What do events producers do? Literally make things happen

I am an experienced and creative events producer. I was the Artistic Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival from 2017—2019, co-founder and Artistic Director of Noted Writers Festival from 2014—2017. I have developed and produced countless community arts events and performed for kids and adults at venues, bookshops and festivals across the country including Melbourne Fringe, Falls Festival and You Are Here Festival Canberra. I am a seasoned public speaker, having participated in and moderated discussions around the globe, including the Bangalore Literature Festival India and Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Network in China. More recently, I’ve also branched out into producing intimate bespoke events for families celebrating or marking milestones.

Queensland Poetry Festival

In 2018 and 2019 I was the Artistic Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. Each year I built a four-day program which featured high profile Australian and international poets in a program jam packed with workshops, performances, interactive installations, multi-disciplinary collaborations, zine fairs and panel discussions. Part of this role was coordinating the Queensland heats and final of the Australian Poetry Slam Championships and administrating a suite of six annual prestigious poetry awards. Festival guests included: New Zealand’s poet laureate and former Commonwealth Poet Selina Tusitala Marsh; consecutive recipients of the UK’s Ted Hughes Prize for Poetry Hollie McNish and Jay Bernard; recipient of Yale’s Windham-Campbell Prize Ishion Hutchinson; Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko and Australian poetry icons Lionel Fogarty and Judith Beveridge. Browse the programs below.

Noted Writers Festival

In 2014, I joined a tiny-but-mighty team of writers, artists and producers to bring Canberra its first ever independent and experimental writers festival: Noted. The original team was Yasmin Masri, Zoya Patel, Farz Edraki, Andrew Galan, Chiara Grassia, Ashley Thomson and Duncan Felton. I co-produced the inaugural festival in 2015 and co-directed the 2016 and 2017 festivals. Noted Writers Festival showcased the work of writers — local and visiting, emerging and established — in an always evolving program of workshops, literary bar crawls (LitHop), performative lectures, professional development events, interactive digital events and much much more. We partnered with the National Library of Australia and Libraries ACT to deliver a suite of writers residencies for Emerging First Nations writers and Emerging Writers in the 55+ age bracket. Watch some highlights below.

No Lights No Lycra Canberra

In 2013 I co-founded the Canberra chapter of global dance community No Lights No Lycra with fellow community arts legend Lisa Sampson. We marketed and hosted the weekly event for two years before handing the reigns over to the incredible Bec McPhee.

We produced special events for You Are Here Festival in Canberra including kids events: Little No Lights and Boogie Battallion. Boogie Battallion was a gorgeous public event, in which we led an army of tiny disco soldiers throughout the city of Canberra, accompanied by a danceable soundtrack of songs-without-swearwords, stopping every so often for an on-the-spot boogie. Some press for NLNL Canberra below:

The Same Page Book Show

During my time with Canberra Writers Collective Scissors Paper Pen (with the legendary Rosanna Stevens, Adelaide Rief and Duncan Felton), I founded and moderated live book club event, The Same Page Book Show, an intimate and regular event for an audience of book lovers in Smiths Bookshop. It was a little like the ABC's First Tuesday book club, except the panellists were allowed to swear and drink beer. We primarily focused on independently published and locally written works, rather than adding to the glut of opinions surrounding the classics and bestsellers. 

Regular panellists (aka my Jason Steger and Marieke Hardy) were Lynda Carmody: manager of the National Library of Australia's iconic bookshop and Ashley Thomson: founding editor of Homer, formerly editor at Momentum Publishing and BMA Magazine.

Guest panellists for The Night Guest:
Emily Stewart, commissioning editor of Seizure Publishing
Ash Goldberg, music critic and short fiction writer

Guest panellists for I’m Ready Now and Fall on Me:
Lucy Neave, novelist and creative writing lecturer at the ANU
Zoya Patel, author of No Country Woman, founding editor of Feminartsy

Guest panellists for Who We Were:
Nigel Featherstone, founding editor of Verity La and award winning novelist
Joseph Falsone, artistic director of Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centre.

Listen to the recordings of these discussions below.