Writers at Work series: Julienne van Loon on Experiment and Play (Part 1)

The Writers at Work series invites writers to consider: What kinds of labour are entailed in literary production and publication? What does it mean to describe oneself, or be described, as a writer? Who does a writer work for and what processes produce the literary work as we encounter it?

Join us for a conversation between novelist and essayist Julienne van Loon and Belinda Castles from the Department of English. Drawing on recent essays about the work of novelists Kim Scott and Siri Hustvedt, as well as Julienne’s own fiction, the discussion will explore the value and richness of ‘play’ in the work of writers.

Julienne van Loon is the author of The Thinking Woman, which was highly commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, and three novels including the Australian/Vogel’s-Award-winning Road Story. She lives in Melbourne, where she is an Associate Professor with the Writing and Publishing program at RMIT University. Her latest fiction appears in Griffith Review 66: The Novella Project VII.

On The Thinking Woman:

There is so much life in these conversations. Words and ideas feel hot, propulsive, uncontained in their implications. Above all else, this feeling of thinking, of thinking out loud, of thinking together, of thinking with and alongside, it’s a very special kind of high. – Maria Tumarkin, author of Axiomatic, and winner of the Melbourne Prize for Literature, 2018 

Venue/event delivery

This event will be held online via Zoom.