The Next Big Thing: Melbourne Writers Festival Edition

Six of Australia’s best emerging literary voices share their work.

Raya Goldtwig reflects on a childhood shaped by the long shadow of World War II in her evocative memoir The World Belongs to Children. In her fearless debut Periodic Bitch, Emma Hardy interrogates menstrual monsters and the culture that created them, drawing on her own experience with premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Journalist Antoun Issa’s Rebirth traces his mother’s journey through love, migration and renewal amid the upheaval of the Lebanese Civil War. Emily Lighezzolo’s Life Drawing is a provocative novel about women’s bodies, sex, autonomy – and the power of the image. Graphic storyteller Soolagna Majumdar shares work from her forthcoming project Food Bird. And Olivia Wood presents her Voiceworks piece, ‘Privilege of a Peaceful Grief’, a meditation on the strange undercurrents flowing beneath suburban family life.

Hosted by Pranati Narayan Visweswaran.

Presented in partnership with Melbourne Writers Festival.