Stella Day Out – Western Sydney University

Stella Day Out is a free one-day literary festival that celebrates and promotes the outstanding contributions of women and non-binary writers to Australian literature.

Each Stella Day Out provides authors with a freelance income that is consistent with the Australian Society of Authors payment rates and we encourage book sales through local independent bookstores to support the whole ecosystem..

When Stella Prize-listed authors participate in these events, they take the story of their work to broader audiences, it also means they get a boost in the promotion of their books, which translates in to book sales. By providing a year-long platform where Stella Prize-listed authors and judges can continue to promote their work and events, we guarantee keeping the conversation around their books relevant and open more opportunities for them to be featured in writers’ festivals, workshops and/or anthologies.

STELLA DAY OUT – WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY – SATURDAY OCTOBER 19

11am – 12pm -Writing, Storying and Truth-Telling Mia Hull in conversation with Debra Dank

1pm – 2pm - Weaving Poetry into Fiction Yumna Kassab in conversation with Michelle Law

3pm – 4pm- 2024 Stella Prize winner Alexis Wright in Conversation with Dr. Yves Rees (pre recorded interview)

Stella Day Out Speakers

Debra Dank

Dr Debra Dank is Gudanji/Wakaja, from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory of Australia. For almost 40 years she has worked in a variety of roles in primary, secondary and tertiary education across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory in urban and remote contexts.

She is particularly interested in how narrative is practiced in Aboriginal communities and why semiotics is critical to understanding the breadth of communicative mechanisms and functions in this practice.

Her first book, We come with this place, won an unprecedented four categories in the 2023 NSW Premier’s awards, The University of Queensland 2023 Non-Fiction Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for 2023. It was also shortlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize, the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance and the People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award and the Nonfiction Award at the Prime Minister's Literary Awards. She is passionate about a healthy landscape and Aboriginal people's right to maintain identity through kinship with Country on the Beetaloo Basin, where her place is located and is currently being fracked.

Michelle Law

Michelle Law is a writer and actor – working in print, screen and stage – currently based on Gadigal Land. Her works include the plays, Single Asian Female (La Boite Theatre Company), Top Coat (Sydney Theatre Company), and Miss Peony (Belvoir St Theatre); the television show Homecoming Queens (SBS); and the book Asian Girls are Going Places (Hardie Grant). Her awards include two Australian Writers Guild Awards, the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award, and the Arts & Culture 40 Under 40 Awards, which celebrates the country’s most influential Asian Australians. Michelle is also a widely published freelance author and a prolific speaker who regularly appears on panels and at festivals.

Alexis Wright

Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She is the author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and, most recently, Praiseworthy. Her works of non-fiction include Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory; and Tracker, the award-winning collective memoir of Aboriginal leader, Tracker Tilmouth. Her books have been published widely overseas, including in China, the US, the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Poland. Wright has won numerous literary awards, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Carpentaria and Praiseworthy, as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Queensland Literary Award for Praiseworthy, which was also shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Wright is the first author to win the Stella Prize twice (for Tracker and Praiseworthy), and Praiseworthy is the only book to have received both the Stella and the Miles Franklin awards. She held the position of Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, and has received honorary titles at universities including the University of Melbourne, Western Sydney University and the University of Queensland. She is the inaugural winner of the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, and a finalist for the 2024 Melbourne Prize for Literature.

Dr Yves Rees

Dr Yves Rees (they/them) is a writer and historian living in Naarm, on unceded Wurundjeri land. They are a Lecturer in History at La Trobe University, co-host of Archive Fever podcast, and author of All About Yves: Notes from a Transition (Allen & Unwin, 2021). They are also co-editor of Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2022) and Transnationalism, Nationalism and Australian History (Palgrave, 2017). Rees was awarded the 2020 ABR Calibre Essay Prize and a 2021 Varuna Residential Fellowship. Their writing has featured in the Guardian, The Age, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Meanjin, Griffith Review and Overland. They have judged the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the Calibre Essay Prize. Their next book is forthcoming with NewSouth in 2024.

Yumna Kassab

Yumna Kassab is a writer from Western Sydney. She is the author of The House of Youssef, Australiana and The Lovers. Her latest book, Politica, is available from Ultimo Press. It is an imagined history of the Arab world or else a feminine telling of politics. Her books have been listed for The Stella, Miles Franklin Award, Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, QLD Literary Awards, Victorian Premier's Literary Award and NSW Premier's Award. She is the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature. A complete list of her writings can be found here.