Outspoken Maleny

We are, tonight, discussing the new book written by Elaine Green, acclaimed local author of 14 books about community and local history. Unfortunately Elaine is unwell. In her absence Peter Stevens, President of...

How to begin to introduce Dr Bob Brown? I mean, clearly, you all know exactly who he is and so any introduction is redundant. But, at the same time, the sheer breadth of his achievements over the last six decades are...

It is a few years now since Heather Rose came to Maleny to speak about her memoir   Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here . The book revealed that, aside from being a best-selling, internationally-published...

These days Chris Hammer is best known for his ‘bush noir’ novels - a category which might even have been created to describe his books. They unravel in far-flung parts of Australia: in the opal fields of Lightning...

Hugh White argues that, right now, we confront the world's most dangerous crisis in generations, with the old global order facing a direct challenge in three crucial regions: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and East...

Our ‘introducing author’ is the wonderful  Joanna Jenkins. Her first novel  How To Kill a Client, became a massive best-seller. In her new novel, The Bluff,  her focus moves from big-city legal firms to a...

Jane Rawson has an interesting backstory (see below) and much of her recent output has been fiction. In the case of Human/Nature, however, she presents a series of linked essays that delve, in a very idiosyncratic and...

Our introducing speaker tonight is Dr Barry Traill AM, (BJ). Barry is a long-term resident of Maleny, and is one of Australia’s most successful environmental advocates. He is the former Director of Pew Charitable...

Our featured author tonight is Debra Oswald. Debra came to prominence, or maybe the right word is fame, with the production of the immensely popular television series Offspring in 2010, for which she was the Creator and...

Our first guest tonight is the fascinating Steve MinOn. Steve’s debut novel is First Name Second Name, which won the Glendower Award for an emerging Queensland writer at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards. He has also...

I'm going out on a limb here. I think Rick Morton’s Mean Streak is an important book. Its description of the creation, implementation and eventual dismantling of Robodebt reveals a long slow-motion train wreck – one...

Siang Lu is the author of two novels, The Whitewash and Ghost Cities. The latter, which we'll be discussing, was inspired by the existence of several vacant uninhabited megacities of China. It follows multiple...

Gina Chick has written a memoir. It’s titled we are the stars, and it follows her life from when she was almost seven years old, all the way through until she’s fifty, and there’s hardly a page you might choose to...

Andrew Stafford’s book Pig City, about Brisbane music from the 70s through to the millennium, has been re-released for its twentieth anniversary. It is, in itself, a major Brisbane icon. Bernard Fanning wrote of it...

Mark Newman was born and raised in South Africa. As a young man he completed a post-graduate philosophy degree at Johannesburg University (University of the Witwatersrand). This was during the time of Apartheid in South...