Upcoming events
Author Talk: Saul Griffith
Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now – but what?
Australian visionary Saul Griffith has a plan. In The Big Switch, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint – optimistic but feasible – for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment.
Griffith explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid and adapt our households. The same natural advantages – incredible resources on an enormous continent – that helped Australia prosper in the 20th century are the ingredients for becoming the most prosperous, entirely renewable, economy in the world.
Dr Saul Griffith has founded and co-founded numerous technology companies including one acquired by Google and another acquired by Autodesk. He’s been a project lead on federally-funded research projects for agencies including NASA, DARPA, ARPA-e, National Science Foundation and United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
This event is part of the 2022 Critical Thinking and Ethics program at Newington College.
Date: Tuesday 9 August
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Newington College, 200 Stanmore Road, Stanmore, NSW 2048
Price: Free
Canberra Writers Festival: We've Got This with Eliza Hull and contributors
How do parents who are blind take their children to the park? How do Deaf parents know when their baby cries at night? More than 15% of Australian households have a parent with a disability. Our panel share stories about the highs and lows of parenting with a disability.
Date: Thursday 11 August
Time: 11:30am
Venue: 4 National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600
Price: This is a free event.
Book Launch: My Father and Other Animals
We are delighted to have Sam Vincent talking about his hilarious memoir of sorts: My Father and Other Animals.
This is a moving story about a millennial leaving his inner-city life to take over the family farm. By turns affecting, hilarious and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It’s about belonging, humility and regeneration – of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood; it is a legacy.
This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.
Date: Thursday 11 August
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Readings Carlton, 309 Lygon St, Carlton, VIC 3053
Price: This is a free event.
Canberra Writers Festival: Watsonia, a writing life with Don Watson
Don Watson In Conversation With Gabrielle Chan.
No other writer has journeyed further into the soul of Australia and returned to tell the tale. Join Don Watson — historian, speechwriter, social critic, humourist, biographer, and lover of nature and sports — in a sweeping conversation.
Date: Friday 12 August
Time: 11:30am
Venue: National Press Club of Australia, 16 National Circuit, Barton, ACT 2600
Price: $90
Canberra Writers Festival: Under Pressure with Lech Blaine
Moderator: Lucy Neave • Kaya Wilson, Natasha Sholl, Sam Vincent and Lech Blaine.
What are the personal and professional pressures to ‘make it’? From ambition to burnout, from societal and parental pressure to leaving the inner-city life to take over the family farm, our panel gets real about what they strive for and at what cost.
Date: Saturday 13 August
Time: 12:00pm
Venue: Members' Dining Room, Museum of Australian Democracy, 18 King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT 2600
Price: $25
Author Talk: Judy Cotton
In this stunning memoir, full of black humour and razor-sharp observations, visual artist Judy Cotton captures the intricacies of family relationships and the push–pull of home.
Her mother, Eve, was a brilliant but exacting woman, a gifted pianist whose perfectionism cut her career short. After marrying, she established a successful stud farm for sheep in the Blue Mountains while supporting her husband’s political career. Judy’s charismatic father, Bob, was a federal minister and ambassador to the United States, with traditional ideas about who Judy should become.
Sent to boarding school from the age of four, Judy yearned for her parents but found them increasingly controlling. Her desire for freedom eventually took her overseas, to Korea and Japan in the late 1960s, and later to New York, where she finally discovered belonging in the art scene. But the undertow of home was impossible to escape.
In dazzling prose and with an artist’s eye for landscape, Swimming Home is a powerful meditation on loss and longing, freedom and connection.
Date: Saturday 13 August
Time: 2:00pm
Venue: The Castlemaine Art Museum, 14 Lyttleton St , Castlemaine, VIC
Price: $10
Canberra Writers Festival: Rethinking Possible with Lech Blaine
Moderator: Beejay Silcox • Lech Blaine, Carly-Jay Metcalfe, Ben Bravery and Natasha Sholl.
Is trauma overexposed and overrated? Four writers who’ve lived to tell their tales discuss the art of surviving, where the real work begins — and if it ever ends.
Date: Sunday 14 August
Time: 10:00am
Venue: T2 Kambri Cultural Centre (ANU), University Ave, Acton, ACT 2601
Price: $25
Canberra Writers Festival: The Change Makers with Linda Jaivin
Participating Chair: Linda Jaivin • Emma Batchelor, Diana Reid and Jo Dyer.
Sometimes significant incidents in life can only be fully appreciated after they’ve passed. Four passionate women unpack pivotal moments and the vagaries of power and prestige.
Date: Sunday 14 August
Time: 12:00pm
Venue: Members' Dining Room, Museum of Australian Democracy, 18 King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT 2600
Price: $25
Canberra Writers Festival: You can take the person out of the country... with Rick Morton
Moderator: Sunil Badami • Yumna Kassab, Lisa Millar, Rick Morton and Veronica Gorrie.
Our award-winning authors share their remarkable stories of growing up in suburbia and in the country, confronting the worst and best that humanity can bring and dreaming of a bigger life.
Date: Sunday 14 August
Time: 2:00pm
Venue: Members Dining Room, MoAD, 18 King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT 2600
Price: $25
Book Launch: Safety Net
Proudly hosted by the John Curtin Research Centre
We are thrilled to have Bill Kelty launching Mulino’s Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia.
Here, economist and Labor MP Daniel Mulino explains how the Australian welfare state was created – and what we need to do to protect and extend it. The welfare state is one of the crowning achievements of the twentieth century, giving citizens access to healthcare, pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. In this deeply researched and lucid account, Mulino looks to the challenges facing today’s welfare state and reflects on what steps must be taken to protect and extend it.
This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.
Date: Tuesday 16 August
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Readings St Kilda, 112 Acland St, St Kilda, VIC 3182
Price: This is a free event.
Author Talk: David Baker
Join history and science writer David Baker as he discusses his new book, The Shortest History of the World, which follows the continuum of historical change in the cosmos – from the Big Bang, through the evolution of life, to human history. Combining knowledge from chemistry, biology and physics with insights from the social sciences and humanities, The Shortest History of the World takes a bird’s eye view of 13.8 billion years.
David Baker is a Macquarie University academic and the world’s first PhD in Big History, a new approach to the history of the world that combines understandings from chemistry, physics and biology, archaeology and anthropology. He is also the writer of the YouTube series Crashcourse Big History, co-hosted by bestselling YA author John Green in partnership with the Big History Project.
Date: Friday 19 August
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Location Ashfield Library, 260 Liverpool Street, Ashfield NSW
Price: This is a free event.
Byron Bay Writers Festival: How Do We Transform the Future? with Saul Griffith
Rapid decarbonisation, sustainable farming and low-impact lifestyles. Are these just pipedreams or a near future reality? Saul Griffith, author of The Big Switch, and Claire O’Rourke, author of Together We Can, discuss the green future we must pursue and how it can be achieved. Moderated by Ben Roche, Vice President (Engagement) of Southern Cross University.
Event Partner: Southern Cross University
Date: Thursday 25 August
Time: 2:00pm
Venue: Southern Cross University, Lismore Campus, Military Rd, East Lismore, NSW 2480
Price: This is a free event.
Daniel Mulino in conversation with Amanda Tattersall
Economist and Labor MP Daniel Mulino explains how the Australian welfare state was created – and what we need to do to protect and extend it
The welfare state is one of the crowning achievements of the twentieth century, giving citizens access to healthcare, pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. This unprecedented expansion of the state was a product of the postwar period of the late 1940s, when governments ramped up investment in this grand safety net. By the 1970s, half of all government spending went towards social-welfare programs, but today the welfare state stands at a crossroads, beset both by political opposition and funding pressures as the population ages.
Australian Labor Party MP Daniel Mulino provides a sweeping account of the history of welfare in Australia and abroad, from Bismarckian Germany to present-day Canberra. In this deeply researched and lucid account, Mulino looks to the challenges facing today’s welfare state and reflects on what steps must be taken to protect and extend it.
Date: Thursday 25 August
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe, NSW 2037
Price: $12
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Soul Food: Writing as a Tool For Survival with Micheline Lee
Date: Friday 26 August
Time: 9:00am
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Leaders for the New Age with Margaret Simons
Date: Friday 26 August
Time: 10:15am
Venue: The Saturday Paper Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: The Power of Rage with Jess Hill
Date: Friday 26 August
Time: 11:15am
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Able with Micheline Lee
Date: Friday 26 August
Time: 11:30am
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Truth and Other Lies with Margaret Simons
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 9:00am
Venue: Greenstone Partners Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Brave New Green World with Saul Griffith
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 10:00am
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Coming of Age with Sara El Sayed
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 10:15am
Venue: Greenstone Partners Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Regenerative Farming with Bronwyn Adcock
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 11:15am
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: The Mungo Panel with Margaret Simons
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 11:15am
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Shaping Australian History with Mark McKenna
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 1:45pm
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Reaching Across the Generation Gap with Sara El Sayed
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 1:45pm
Venue: Greenstone Partners Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Surviving Domestic Violence with Jess Hill
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 2:00pm
Venue: The Saturday Paper Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: The Electric Revolution with Saul Griffith
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 3:00pm
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: The Limits of Science with Bronwyn Adcock and Joëlle Gergis
Date: Saturday 27 August
Time: 4:00pm
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Building Resilient Communities with Bronwyn Adcock
Date: Sunday 28 August
Time: 9:00am
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Scratching Society's Underbelly with Mark McKenna
Date: Sunday 28 August
Time: 10:15am
Venue: The Saturday Paper Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Creative Recovery with Bronwyn Adcock
Date: Sunday 28 August
Time: 11:30am
Venue: Southern Cross University Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: An Equal World: Overcoming Patriarchy with Jess Hill
Date: Sunday 28 August
Time: 12:30pm
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Byron Bay Writers Festival: Solastalgia: What We Are Losing with Joëlle Gergis
Date: Sunday 28 August
Time: 3:00pm
Venue: The Saturday Paper Marquee, North Byron Parklands, 126 Tweed Valley Way, Yelgun, NSW 2483
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Ashley Hay
Ashley Hay is in-conversation with Joëlle Gergis discussing Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope.
Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage.
If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history.
The question is, do you want to be part of the legacy that restores our faith in humanity?
When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with clear-eyed honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.
Date: Monday 29 August
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Avid Reader Bookshop, 193 Boundary St, West End, QLD 4101
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Tim Flannery
Date: Wednesday 31 August
Time: 7:00pm
Venue: Ryan's Hotel, 138 Phillip St, Thirroul, NSW 2515
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Jess Hill
Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage.
If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history.
The question is, do you want to be part of the legacy that restores our faith in humanity?
Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report. She has seen the evidence of where our humanity is headed. She is acutely aware of how little time we have. And yet, she still has hope.
Join her on Thursday 1 September, where she puts her case forward to the Walkley winning investigative journalist Jess Hill, who won the 2020 Stella Prize for her investigation into domestic abuse, See What You Made Me Do.
Date: Thursday 1 September
Time: 7:00pm
Venue: The Royal Oak Balmain, 36 College St, Balmain, NSW 2041
Price: $12.64
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Gina Rushton
A personal call to action from an Australian IPCC author.
If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history.
When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with clear-eyed honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.
Date: Sunday 4 September
Time: 4:00pm
Venue: Better Read Than Dead, Newtown, 265 King St, Newtown NSW 2042
Price: This is a free event.
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Jo Chandler
A personal call to action from an Australian IPCC author
Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage.
If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history. The question is, do you want to be part of the legacy that restores our faith
in humanity?
When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.
Joëlle shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist – we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world. This book is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other and our planet.
Date: Tuesday 6 September
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Shedshaker Brewery, 9 Walker St, Castlemaine, VIC 3450
Price: $10
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Cr Sophie Wade
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.
Joëlle shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist - we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world. This book is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other and our planet.
Presented by CLIMARTE at the world's first known Climate Emergency focussed Gallery and timed to coincide with the Melbourne Writer's Festival, this event is an opportunity to meet Joëlle and to join a conversation led by the City of Yarra Mayor, Cr Sophie Wade.
Copies of Humanity's Moment signed by Joëlle will be available for sale at the event.
Date: Monday 12 September
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: CLIMARTE Gallery, 120 Bridge Road, Richmond, VIC 3121
Price: This is a free event.
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Dr Sian Prior
Joëlle shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist - we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world.
Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She is an internationally recognised expert in Australian and Southern Hemisphere climate variability and change.
Joëlle will be appearing in conversation with Dr Sian Prior, writer, broadcaster, musician and teacher and author of memoir, Childless: a Story of Freedom and Longing.
Date: Wednesday 21 September
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Hosted by Geelong Regional Libraries [online only]
Price: This is a free event.
Joëlle Gergis in conversation with Jordan Moy
When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night.
Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.
In her latest book, Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with clear-eyed honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time.
But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.
Joelle will sit down to chat about her new book and have an in-depth discussion about the latest IPCC report findings and what this means for the future. This is your chance to ask your most pressing climate question from one of the world's leading climate scientist.
Date: Wednesday 19 October
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Hosted by North Sydney Councils - Green Events Team [online only]
Price: This is a free event.