How do we face the future? What does the South have to offer the planet that might give us hope and direction? What is the role of literature in bringing clarity, vision or solace to writers and readers?

Join an extra-ordinary panel of award-winning poets and writers, as they reflect on these questions and read from their works.

Featuring South African poet and academic Gabeba Baderoon, Australian novelist Gail Jones, Yankunytjatjara poet, novelist and memoirist, Bungalung poet and academic, Evelyn Araluen, Goan-Anglo Indian author Michelle D'Souza, Nicholas Jose, and Adelaide-based writer Jennifer Mills.

Moderated by Associate Professor Mandy Treagus from the University of Adelaide.

This event will feature book sales and signings after the panel.

Gabeba Baderoon is a poet and scholar. She is the author of the poetry collections, The Dream in the Next Body, A hundred silences and The History of Intimacy, and the monograph, Regarding Muslims: from Slavery to Post-Apartheid (2014). With Desiree Lewis, she co-edited the essay collection, Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa (2021). Gabeba is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, African Studies, and Comparative Literature at Penn State University, where she co-directs the African Feminist Initiative.

Gail Jones is the author of two short-story collections and ten novels, which include Sixty Lights, Dreams of Speaking, Sorry, The Death of Noah Glass, Salonika Burning and most recently, One Another (2024). Shortlisted four times for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction, the WA Premier’s Prize, the ASAL Gold Medal and the Nita B Kibble Award. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the Dublin IMPAC and the Prix Femina Étranger. Her fiction has been translated into many languages. Originally from Western Australia, she now lives in Sydney.

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her Stella-prize winning poetry collection DROPBEAR was published by UQP in 2021. She lectures in Literature and Creative Writing at Deakin University.

Jennifer Mills is an author, editor and critic based on Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide). Her latest novel, The Airways (2021), was longlisted for the Miles Franklin award and shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Horror. Dyschronia (2018) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Aurealis (for Science Fiction), and Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. Mills is a widely published essayist, an advocate for the rights of writers and artists, and a current Director of the Australian Society of Authors.

Michelle D'Souza (she/they) is an acclaimed poet and novelist of Indian heritage. She was Hedberg Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tasmania, a Hawthornden Castle Fellow and Red Room Poetry Fellow. Her book of short stories Letter to Pessoa (Giramondo) received the NSW Premier's Literary Award for New Writing. Daisy & Woolf (Hachette Australia) longlisted in the ALS Gold Medal and Voss Literary Prize. She co edited Contemporary Asian Australian Poets, deciBels3, Resilience, and is the artistic director of Mascara. Her essay 'Coetzee's Australians' appears in the Bloomsbury Handbook to J.M. Coetzee Ed Lucy Graham and Andrew van der Vlies (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Nicholas Jose has published eight novels, three short story collections and a range of essays and nonfiction including Chinese Whispers: Cultural Essays and the acclaimed memoir, Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola. His most recent novel is The Idealist, published last year. He was Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy Beijing from 1987-1990 and Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University. He was also general editor of The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature /The Literature of Australia (Allen & Unwin/Norton 2009). He is Adjunct Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University and Emeritus Professor of English and Creative Writing at The University of Adelaide.