To celebrate the Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling, we asked six beloved Victorian writers to reflect on the theme Above and Beyond: considering what it means to look further, delve deeper, and ask big questions of ourselves and the world around us. The following is an audio recording from Miles Franklin Literary Award winning novelist, Jennifer Down, reading her original essay for the project. This work was commissioned by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program in partnership with the Wheeler Centre as ...
Oct 03, 2023•9 min
To celebrate the Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling, we asked six beloved Victorian writers to reflect on the theme Above and Beyond: considering what it means to look further, delve deeper, and ask big questions of ourselves and the world around us. The following is an audio recording from storyteller and educator on transgender liberation, Nevo Zisin, reading their original essay for the project. This work was commissioned by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program in partnership with the Wheeler Centre ...
Sep 28, 2023•10 min
To celebrate the Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling, we asked six beloved Victorian writers to reflect on the theme Above and Beyond: considering what it means to look further, delve deeper, and ask big questions of ourselves and the world around us. The following is an audio recording from Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man and best-selling author, Bruce Pascoe, reading his original essay for the project. This work was commissioned by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program in partnership with the Wheeler C...
Sep 26, 2023•9 min
Kevin Jared Hosein is fast becoming known as one of global literature’s most exciting new talents. His new novel, Hungry Ghosts, explores violence, religion, family and class against the backdrop of 1940s colonial central Trinidad. This extraordinary work has received praise from literary icons such as Bernardine Evaristo and the late, great Hilary Mantel, who called the work ‘deeply impressive’. Recorded exclusively for the Wheeler Centre podcast, hear from Hosein on his highly anticipated debu...
Sep 22, 2023•58 min
The Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling returns for 2023 and this year we’re going Above and Beyond. From October 2 to 14 we’re celebrating the big ideas and the small moments that make us human, and the creative thinking that drives us to be better versions of ourselves. Across 24 captivating events we’re looking further, delving deeper, and asking bigger questions with outstanding thinkers who are reshaping our world and envisioning extraordinary futures. To celebrate the return of Spring Fling, in ...
Sep 08, 2023•13 min
In her latest book The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule , award-winning science journalist Angela Saini explores the science and history of male dominance, arguing that patriarchy is neither natural nor inevitable, but rather a fragile system that is constantly remade and reasserted. Saini joined Karen Pickering for a bold conversation interrogating why, how and where patriarchy manifests and persists. She discussed the ways patriarchies are established and evolve over time, explored matrilineal...
Sep 01, 2023•58 min
The Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling returns for 2023 and this year we’re going Above and Beyond. From October 2 to 14 we’re celebrating the big ideas and the small moments that make us human, and the creative thinking that drives us to be better versions of ourselves. Across 24 captivating events we’re looking further, delving deeper, and asking bigger questions with outstanding thinkers who are reshaping our world and envisioning extraordinary futures. To celebrate the return of Spring Fling, in ...
Aug 25, 2023•13 min
Hear from our Head of Programming, Veronica Sullivan, as she reflects on last year’s successful Spring Fling, and shares what’s in store for audiences this year. In 2023 the Wheeler Centre’s Spring Fling is going Above and Beyond: looking further, delving deeper, and asking bigger questions with outstanding thinkers who are reshaping our world and envisioning extraordinary futures. Across 24 captivating events from 2 to 14 October, hear from international guests Hernan Diaz (Trust), musician and...
Aug 18, 2023•5 min
One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, Colson Whitehead is the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of works including The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which was also adapted for the small screen, produced and directed by Academy Award-winning director Barry Jenkins. Whitehead begun his new Harlem Trilogy with Harlem Shuffle, a genre-hopping family saga that acts as a crime novel, a morality play, a social novel about race and power, and a love l...
Aug 11, 2023•1 hr
The 2023 Women’s World Cup is being held Australia, and with more than two billion viewers expected to tune into this year’s tournament, it’s a landmark moment in Australian sporting history. To celebrate, the Wheeler Centre invited players, media and passionate fans to come together for a special event exploring the significance of the Women’s World Cup in Australian sporting history and in the landscape of women’s sport. Activist and CBC Sports journalist Shireen Ahmed, Football Australia Lega...
Aug 04, 2023•1 hr 6 min
As the owner of Darjeeling Express, British restaurateur Asma Khan astounds diners with sumptuous Indian cuisine and inspires as an advocate for social change. The Darjeeling Express kitchen is proudly run by an all-women team, and has been recognised as one of London’s best restaurants by the Evening Standard. Khan herself has starred in Netflix’s award-winning series Chef’s Table and is the UN World Food Programme’s Chef Advocate for the United Kingdom. Visiting Victoria for the Wheeler Centre...
Jul 28, 2023•46 min
In her latest work of non-fiction, renowned journalist and author Kate Legge turns her attention to the oft-taboo topic of infidelity. Drawing from her own experiences, Legge’s Infidelity and Other Affairs critically examines the concept of lifelong monogamy and explores whether the urge to be unfaithful can be considered a hereditary trait. In June, Legge joined radio producer and presenter Elizabeth McCarthy for an intimate lunch and thought-provoking conversation at Red Hill’s acclaimed winer...
Jul 21, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Dame Graça Machel is one of the world’s leading humanitarians and political activists. She was the first Education Minister of Mozambique, the co-founder and deputy Chair of The Elders, and has spent decades fighting for the rights of marginalised communities, earning international recognition and accolades. In 2010 she established the Graça Machel Trust as a Pan-African advocacy organisation focused on child health and nutrition, education, women’s economic and financial empowerment, leadership...
Jul 14, 2023•1 hr 9 min
“Where are the people who are the other in this room? Because actually they have the skills, the capacity, the resilience, the understanding, and also they know where your blind spots are in terms of the way our social structures are set. We need them. They’re actually our experts” - Manisha Amin As part of Melbourne Design Week 2023, a panel of design experts examine the crucial role of design in breaking down barriers to social inclusion. Hear from Dr Manisha Amin, CEO of the Centre for Inclus...
Jul 07, 2023•1 hr
“Coal, oil and gas shouldn’t be vilified. They’ve brought us the civilisation we have – but with side effects. The big one is carbon dioxide leading to global warming, and we have to do something about it” – Alan Finkel. The clean energy transition is one of the world’s largest economic and environmental challenges, with the potential to usher in a new age of electricity and transform the planet. In a recent edition of the Fifth Estate, host Sally Warhaft met with Alan Finkel, author and former ...
Jun 30, 2023•59 min
“Real people are weirder than characters in any story” - Bora Chung. With its unique blend of horror, speculative fiction and folklore, Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny explores the cruelties and violence of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society. The chilling short story collection garnered international acclaim, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize and won the PEN/HEIM Translation Grant, marking Chung as a global star of contemporary South Korean literature. Appearing in Melbo...
Jun 23, 2023•48 min
“Being able to pay a certain type of attention requires time, and it’s obviously helped by having more control over your time or how time feels, but then at the same time, paying a certain type of attention makes time feel different” – Jenny Odell. In this episode, Jenny Odell, the author of How to Do Nothing , explores the cultural forces that shape our understanding of time, challenges the notion that ‘time is money’, and offers new possibilities for experiencing time beyond the world of work ...
Jun 16, 2023•1 hr 6 min
Content warning : The Wheeler Centre wishes to advise this recording includes occasional coarse language. “I want to be responsible towards the person asking the question to the best of my ability, but the good news is I have no real power over them. And so, when we separate, I don’t feel like, 'Oh man, I might have just ruined someone’s life' or decided whether or not they’re going to have a child. Ultimately the decision is very much theirs” – Daniel M Lavery. Every week, millions of people vi...
Jun 09, 2023•1 hr 4 min
“For me it’s just like, I know who I am off stage, I know how we’re perceived within our communities - and I’m proud and I want to make fun of that and talk about the things that I find funny. And that won’t always make people comfortable, but that’s not my job” – Alexandra Hudson. In a special collaboration with Melbourne International Comedy Festival, exciting contemporary comedians Alexandra Hudson, Oliver Hunter and Lara Ricote (Mexico) joined host Adam Hills for an insightful panel explorin...
Jun 04, 2023•1 hr
“And he says, yes, the real Uluru Statement. So he pulls it out of this giant cylinder and lays it on my loungeroom floor. And everyone stands up and the most extraordinary thing happened. We felt it’s heart beating. And understood intuitively as Aboriginal people as we looked at that document that our ancestors were in the room with us while we looked at that” - Catherine Liddle. Australia is set to vote on a referendum to enshrine a First Nations voice in the constitution by mid-2024, a commit...
May 25, 2023•37 min
“And what we’re really talking about is vesting the sovereignty of Australia in the people. But actually, the most extraordinary and beautiful thing is we are going to vest in 65,230 years of history. That’s an amazing step to take and again, I think it’s only going to change us in positive ways” – Craig Foster. With the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, Australia’s relationship with the Crown will be a defining topic in the year. To kick off the Fifth Estate for 2023, Sally Warhaft sat do...
May 19, 2023•1 hr
“I feel like the trick to writing about yourself is to not write about yourself. You are the sort of prism, or you know, the observational tank through which something is passing” – Sloane Crosley. From her much-loved essay collections, I Was Told There Would Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number and Look Alive Out There, to her bestselling novel, The Clasp , Sloane Crosley’s acerbic humour and observational wit has garnered her critical and popular acclaim. Now, in her second novel Cult Classic ...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 1 min
“ What I discovered eventually was to use all your resources to get as much support as you can, it makes a huge difference to everybody. And give up on asking people for help that don’t want to help you” - Esther Freud. Motherhood is an intense period of introspection and change. For some, these may be ideal conditions for creative inspiration to strike, but it comes with immense demands on time, money and energy. For the Wheeler Centre’s M/OTHER series, writer and musician Edwina Preston, Briti...
May 02, 2023•58 min
“It felt like energy, like the words, the story, it just felt like something that had to come out of my body. And if I wasn’t going to write it, I was going to scream it or I was gonna dig it, or something. I mean seriously, that’s where I was when I was writing this” - Rachel Yoder. An ode to the all-consuming and sometimes feral experience of motherhood, Rachel Yoder’s debut novel Nightbitch tells the story of a new mother who begins turning into a dog at night. Chronicling the joy, mundanity ...
Apr 18, 2023•1 hr 2 min
"Women who often have the least amount of resources, that have the least safety net, that have the least visibility, that have the least voices or representation in parliament - are usually the ones who launch the fiercest protests. The most dangerous protests." - Fatima Bhutto. On International Women’s Day 2023, three powerhouse women came together for a galvanising conversation exploring politics and power through a global feminist lens. Bestselling Pakistani author Fatima Bhutto has spoken ar...
Apr 11, 2023•52 min
In 2022, Jonathan Van Ness – Emmy nominated television personality, comedian, best-selling author, podcaster and hairstylist – joined Australian writer and transgender rights activist Nevo Zisin for a digital conversation about JVN's essay collection Love That Story, the contemporary queer experience, and the importance of sharing and celebrating everything that makes our stories unique. This digital event was recorded and released in May 2022 as part of the Wheeler Centre's Postcards From Abroa...
Mar 30, 2023•57 min
"It was important to me to try and use the book to explore this shift and this gap between what I see in the media, what I see in fiction and on television and what I'd observed in life." - Natasha Brown Bold and provocative, Natasha Brown’s debut novel Assembly cuts to the heart of race relations in modern Britain. A clear-eyed and harrowing exposé of privilege, ambition and the legacies of colonisation, Assembly was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Orwell Prize and th...
Mar 20, 2023•53 min
"Exercise is like a vacuum cleaner for aging tissue and renews your tissue. You can look at the biopsy of muscle and your muscle is frail and old. After you've done weight training, your muscle is indistinguishable from a young person's." Norman Swan With a career spanning over thirty years as a radio and television presenter, health journalist Norman Swan is a stalwart of the Australian media landscape. Over lunch at Montalto Winery, Swan discussed his career as a medical professional in the pu...
Mar 06, 2023•59 min
"Mark Twain said, fiction must be plausible, truth needn't be, or words to that effect. And truth is, it's so much more unlikely. And so everything in this book that seems unlikely, those are the true things." – Geraldine Brooks. Geraldine Brooks is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist behind works such as March, Year of Wonders and Foreign Correspondence. Her latest release, Horse , is a sweeping narrative that weaves together three encounters with Lexington, the greatest racehorse ...
Feb 27, 2023•53 min
"We do, we sing gospel, we sing country, we sing rock, reggae, we sing ballads. If we could, we'd do opera. You know, we just like all sorts of music. Our sound has been our harmony. That's our thing. You know, we just enjoy harmonising together." - Vika Bull Whether at church in suburban Melbourne; with The Black Sorrows; alongside artists including Paul Kelly, Kasey Chambers and John Farnham; or on one of their seven studio albums, singer-songwriters Vika & Linda have been performing toget...
Feb 20, 2023•47 min
