One in six Australians is aged 65 or older. Politicians frame this as an economic issue that affects housing, health and the workforce, as the nation grows collectively older. Yet, beyond statistics and stereotypes, an individual’s experience of ageing is deeply personal, is reliant on specific circumstances, and is subject to the same systemic issues facing the young.
Vivian Blaxell published her first book, Worthy of the Event, this year – aged 74 – a philosophical, expansive text that defies classification, set against a backdrop of trans life that begins with her own transition in the 1960s.
In Debra Oswald’s latest book, we meet Betty: a storyteller and feminist who is both eternally curious and phenomenally old. On the eve of her hundredth birthday party, she tells us her story.
And in beautiful changelings, the newest collection from poet Maxine Beneba Clarke, we are offered poignant tributes to ageing, womanhood, motherhood, and encouraged to reclaim our dreams, boundaries and time.
Join these three brilliant women as they interrogate myths and truths about growing older, and discuss how they address these issues through their work.
Vivian Blaxell’s essay Nuclear Cats was a finalist for the 2021 Melbourne Prize for Literature. In 2025, she published Worthy of the Event: An Essay at LittlePuss Press (NYC). She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.
Debra Oswald is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright, creator of the TV series Offspring, and a two-time winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award. Debra has published nine children’s books and four adult novels: Useful, The Whole Bright Year, The Family Doctor and most recently One Hundred Years of Betty.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the ABIA-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, memoir The Hate Race and many picture books for children, including The Patchwork Bike, Fashionista, and When We Say Black Lives Matter. Maxine’s poetry collections include Carrying the World; How Decent Folk Behave; It’s the Sound of the Thing: 100 new poems for young people; Stuff I'm Not Sorry For: 99 new poems for young people, and Beautiful Changelings. She is the inaugural Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne.
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This event is part of the Main Program and included as part of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Saturday Bronze Passes.
Subject to availability, a limited number of single tickets may become available 9 September.
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This venue is wheelchair accessible. Please visit our Accessibility page or email hello@bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au if you have any other accessibility requirements.