The University of Queensland is playing a major role in ensuring the success of the Brisbane Writers Festival, to be held from September 27 to October 3.
The University will be presenting six sessions at the Festival, and UQ academics will be lending their views and expertise through involvement in sessions and with appearances during the event.
Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay, AC, will join Ben Eltham, Christopher Lawrence and Marg O`Donnell for an September 30 session chaired by Rosemary Sorensen from The Courier Mail on a controversial topic State of the Arts.
Panelists will discuss the recent pressure on a number of Queensland`s flagship arts companies and look at the way forward for the groups.
UQ staff members appearing at the Festival are:
Carole Ferrier: Reader in English at UQ, biographer, editor, literary critic and cultural commentator, editor of Hecate and the Australian Womens Book Review;
Bronwen Levy: senior lecturer at UQ who writes on feminist criticism and theory and contemporary women writers;
Jan McKemmish: A novelist and performance writer, who teaches in the post-graduate writing program at UQ;
Aileen Moreton-Robinson: An Australian Research Council (ARC) post-doctoral fellow in the Australian Studies Centre at UQ. Whitening Race will be published in November by Aboriginal Studies Press:
Shane Thompson: An Australian architect and an adjunct professor at UQ. Making a sub-tropical architecture was recently published by L`Arca Edizioni of Milan; and
Sam Watson: Writer, filmaker and political activist who teaches Black Australian literature at UQ.
University of Queensland sponsored sessions are:
Thursday, September 30, 10 am: Spotlight on Jane Urquhart (Award winning Canadian writer) with Jo Lampert. Venue: Cremorne Theatre;
Thursday 30 September 30, 3pm: State of the Arts. Queensland`s flagship arts companies have been under fire recently. Where do we go from here? Ben Eltham, Professor John Hay, AC, Christopher Lawrence, Marg O`Donnell, Rosemary Sorensen (chair). Venue: The Courier-Mail Marquee;
Thursday, September 30, 6pm until late: Readings from UQ, QUT and USC creative writing students. Venue: Spark Bar Brisbane Powerhouse;
Friday, October 1, 9am. Travelling with Turgenev. Robert Dessaix in conversation with Amanda Lohrey. Venue: The Courier-Mail Marquee;
Friday, October 1, 4.30pm: The Philosophers Doll. Author Amanda Lohrey in conversation with Jan McKemmish Venue: The Courier -Mail Marquee. Presented by Friends of Fryer Library, University of Queensland; and
Friday, October 1, 10.15am: Initiation Grounds. Venue: Reader’s Marquee. Presented by Indigenous Unit, The University Of Queensland.
The hub of the Festival hub will be the Cultural Forecourt, the lawn between the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) and the Brisbane River.
The Cultural Forecourt will be the venue for The Courier-Mail River Marquee, the Readers’ Marquee, the BookMania Marquee, Pateman’s Café, Brisbane’s Better Bookshop, the Marketplace and the Festival Info Tent.
The Cremorne Theatre and the Lyric Lounge are both inside QPAC and can be accessed from the Cultural Forecourt.
For full details of the Festival program, visit http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au
