Get ready. Storyology is coming (or: a festival guide)
Brisbane: you steamy north-eastern state of succulent fruit, you are the (pine)apple of our eye. Your climate may make us sweat in unnatural places, your state may baffle us at times with oddball politicians and pole-dancing koalas, but that hasn’t stopped us, The Walkleys, from plonking the main program of this year’s Storyology smack bang in your city.
If you haven’t checked out the program, well, she’s a beauty — with some of the nation’s best journalists, editors, authors, photographers and a cartoonist showcased across five talks this July.
Read on for four ample motivations to go; providing insights for the uncertain, and a gateway into Australia’s premiere festival of journalism — where storytellers get centre stage and the curtain on the (increasingly deranged, it seems) news world is twitched back.
Booklovers will dig it
Journalism and books have gone hand in hand, as our Walkley Book Award gives a deep, double-chinned nod to. Both journalism and books have the capacity to change lives, so inspired by the Copyright Agency’s format, we’re kicking off Storyology with the session, This Book Changed My Life. Just add dinner or drinks for the perfect Friday night date to impress, as Lenore Taylor, Trent Dalton and Melissa Lucashenko share the books that left an imprint on who they are as professionals and people.
Aside from being adorable on Twitter, Trent Dalton is a feature writer at The Weekend Australian Magazine and published his first fiction novel in June. With a strong autobiographical tint, Boy Swallows Universe has been called a “towering achievement…the Cloudstreet of the Australian suburban criminal underworld” in an engrossing Courier-Mail profile by Matthew Condon — who also happens to be a Storyology guest.
Melissa Lucashenko has won a Walkley Award for her writing and is perhaps best known as an author and novelist. Her latest fiction work Too Much Lip will be released just a few days after Storyology ends. In her own words, it’s “a kind of foray into the harder edges of Aboriginal life in country NSW, with a hillbilly sensibility”. She’s also said that “In the two years I spent writing Too Much Lip, the image I kept in mind was of the protagonist, Kerry, giving the middle finger to everyone and everything as she rides her Harley off into the sunset.” We can’t wait.
One of our speakers is a debut bestselling author
If we’re talking books though, we can’t overlook the festival’s debut author and bestseller, Bri Lee. If that name sounds familiar, no wonder. Her memoir Eggshell Skull, in which the former lawyer confronts her abuser and a justice system structured around gender bias and trauma, has been toured nationally, gaining the praise of Fiona Wright, Clementine Ford and Helen Garner.
Could one ask for a better reception to a first-ever book? Bri will be on the Saturday panel, Power Shifts, speaking with Catharine Fox, Rachael Hancock and Cathie Schnitzerling.
Another was sued by Trump’s personal lawyer
In January, the US President’s lawyer Michael Cohen took action against BuzzFeed for their controversial publishing of the Trump-Russia dossier, which contained claims of both collusion and (memorably) some perverted acts. Among those sued was Mark Schoofs, BuzzFeed’s Pulitzer Prize-winning projects & investigations editor, who edited the story. Cohen later dropped the suit.
Needless to say, we are quite excited to have Schoofs as our international guest at Storyology this year. He’ll be appearing at Saturday Morning with the Papers, along with Lenore Taylor, Sean Leahy, Paula Doneman and Danielle Cronin. On the table: a discussion on the method (and the madness) behind reporting the news today. In other words, how journalists find, choose, develop and tell stories in the age of disinformation, 24-hour news cycles and growing global animosity towards the fourth estate.
And another speaker just returned from Latvia
It is difficult to wean yourself off social media when one is constantly yearning to see another Instagram post from Nick Moir (@nampix). The chief photographer at The Sydney Morning Herald, Nick has been trekking through Finland and Latvia, capturing Icelandic horses with killer bangs, fields of indigo wildflowers, traditional festivals and the overgrown remains of a Soviet nuclear missile launch in Latvia (including one strange relic, plunged into the forest floor: the head of Lenin, transported after the fall of the USSR lest it be destroyed). Before that, Nick was cruising US highways chasing storm cells for the dramatic weather images he’s been collecting his whole career.
We’ve persuaded him to stay in Australia long enough to chat with wildlife photographer Gary Cranitch at the midday Storyology session, Shooting the Storm. Moderated by Emma Griffiths (a familiar voice to all those who tune in to ABC Brisbane’s Focus), they’ll talk about what it is that compels them to stride into bushfires, walk up to volcano mouths, and plunge into deep-ocean zones — all for the sake of an image.
All said, it’s a (very entertaining) way to wise up to the media maelstrom
Trying to piece together how the news works in the digital age is just about as easy as re-creating a full-size version of Noosa’s Big Pelican out of custard. Storyology, a festival programmed this year specifically for the public, makes it just that little bit easier to get a handle on and how journalists’ hard-won facts take form as a story. You’ll hear journalism leaders discuss why press freedom is one of the most crucial pillars to democracy.
Most of all, you’ll come out of Palace Cinemas just a little less bamboozled: a little more canny of the complexities of the news system, a little more appreciative of the challenges editors must face. And, finally, a great deal more delighted by the stories we Aussies read every day, to make sense of who we were, are, and could be.
Brisbane 2018 Storyology will run from July 27–28 at the Palace Cinemas at the Barracks. Tickets start from just $30, with discounts available for students, pensioners and MEAA members.
