For author, filmmaker and Speakola founder Tony Wilson, the Convent has become a creative home woven into his working life.
Wilson has occupied a studio in the old Convent Building since 2008, the same year his children’s book, The Minister for Traffic Lights was launched here. Over the years, the precinct has become the backdrop to a string of milestones – book launches, exhibitions and collaborations. A favourite memory was the 2012 launch for his children’s book The Emperor’s New Clothes Horse, complete with pony rides circling the courtyard outside the iconic Cam’s Kiosk on the Convent grounds.
“I still have pictures of my daughter aged seven riding a pony that day. And now she is a waiter at Cam’s.”
“When I say I’ve invested my life here at the Convent, it’s not an exaggeration. I feel like I have grown up here as an artist and had my creative life here.”
Wilson is father to four children and says that arriving at his studio, tucked into the nineteenth-century building with its soaring ceilings and expansive grounds, offers a much-needed stillness.
“When I sit down at my desk each day it feels like a weight is lifting.”
“I challenge anyone to find a sandstone setting for their writing and filmmaking for the sort of value that the Convent has provided to me,” says Wilson.
Most days run from around 11am to 5pm, with the hardest writing tackled first and a lunch break somewhere between Cam’s Kiosk and a bowl of pho on Victoria Street.
Alongside his work as a novelist and filmmaker, Wilson is also the creator of Speakola, a digital archive dedicated to speeches from around the world and across history. Complementing it is a podcast of the same name.
Through Speakola, Wilson has spent years thinking about what makes words endure.
“It’s amazing how often a great speech is amplified by a significant moment,” he says.
Wilson believes that the speeches that stay with us often arrive at moments of grief or change. Others simply express something with an elegant clarity that sticks with the reader.
Alongside his fascination with words, Wilson has a deep appreciation for the history and grandeur of historic buildings, qualities he finds in abundance at the Convent.
“I love the Convent because it’s one of the most beautiful places in my life, if not the most beautiful.
“If you think of Australian buildings, there are few that have this grandeur in Melbourne. The studio spaces are small, but they have these 3 ½ metre high ceilings that rocket up and there is something wonderful about that.
“When you think of what a city might produce as a national trust space, the Convent is that. It is incredibly beautiful and we’re very well looked after as creatives here.”
Recognised in 2017 as one of only three arts and culture organisations on Australia’s National Heritage List (the others being the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and the Sydney Opera House), the precinct is now cared for by the Abbotsford Convent Foundation, a not-for-profit social enterprise.
Support through our annual giving appeal helps protect and sustain places like this, preserve these historic buildings and landscapes, maintain affordable spaces for artists, writers and makers, and ensure future generations can continue to create, connect and find inspiration here.
Do you want your name (or your kids’ or grandkids’) in Tony’s next picture book?
It’s called ‘The Elephant in the Room and it’s about an ignored elephant and idioms!
Commit to two copies plus postage and your name goes on last page of book.
Register here.
Follow Tony’s writing and creative endeavours at ‘Good one, Wilson!’
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Published 10 June 2026.