Imagine tomorrow: facing our fears through speculative fiction
Friday 25 October, 6:25 pm
The Capitol Theatre
Image by Elijah Grimm
In Margaret Atwood’s words, ‘In science fiction, it’s always about now.’
At the core of speculative fiction is a reckoning of real-world crises. From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the First Nations anthology This All Come Back Now, the gift of great speculative fiction is its unflinching embrace of our existential fears.
As speculative fiction writers take inspiration from history’s darkest chapters, they force us to face our fears and wake up to our realities.
This reckoning can make us question everything: how do we reconcile the way we live with the world we’ll leave behind? How does speculative fiction shape our understanding of the future?
Join writer Rose Michael (The Art of Navigation, 2011, UWAP) and poet Benjamin Laird as they discuss our imagined tomorrows and how we write about our futures to understand our present. The results from our interactive Salon polling activity will also be revealed and discussed in this panel moderated by writer/playwright Emilie Collyer.
Featuring
Rose Michael
Rose is a writer, editor and academic who has been published in Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, Island, Cultural Studies Review, Review of Australian Fiction, Sydney Review of Books and Meanjin. Her first novel, The Asking Game (Transit Lounge, 2007), was a runner-up for the Vogel award and received an Aurealis honourable mention. An early extract from her second book, The Art of Navigation (UWA Publishing, 2011), was shortlisted for a Conjure award.
She has published speculative fiction criticism in The Conversation, Sydney Review of Books, TEXT and Reading Like an Australian Writer. She is also a Senior Lecturer in Writing & Publishing and Program Manager of the Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) in RMIT's School of Media and Communication.
Find Rose at rosemichael.com.au
Benjamin Laird
Benjamin Laird is a software engineer and poet. His print and electronic poetry have been published in various journals. His longer works include the digital chapbook The Durham Poems, part of a series of poems on William Denton, a nineteenth-century spiritualist, scientific lecturer, and radical. He holds a PhD from RMIT University, where he teaches digital writing.
Find Benjamin at bl.id.au or at X/Twitter (@benjaminlaird).
Emilie Collyer
Emilie Collyer lives on unceded Wurundjeri Country where she writes across forms. Her poetry book, Do you have anything less domestic? (Vagabond Press, 2022), won the inaugural Five Islands Press Prize. Emilie recently completed a PhD researching feminist practice at RMIT, where she is now an Adjunct Industry Fellow.
Find Emilie at Instagram @emiliecollyer, Facebook @emiliecollyer and emiliecollyer.com