Stereo Stories
Description
Doors open 7.15pm for an 8pm start
From Afro jazz to punk to classic Aussie rock, Vin Maskell and the Stereo Stories band bring you another unforgettable night of music and memoir.
Storytellers Maxine Beneba Clarke, Lisa Moule, Donna Jackson, Konker Malual and Lucia Nardo join festival favourites Andy Griffiths and Smokie Dawson to share captivating tales about the songs that have shaped their lives.
Seating for Stereo Stories is allocated. Choose between theatre-style rows and cabaret-style tables. Feel free to bring your own snacks. Drinks can be purchased at the festival bar (no BYO).
Lineup
Vin Maskell
Vin Maskell is a Spotswood cyclist and Jawbone snorkeller moonlighting as a writer, editor and director. His short non-fiction pieces have been published in such places as The Age, The Big Issue, The Footy Almanac, Best Australian Essays and his 2003 book Jacaranda Avenue. He is the founder and editor of the Stereo Stories website and its fledgling series of pocketbooks. Since 2014 he has been director of Stereo Stories in concert.
Stereo Stories
The Stereo Stories Band is an ever-evolving ensemble of musicians dedicated to the challenges and rewards of presenting music and memoir on stage. The band threads its considerable musical versatility through writers’ stories about songs. The hardest working band on the writers’ festival circuit, it has performed as far afield as Mildura, Albury, Port Fairy, Terang, Geelong and Brunswick. Its home ground is Williamstown.
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Maxine Beneba Clarke is one of Australia’s most celebrated poets. She is the author of over fourteen books, including the bestselling memoir The Hate Race, the ABIA and Indie award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the Victorian Premier’s Award-winning poetry collection Carrying the World, the ABIA award-winning poetry collection It’s the Sound of the Thing, the Kate Greenaway Medal longlisted illustrated poem When We Say Black Lives Matter and the CBCA honour book The Patchwork Bike, which also won the Boston Globe Horn Prize for Best Picture Book. She was the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne.
Lisa Moule
Lisa grew up in Melbourne and studied at Melbourne University before moving to Paris to train in theatre at École Jacques Lecoq. She later moved to London, where she built a career as an actor and voice artist, performing at venues such as The London Playhouse and Soho Theatre, and voicing work including The Thunderbirds and The Skinner Boys. Lisa completed Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT in 2022. She won second prize in the 2022 Furphy Literary Award and the 2023 Australian Short Story Festival's Emerging Writers' Prize. She's also been shortlisted for the Peter Carey and Stringybark Awards. Her debut short story, Estelle, was published in Ordinary People. Lisa is a co-host on 3CR's Published... or Not and lives in Naarm/Melbourne with her husband and two children.
Donna Jackson
Newport resident Donna Jackson has thirty years' experience as creative director of large-scale arts projects in both traditional and non-traditional environments. She was founder and artistic director of the Footscray-based Women's Circus from 1991- 1996. Her book, Art and Social Change, DUST: A Case Study. was launched by Robyn Archer and Mark Seymour at the Williamstown Literary Festival in 2015. Her latest project is Arts, Accidents and Underpants, 'a cabaret inspired by a feminist revolution.'
Konker Malual
Konker Malual is a creative director, DJ and artist based in Melbourne's west. He's the founder of TROU (The Rest of Us), a community-powered art space in Footscray that backs emerging artists through exhibitions, poetry nights, music and free youth workshops. Of South Sudanese background, Konker never quite fit into traditional art spaces—so he built his own. He curates, mentors, DJs and sweeps the floors in the same day. For Konker, the work is simple: make space so other people can create, grow and be seen.
Lucia Nardo
Dr Lucia Nardo writes fiction and non-fiction and has published a range of both forms. In addition to her fiction and non-fiction titles, her short works appear in anthologies, magazines, and online. Lucia taught Professional Writing and Editing in the vocational education sector, and conducts writing workshops in community settings.
Andy Griffiths
Australian Children’s Laureate Andy Griffiths is the author of the JUST! series, the Treehouse stories illustrated by Terry Denton and, most recently, Let's Go, You & Me and the Peanut Butter Beast and You & Me and the Land of Lost Things with illustrator Bill Hope. His next book, You & Me and the Gigantic Knucklehead, is out in August.
Smokie Dawson
Darren 'Smokie’ Dawson is the author of the Stereo Stories pocketbook Before Too Long (published March 2026) and of the Swifty Taylor detective stories set in Williamstown and Newport (published on the Footy Almanac website in recent years). When not writing about music or comedic crime he writes about football, cricket, family, and travel for the Footy Almanac website.
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