The first I Am Not Making This Up festival of true stories launches at Coledale Community Hall this weekend, 26 & 27 November. Book tickets here
At a time when truth is under threat in so much of what we read, I Am Not Making This Up celebrates the power of fact in storytelling, bringing together some of the brightest talents and most distinctive voices writing non-fiction today.
At Coledale hall on 26 & 27 November, the festival of true stories is a co-production of the South Coast Writers Centre and the Flame, with artistic direction by Caroline Baum.
Read the Flame's November 2022 cover story, What Kate Did Next, by Caroline Baum.
Find a program here, tickets here and a list of speakers below.
Kate Holden was born in Melbourne but now lives in Austinmer. She is the author of two memoirs, In My Skin and The Romantic: Italian Nights and Days. For her first foray into investigative journalism, The Winter Road, Kate revisited the murder of an environmental officer by a farmer, prompting deep analysis of the complex tensions that characterise the history of white settlement and the conflict between protecting and clearing the bush. The book has won a deserved slew of awards.
Jodi Edwards is a proud Yuin woman with kinship connection to Dharawal Country. Her work addresses continuity of cultural practices in the Yuin and Dharawal Nations through her company, Gumaraa Aboriginal Education.
She has a PhD in Traditional Aboriginal Pedagogies, a Masters in Language Education and a Graduate Diploma in Natural Cultural Resource Management which also informs her work sharing cultural knowledges and practices for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Jodi has been in the education sector for over 23 years. She has been involved in many Indigenous research and art projects including practices of fishnetting, boat making and possum skin cloaking.
Gary Jubelin is arguably Australia’s most high-profile homicide detective, leading investigations into the disappearance of William Tyrell, the killing of three Aboriginal children at Bowraville and the killing of Caroline Byrne. He retired from the NSW Policer force after 34 years.
He is the host of the I Catch Killers podcast and the author of the bestselling book of the same name. In his new book Badness, he revisits notorious cases to gain a better understanding of how evil can become part of human nature.
Diego Bonetto runs foraging workshops that teach participants how to engage with delicious wild food while starting conversations around belonging, sustainability, and agency. He has collaborated with chefs, herbalists, environmentalists, and cultural workers. He is also an artist passionate about using his practice to return botanical literacy to communities.
Diego has been featured by Marie Claire, GQAustralia, Lonely Planet, the Sydney Morning Herald, and ABC, among other media outlets. Diego is the author of Eat Weeds - A Field Guide to Foraging: How to Identify, Harvest, Eat and Use Wild Plants published by Thames & Hudson.
Lo Carmen is an Australian singer songwriter, musician and actress. She has released seven albums in the Americana alt-country indie rock vein. She also appeared in the The Year My Voice Broke and played the real-life part of Sally Ann Huckstep in Blue Murder.
Her memoir Lovers Fighters Dreamers looks at the messy and often painful path to a creative life as pursued by her female idols including Robyn Archer and Billie Holiday.
Caroline Baum is the author of Only: A Singular Memoir, a journalist, and presenter of Life Sentences, her podcast about contemporary biography. She is an Ambassador for the Older Womens Network.
Professor Rob Brander – aka ‘Dr Rip’ – is a coastal geomorphologist and professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. A resident of Coalcliff, he’s been studying beaches for more than 30 years, starting in Canada where water temperatures convinced him to come to Australia.
He is an international expert on rip currents and beach safety and runs a community education program called The Science of the Surf. Rob is the author of Dr Rip's Essential Beach Book and a popular columnist for the Illawarra Flame.
Malcolm Knox writes fiction and non fiction with equal polish. He won a Walkley award for his investigation of the fraudulent author Norma Khoury. HIs other non-fiction includes Secrets of the Jury Room; Bradman’s Wat and Boom: The Underground History of Australia from Gold Rush to GFC. His novels include Summerland, A Private Man, The Wonder Lover and Bluebird. He is a keen surfer and a cricket tragic.
Jennifer Macey is an award-winning audio producer, journalist and PhD candidate at UOW’s School of Geography and Sustainable Communities where she is making a podcast about the changing industrial landscape of Port Kembla. Jennifer produces the weekly podcast Follow the Money for the Australia Institute. She has produced many podcasts; for kids, on creativity and mental health, art, education, technology, books and the environment. Jennifer teaches podcasting at UOW and has worked in newsrooms at the ABC and Deutsche Welle in Germany.
Jennifer enjoys listening to podcasts while walking her dog and exploring her local beaches and bushwalks.
Jo-Anne Fahey is the manager of ‘on farm’ diversification at Darkes Glenbernie Orchard, a sixth-generation family farm in Darkes Forest. Jo-Anne joined the family business full time in 2013 after a successful career with NSW Department of Education.She is responsible for the creation of value-added Darkes products, such as cider and vinegar, and also manages orchard experiences, including tractor-train tours and fruit-picking. Jo-Anne stepped into these varied roles out of necessity. For more than 80 years, the Fahey’s 64-hectare farm has produced apples and stone fruit. But in today’s challenging market, diversification has been the key to success – and the Darkes Cider brand is now an international award-winner.
Phillipa McGuinness is the author of Skin Deep, The Year Everything Changed, and editor of Copyfight. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Griffith Review, Inside Story and Meanjin. She is a former publisher at NewSouth/UNSW Press and Cambridge University Press and a regular commentator on book publishing, maternal health and life and politics at the turn of the 21st century. Phillipa is the editor of Openbook magazine for the State Library of NSW and lives in Sydney, Australia.
Patti Miller, founder of the Life Stories Workshop, is an award-winning writer and Australia’s most experienced and successful life writing mentor. She is the author of nine books of non-fiction, fiction, and writing texts – published by Allen & Unwin, Random House, Routledge and UQP. Her creative approach to life writing has grown out of her experience of writing and literature and her fascination with the stories of lives. She has taught life writing workshops since 1991, in particular for the Faber Academy, Sydney and London, and the Paris Memoir course.
Mark Mordue launched his career in Sydney as a rock journalist deeply involved with the post-punk era of the 1980s. He has been the editor of three national publications: Stiletto, Australian Style and Neighbourhood. Mark is also a winner of a 1992 Human Rights Media Award and the 2010 Pascall Prize: Australian Critic of the Year.
He is a widely published journalist and the author of the poetry collections Via Us: Poems from Inside the Corona and Darlinghurst Funeral Rites, and the biography Boy on Fire – The Young Nick Cave. His novel There’s No Telling will appear in late 2023, to be followed by the next volume of his biography, Dark Star – Nick Cave in London, Berlin and Sao Paulo.
Andy Muir has worked as a researcher and script coordinator for television shows such as Underbelly, MDA and All Saints. He also has writing credits on Home and Away, Neighbours and Silver Sun. Andy has written material for Thank God You're Here. He is the author of Hiding To Nothing and Something To Nothing.
Heather Rose is the Australian author of eight novels. Heather's most recent novel, Bruny, won the ABIA 2020 General Fiction Book of the Year. Her seventh novel, The Museum of Modern Love, won the 2017 Stella Prize. It also won the 2017 Christina Stead Prize and the 2017 Margaret Scott Prize. It has been published internationally and translated into numerous languages. Both The Museum of Modern Love and The Butterfly Man were longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. The Butterfly Man won the Davitt Award in 2006, and in 2007 The River Wife won the international Varuna Eleanor Dark Fellowship.
Bruny and The Museum of Modern Love are both in development for the screen, and the play of The Museum of Modern Love premiered at Sydney Festival in 2022. Heather writes with Danielle Wood under the pen-name Angelica Banks and their Tuesday McGillycuddy children's series has twice been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards for best children's fantasy. Heather lives by the sea in Tasmania.
Anne Howell has written a memoir All That I Forgot about her experience of severe amnesia. She had been a newspaper journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald and a magazine features editor before acquiring the condition, after neurosurgery, in 1991. Settling in Coledale to live and recover, she has worked extensively as a professional writer and editor in the Illawarra. She completed a PhD in Creative Writing in 2013.
David Roach is visual artist and award-winning screenwriter and director. His films have been released internationally, and include the documentary Red Obsession narrated by Russel Crowe. WW1 feature, Beneath Hill 60 starring Brendan Cowell and The Surgeon and the Soldier about surgeon Munjed al Muderis for SBS. When he is not off making movies David lives on the Illawarra coast with his wife, author and broadcaster, Caroline Baum. David is the President of the Clifton School of Arts committee.
