The Library That Made Me

Featuring Ali Cobby Eckermann, Hannah Diviney, Anna Funder, Richard Glover and Tim Ross, this event is hosted by Openbook editor Phillipa McGuinness.

From tiny mobile school libraries to the Mitchell Reading Room to regional public libraries or the grand Staatsbibliothek in the lee of the Berlin Wall, hear about how these hubs of writing, reading and creativity sparked something magical in some of this country’s finest thinkers. 

Ali Cobby Eckermann is a Yankunytjatjara poet and artist from South Australia whose poetry collections include little bit long time and the award-winning Inside My Mother. Her verse novels are His Father’s Eyes and Ruby Moonlight, which won the inaugural black&write! Indigenous fellowship, the Kenneth Slessor Prize, a Deadly Award and was named the 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Book of the Year. In 2013 Ali toured Ireland as Australia’s Poetry Ambassador, and in 2017 she received the Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University.

Hannah Diviney is a leading writer and disability and women’s rights advocate. She began her career at Mamamia at the age of fifteen and since then has become the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Missing Perspectives, is the face of the global campaign for a Disabled Disney Princess and is the woman who called out Lizzo for using an ableist slur. She also plays the female lead in the SBS TV series Latecomers. I'll Let Myself In is her first book.

Anna Funder is the author of Stasiland and All That I Am – both international bestsellers, published in more than 24 countries – and the novella The Girl with the Dogs. Her latest book is the genre-bending masterpiece Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, published in 2023. Her books have won multiple literary awards, including the UK’s premier award for non-fiction, the Samuel Johnson Prize, for Stasiland, and Australia’s most prestigious award, the Miles Franklin, for her novel All That I Am. Originally trained as an international human rights lawyer, Anna is a former DAAD Fellow in Berlin, Australia Council Fellow and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow.

Richard Glover’s books include the bestsellers The Land Before Avocado, Flesh Wounds and Love, Clancy. His latest is Best Wishes – a book about making the world a better, less annoying place, one wish at a time. He writes weekly for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and presents the comedy show Thank God It’s Friday on ABC Local Radio, where he also hosts Drive.

Tim Ross is a celebrated comedian and a passionate advocate for architecture and design, promoting its value in multiple forums. Tim has performed his live Man About the House show in significant buildings throughout the world, at the Venice Biennale and the London Festival of Architecture. His two ABC TV series Streets of Your Town and Designing a Legacy; his exhibitions including Design Nation and Motel; and his many publications, guest speaker engagements and provocative design commentary have made design accessible to a wide, diverse and appreciative audience.

Phillipa McGuinness (host) is the editor of Openbook, the State Library of NSW's glossy quarterly magazine. A former non-fiction book publisher, she is the author of two books published by Penguin, Skin Deep: the inside story of our outer selves and The Year Everything Changed – 2001, which was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Award for Literature and the Queensland Literary Awards. She is also the editor of Copyfight. Her work has appeared in Griffith Review, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, The Weekend Australian Magazine and The Australian Women's Weekly.

 

This event is presented in partnership with Sydney Writers’ Festival.