VCE Program - Friday [Live Stream]

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of many books for adults and children, including the short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the memoir The Hate Race, the self-illustrated picture book When We Say Black Lives Matter (longlisted for the UK’s Kate Greenaway medal), and the CBCA Honour Book The Patchwork Bike (illustrated by Van T Rudd), which won the 2019 Boston Globe Horn Prize for Best Picture Book.

Her poetry collections include beautiful changelings, Carrying the World, How Decent Folk Behave, It’s the Sound of the Thing: 100 new poems for young people, and Stuff I'm (NOT) Sorry For: 99 more poems for young people.

Maxine was the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at the University of Melbourne (2023-2025).

Tony Birch is the author of four novels: Women & Children, which won the 2024 The Age Fiction Book of the Year; The White Girl, winner of the 2020 NSW Premier’s Award for Indigenous Writing, and shortlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award; Ghost River, winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and Blood, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2012. He has also published two poetry books and four short story collections, the most recent of which, Dark as Last Night, won both the 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction. In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. Tony Birch is an activist, historian and essayist, and is currently the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. Pictures of You: Collected Stories is his latest book.

Alice Pung is the author of the bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson. Her novel Laurinda won the 2016 Ethel Turner Prize. Her second novel, One Hundred Days was shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Award. She is also the author of children’s books including the Millie Mak series and Be Careful, Xiao Xin! (ill. Sher Rill Ng), When Granny Came to Stay (ill. Sally Soweol Han) and the Meet Marly books (ill. Lucia Masciullo). Alice was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to literature in 2022.