Multi-award-winning international playwright, Suzie Miller, will be in conversation with Alex Sloan on her new book Inter Alia, in which Jessica Parks, an eminent Crown Court Judge, is forced to reckon her professional life and role as wife, mother, friend, and feminist when a devastating crisis hits home.

Jessica belongs to a new breed of judicial minds, working actively within the legal framework to bring morality, compassion, and human decency into an infrastructure historically built without women in mind. In the courtroom, Jessica maintains unyielding control-stalling combative KCs, dismantling deep-seated legal prejudices, and actively working to protect vulnerable witnesses from trauma. But beneath her professional composure lies the invisible, exhausting weight of the domestic juggle. While her husband Michael, a successful criminal barrister, navigates his career with effortless privilege, Jessica finds herself quietly carrying the lion's share of the emotional and operational labour at home.

When an unexpected criminal accusation directly entangles her eighteen-year-old son, Harry, the rigid boundaries separating Jessica's workspace from her family life fracture. Forced to confront the dark realities of contemporary youth culture, peer pressure, and institutional bias, she must step off the bench to fight for her family.

Inter Alia offers a searing, intimate examination of modern masculinity, motherhood, and systemic justice, revealing the fragile compromises women must make to survive under enduring patriarchal structures.

Suzie Miller is an acclaimed Australian playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and former lawyer . Educated in Science, Law, and Theatre, she practiced human rights and criminal justice law for fifteen years before transitioning to writing full-time. Her breakout debut novel, Prima Facie, has been translated into 10 languages, while her celebrated stage plays have been produced on London's West End, Broadway, and across 50 countries. Jessica Parks was played by Rosamond Pike in the acclaimed National Theatre production of Inter Alia,

Alex Sloan AM is an award-winning journalist, panellist, MC and commentator whose extensive media career spans 30 years, including 27 years with ABC Radio. Alex is a Director and Deputy Chair of Australia's think-tank, The Australia Institute . In 2017 Alex was named ACT Citizen of the Year .Alex is a regular conversationalist in the Meet the Author series.

The vote of thanks will be given by Meredith Rossner, Professor of Criminology and Lead of the Crime and Social Justice Programme at POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research at the ANU.

Books will be available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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