Canberra’s Biggest Bookclub
Moderator: Kate Evans • Edwina Preston and Beejay Silcox
You’ve read the book. You’ve sent in your questions. It’s time!
When we announced Edwina Preston’s Bad Art Mother as our bookclub pick in May, we promised you a grand “spoilertastic” conversation. Here it is.
Join CWF’s Artistic Director, Beejay Silcox, and Kate Evans from ABC’s The Bookshelf, as they get answers to your most burning literary questions.
There’s so much to unpick in this Stella Prize-shortlisted novel. Who gets to be an art-maker? At what cost? Whose artistic voices are valued, and whose are lost? These questions are as relevant today as they were half a century ago. That’s what makes this novel so vital and beguiling.
But what do you think? Come along and tell us. We can’t wait to meet all of the joyful readers who have taken part in Canberra’s Biggest Bookclub.
Presented in conjunction with ABC RN’s The Bookshelf and the Stella Prize
Artist
EDWINA PRESTON is a Melbourne-based writer and musician. Preston is the author of a biography of Australian artist Howard Arkley, Not Just a Suburban Boy and two novels The Inheritance of Ivorie Hammer, and Bad Art Mother. Her writing and reviews have appeared in The Age, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Heat, Island, the Conversation and Griffith Review. Bad Art Mother was shortlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize and the 2023 NSW Premier's Literary Awards (Christina Stead Prize for Fiction).
Artist
BEEJAY SILCOX is a literary critic and the Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival.
Moderator
KATE EVANS co-hosts ABC Radio National's weekly broadcast and podcast offering, The Bookshelf (with Cassie McCullagh). She regularly interviews writers at festivals; has a PhD in history and a ridiculous number of books.