Thursday 30 October
6pm – 7.30pm
Oratory
Free - Registrations Required
Luke Beesley and Michael Dulaney share the outcomes generated through the Convent’s inaugural Writers Residency Program; supporting writers in their professional development through dedicated studio space, a generous honorarium and mentoring from Convent staff and tenants.
Join Claire Thomas and the Convent Writers Community for readings, interspersed with live DJ sets by Fia Fiell, Vietnamese-Australian synthesist, pianist and composer Carolyn Schofield, whose intricate and improvisatory compositions derive from meditations on deep listening, growth and transcendence.
Luke Beesley is a writer, artist and singer-songwriter. His latest book In the Photograph was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His poetry has been published widely in Australia and internationally and has been translated into several languages. Luke performs under the moniker Cornflake Sunset.
Michael Dulaney’s writing focuses on humanity’s links with the rest of non-human nature in the climate crisis, and has been published by The Monthly, Literary Hub, Griffith Review, and the BBC, among others. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has won the Overland Fair Australia Prize and been named a 2024 Climate Futures Fellow by the State Library Victoria. His first book, Sentinels, will be published internationally by Scribe in 2026.
Claire Thomas is a valued member of the Convent Writers Community. Her first novel. Fugitive Blue, won the Dobbie Literary Award for women writers, and was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her second novel, The Performance, also longlisted for the Miles Franklin, was internationally published to critical acclaim, and shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in 2022. Claire holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and has worked as a mentor, lecturer, supervisor and teacher for many years. Her third novel, On Not Climbing Mountains, was written with the support of residency at the Fondation Jan Michalski in Montricher, Switzerland, and will be published in February next year.
