The Dog-Eared Readings

The Dog-Eared Readings is a regular literary event that brings a curated selection of writers together for an evening of high-calibre readings and discussion. 

Our featured writer this month is award-winning writer and artist Fiona Kelly McGregor who will be in conversation with novelist and critic Jennifer Mills. Rounding out this fabulous line-up will be readings from internationally awarded writer Patrick Flanery and beloved poet Jules Leigh Koch.

Fiona Kelly McGregor has published eight books, most recently the novel Iris, nominated for many awards including the Miles Franklin, the NSW Premier's, the ALS Gold medal and Stella Prize. Previously, novel Indelible ink won Age Book of the Year and was published in French by Actes-Sud. McGregor’s non-fiction includes essay collection Buried not dead, shortlisted for the VPLA, genre-busting photoessay A novel idea, and travel memoir Strange museums. McGregor writes for The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, Art Link, Art Monthly and more, and will publish The Trap, a follow-up to Iris, in early 2026.

Jennifer Mills is an author, editor and critic based on Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide). Known for imaginative climate fiction and bold experimentation, her books include The Airways and Dyschronia, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Mills is a widely published essayist, an advocate for the rights of writers and artists, a MEAA freelance delegate, Deputy Chair of the Australian Society of Authors, and a current SA Literary Fellow. Her latest novel, Salvage, is published by Picador.

Patrick Flanery is the author of the novels Night for Day, I Am No One, Fallen Land and Absolution, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2019 he published a book of creative nonfiction, The Ginger Child: On Family, Loss and Adoption. His short fiction has appeared in Granta and Zoetrope: All Story. His work has been translated into a dozen languages and supported by fellowships at the Santa Maddalena Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, MacDowell, the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, and the Kyoto Writers Residency. He has been Chair of Creative Writing at Adelaide University since 2021 and was previously Professor of Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Reading.

Jules Leigh Koch’s poems have appeared on street signs, at tram stations, on pavements in ‘Raining Adelaide’ and have been performed by the School of Visual Arts in Tasmania. His poems have been published in over seventy magazines and anthologies, including Overland, The Weekend Australian, Southerly, A.B.R, Island Magazine and Australian Poetry Journal. Koch is the author of five collections of poetry and has been a recipient of two South Australian Literature Grants.