Date:
Thursday, August 8, 2019 - 18:30 to 20:30
Location:
Loop Project Space and Bar, 23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne VIC 3000
Price:
FREE
For so long, our own waste has been a topic of embarrassment and shame. But we need to break down the taboo of poo! SH*T HAPPENS will see poets and scientists come together to celebrate our sewage, bringing excitement to our excrement and all the other wonderful creations our bodies work hard to produce.
Spontaneous or prepared poems welcomed in the open mic section on the night.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Alicia Sometimes is an Australian writer and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word and poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Her poems have been in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems, Overland, Southerly, Meanjin, ABC TV's Sunday Arts and more. She is currently part of the Outer Sanctum podcast (ABC). She is director and co-writer of the science-poetry planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave.
Sean M Whelan is a poet, playwright, DJ, marriage celebrant and podcaster. His two books of poetry are Love is the New Hate and Tattooing the Surface of the Moon. He is co-founder and co-producer of the literary cabaret show Liner Notes Live. In 2018 he began a weekly creative writing themed podcast called More Than A Whelan.
Sista Zai Zanda is a storyteller, educator and curator of the Pan Afrikan Poets Cafe – an Afro-Literary matinée of beats, performance and poetry. Since 2015, Zai has spoiled audiences in Melbourne and Sydney with over 100 performances by African and First Nations storytellers. Amongst career highlights, Zai has co-produced a Pan Afrikan Poets Cafe event at Arts Centre Melbourne, worked as a Youth Zone consultant for one of Africa’s top 10 international arts festivals, hosted the 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival Opening Night Gala, curated and produced live radio broadcasts of the Pan Afrikan Poets Cafe and is currently engaged as an Artistic Associate with Melbourne’s Due West Festival.
Dr Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet and academic from southwest New South Wales. Her first volume of poetry, Dark Secrets After Dreaming: A.D. 1887-1961 (2010, Presspress) won the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry in 2010 and her first novel, Purple Threads (UQP), won the David Unaipon Award for an unpublished Indigenous writer in 2010. Her work has been published in Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women’s Liberation, Australian Poetry Journal, Overland, Best Australian Poems, Lifted Brow, and many more. She has published widely in the area of Aboriginal literature, writing otherness and creative non-fiction poetry and prose. She teaches Creative Writing and Aboriginal Literature at The University of Melbourne.
Catriona Nguyen-Robertson is a PhD candidate at The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. She is a science communications officer for the Royal Society of Victoria, Convergence Science Network and Scientell. She is passionate about science education and outreach, and runs workshops for the Day of Immunology, teaches with the Gene Technology Access Centre, and is involved with Science Gallery Melbourne in their Sci Curious Program. After mixing her scientific and creative sides at the FameLab Australia finals, she is looking forward to combining music with science-storytelling at Shit Happens.
Photo credit: David Ma