and violone. Awarded a Churchill Fellow in 2001, Kirsty has been recognized as an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne for Services to Orchestral Music.

Writers @ Stanton: Andrew Ford

Discover the fascinating story of why music is vital to the human experience from prehistory to now with Andrew Ford.

From award-winning broadcaster and composer Andrew Ford, The Shortest History of Music is a lively, authoritative tour through several thousand years of music.

Packed with colourful characters and surprising details, it sets out to understand what exactly music is – and why humans are irresistibly drawn to making it.

This is not a traditional chronological account. Instead, Ford focuses on key themes in the history of music and considers how they have played out across the ages.

How has music interacted with other social forces, such as religion and the economy? How have technological changes shaped the kinds of music humans make? From lullabies to concert halls, songlines to streaming services, what has music meant to humans at different times and in different places?

About the author

Andrew Ford's music has been performed and recorded around the world, played by ensembles such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Brodsky Quartet and the New Juilliard Ensemble, and sung by the likes of Yvonne Kenny, Katie Noonan and Iva Bittová.

He presents The Music Show on ABC Radio National and has written ten books ranging from a study of sound in film to the songs of Van Morrison to the compulsion of composers to explore the primitive in their music.

Organised in partnership with Constant Reader Bookshop.

Bendigo Writers Festival 2024: Security Starts at Home

Just when DO neighbours become good friends – or enemies? Join three security analysts to discuss the finer points of diplomacy and the strategic challenges facing Australia today. With Professor Bec Strating (Girt By Sea), Allan Behm (The Odd Couple), Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert (The Uncaged Sky) with Dr Sally Warhaft.