What is your ’normal’? When is your brain betraying you? Just how much control do you have over your mind? Hear from Clem Bastow, Jamie Marina Lau and Sam van Zweden as they kick off this event with a short presentation on writing as a cerebral form, followed by a discussion on matters of the mind and what the act of writing can do for our brain and wellbeing. This discussion will be moderated by Leah Jing McIntosh and is presented in partnership with Melbourne Writers Festival.

This event was planned to be Auslan interpreted, but for reasons beyond our control we are unable to provide Auslan interpretation for this event. We apologise.

Meet the Speakers

Clem Bastow is a cultural critic whose work appears in The Saturday Paper and the Guardian. She has contributed essays to Investigating Stranger Things (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and ReFocus: The Films Of Elaine May (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), and is undertaking a PhD in action cinema and screenwriting at RMIT.  

Jamie Marina Lau is a multidisciplinary artist and the author of Pink Mountain on Locust Island and Gunk Baby.  

Sam van Zweden is a Melbourne-based writer interested in memory, food, mental health and the body. Her debut book, Eating with my Mouth Open, won the 2019 KYD Unpublished Manuscript Award, and is available now.  

Leah Jing McIntosh is a critic and researcher. She also edits Liminal magazine.