We’re excited to launch our 2025 season with the wonderful Debra Oswald. Debra is best known for being the creator/head writer for the first five series of the remarkably successful TV show Offspring. She is, however, also an Award Winning novelist and playwright, a children’s author and a performer.

Her new novel, which she’ll be talking about in Maleny, is 100 Years of Betty and, as the title suggests, it is the century-long saga of a strong, witty, intelligent woman born a bit early for her time. Through its pages we make an idiosyncratic and very personal journey through her life, experiencing just some of the remarkable cultural and historical changes we have undergone.

Geraldine Brooks says it best: ‘Debra Oswald fulfils a novelist's highest purpose in One Hundred Years of Betty. In a marathon exercise of imaginative empathy, she creates a life in full—all its aching sorrows, all its transcendent joys—unfolding amidst the convulsions of our tumultuous century. A rich feast of a novel, a perfect balance of sweet and sour. You won't want it to end.'

Debra Oswald is a two-time winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Award and author of the novels Useful(2015), The Whole Bright Year (2018) and The Family Doctor (2021).

Her stage plays have been performed around the world and her screen-writing credits also include award-winning episodes of Police Rescue, The Secret Life of Us and Wildside.

Her one woman show, Is There Something Wrong With That Lady? was performed at the Griffin Theatre in 2021 and The Ensemble in 2023.

She is married to Richard Glover.

Debra will be in conversation with Steven Lang.

Our introducing author will be Steve MinOn, speaking about his debut novel, First Name Second Name.

Steve was an internationally awarded advertising copywriter and a restaurateur before becoming a writer of fiction. He grew up in North Queensland and now lives in Brisbane. Steve has written often about outsiders and his family’s mixed-race ancestral history, and his articles and short stories have been published in SBS Voices, Mamamia and various anthologies. 

First Name Second Name won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards

The story begins when a man leaves a curious note by his deathbed, asking his sisters to take his body back to North Queensland. They, however, ignore his request, so his corpse must make the journey itself, travelling at night, bringing the tales with him of his Chinese and Scottish ancestors.  

Miranda Riwoe writes: ‘First Name Second Name is a glorious, inventive novel about the experiences of a Chinese–Scottish family, from the goldfields in North Queensland to 1980s Brisbane to the present day. You will be both entertained and moved by this wonderful novel.’

I’m trying to think of ways to best convince you of how good Jane Rawson’s book is.

Jane 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 fault lines 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 much more, drawing in ideas from 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.

‘I love this book. I love this writer – her brilliance, wit, tenderness, and keen eyes (and ears and mind). The pages of Human/Nature are threaded with delight and grief, wonder and questions, joy and love. Read this beautiful book and remember your nature.’ – Sarah Sentilles, author of Stranger Care

In a break with tradition (the event falling within an election campaign) we’ll open with a conversation with

Dr Barry Traill am.

Dr Barry Traill (BJ) a long-term resident of Maleny, 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, working towards creating enduring bipartisanship in federal politics to achieve decisive action on climate.

He'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, and greatly expanding Australia’s marine park network.

In 2023 he was 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.

We are extremely grateful for the support of the Sunshine Coast Arts Foundation