50 Years of Deadly Stories

Celebrate NAIDOC week  and share in the history, culture, achievements and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, with the ’Fifty Years of Deadly’ theme.

Our panel is chaired by Claire Coleman, a Wirlomin Noongar yok whose ancestral Country is on the south coast of the area known as Western Australia. She is the author of the novels Terra Nullius, The Old Lie and Enclave and the award winning non fiction book Lies, Damned Lies.

The panel also features:

Madi Colville-Walker, a proud Yorta Yorta singer songwriter, and the 2023 recipient of the National Indigenous Music Awards : Uncle Archie Roach Foundation Award.

Skye Cusack, Dulgubarra Yidinji writer, journalist and marketer currently working at Magabala Books, shortlisted for the 2026 Creative Australia Youth Award for Achievement in the Arts for her contribution to the First Nations arts industry, and is publishing two novels in 2027. 

John Morrissey, is a Melbourne writer of Kalkadoon descent, whose debut Firelight won an Aurealis Award and a Queensland Literary Award, and in 2024 he was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist.