Wit, Wisdom and Redefining Age

Lineup

• More details about Jacinta Parsons

  Jacinta Parsons

  Jacinta Parsons is a radio broadcaster and writer from Melbourne, Australia who has worked at community radio station Triple R, and for the ABC at Double J, ABC Radio Melbourne, and ABC Radio National. She has released three books, Unseen (2020), A Question of Age (2022) and her most recent in 2025 – an investigation on wisdom and the elder woman – A Wisdom of Age. She works extensively as an advocate for chronic illness and against age discrimination in both her work and in role as a speaker around the country. She is the co-chair of Rollercoaster Theatre, a company dedicated to access for intellectually disabled and neurodiverse actors on Australian stages and enjoys teaching at RMIT university in Media and Communication where she gained her PhD in talkback radio. Parsons currently hosts the Friday Revue and Saturday Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.

• More details about Peta Murray

  Peta Murray

  Peta Murray is a Senior Lecturer at RMIT University, and is best known for her plays Wallflowering, and Salt, as well as AWGIE-winning works Spitting Chips and The Keys to the Animal Room. Peta’s short fiction has been published in Sleepers Almanac and New Australian Stories and her essays in Sydney Review of Books, The Mekong Review and TEXT Journal. Peta is a faux-Scot with numerous alter egos and far too many hobbies. Her most recent publication, the braided memoir How to Dress for Old Age, co-authored with David Carlin, has just been released by Upswell Publishing.

• More details about Anne Connor

  Anne Connor

  Anne Connor is a writer of long and short form prose. She studied creative writing at Deakin University in Melbourne, the University of Oxford UK, and with Irish writer, Claire Keegan. Her memoir Two Generations (2018 Ventura) was shortlisted for the Les Carlyon Australian War Memorial Literary Award and was reviewed positively in The Saturday Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Weekend Australian. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Age, Business Review Weekly, lifestyle and industry magazines. Her short stories have been published in anthologies, received awards, and highly commended in short story competitions. A book she wrote on dementia risk reduction was translated into ten languages. Alongside working on her own writing, Anne moderates on literary panels, facilitates workshops and guides and supports writers, published either traditionally or independently, with publicity for their books.