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 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 Aredemonstrates 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. 

‘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. 

This biography is a beautifully composed, intimate first-person account of the artistic practice of Butjala 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.