In the six days I was in Melbourne this week launching my new book ‘THE KEY, A Social Emotional Toolkit for Teens’ at the Cultures of Thinking conference, I was approached by Lisa Entwisle from Wellthy Living; Guiding you to Live a Wealthy Life, through Connection to Self, Others and the World around you to do a podcast interview.
Here is the interview we held.
I will be presenting at the Cultures of Thinking conference on Monday 19th August in Melbourne. At 1.50pm I will run a 90-minute workshop from my latest book THE KEY, A Social Emotional Toolkit for Teens to teachers and educators from all around Australia and the world. I have chosen two main topics from my book and in this workshop I plan to break down the theme of ‘success and failure’ and ‘tone of voice’ (with ourselves and with others). My aim is two-fold, to have the group experience learning, brainstorming, collaborating and sharing their thoughts, fears and ideas on these topics as well as have them realise that the topics are easily teachable to teenagers in their own class settings.
Go to my blog to see how it went.
The opening speaker was Kerry O’Brien with his latest memoir. He is one of Australia’s most respected journalists, having been awarded six Walkley Awards during his career.
On stage I was able to talk about the different aspects of my life and my writing. I had free range to talk about my first book ‘The 5-Minute Guide to Emotional Intelligence’ (and then sold 10 copies), about my latest book ‘The Key’ on emotional intelligence for teenagers and my memoir ‘Hip Hop & Hope’ that I had just finished writing and handed over to my editor Laurel Cohn who was in the audience.
What a fantastic festival. The hall was packed, the people were friendly and interested and the ‘in betweens’ and ‘afters’ full of delicious food and wine. Thank you to Philip McLaren for the foresight to put this together in such a gorgeous location up in the hills.
Funnily enough for me it was a pain in the butt because I live in South East Asia and thoroughly enjoy each year meeting up with this amazing group of people in a different part of Asia. It was fun too though to be introducing Australia to everyone else from all around Asia, the Pacific, Canada and the U.S.
I would have liked to have had my memoir published by this point and be presenting it here but alas… next week I will meet up with my editor Laurel Cohn at the Federal Writers’ Festival and hand her my way-too-long manuscript to deal with before I move on the next stage of editing my memoir Hip Hop & Hope, from the slums of Phnom Penh.
So no reading for me this year at the conference but I was asked to MC instead which was fun too.
I had the honour of MCing the book launch of indigenous writer Philip McLaren’s book Innocent Abroad, Emmanuela Shinta’s book Me, Modernism and my Indigenous Roots and John Dale’s book Sydney Noir. What a fantastic group of authors. Lots of juicy questions and juicy answers.
Listen to my latest episode where I chat with Author and Therapist Romi Grossberg about improving communication and connection in relationships.
Lisa Entwistle, host
I was one of three on the panel and last minute became the moderator also as ours had to head back home south to Sanur. I was worried that being both moderator and panelist would be a little tricky with Osamah Sami on the panel – an award-winning actor, writer, director and stand-up comedian, with a memoir Good Muslim Boy and movie Ali’s Wedding. A lively and confident personality as you might expect, but also a humble young man born in Iran to Iraqi parents who moved to Australia as a teenager. The panel was rounded off with writer and PhD candidate from Queensland Australia, Sophie MacNeill.
What unfolded quite naturally was a juicy discussion on ‘home’, ‘exile’, ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’ from a Muslim Iranian, Iraqi Aussie, a born and bred Australian Aussie of Irish decent, and a Jewish Australian expat living in Asia. As you can well imagine then, questions of belonging and identity were about as straight forward as our panel’s participant’s stories. The audience seemed to really enjoy the discussion and had plenty of questions for us. Thanks to everyone for coming down and thanks to the panel for their honesty and courage in their stories. The 3-day conference was as always, full of incredible authors, editors, translators and publishers. Northern Indonesia was such an incredible place to host such an event, most of us having never adventured to this area before. Here is (some of) the 200-strong gang from over 23 countries.
Every year I take a photo of me with the AP banner, so here is this year’s….
There are many workshops on offer throughout the conference. I feel so fortunate to be meeting with such experienced people in the industry. I went to ‘Editing: An Insider’s Guide’, hosted by Cate Blake from Penguin Random House and Ian See from University of Queensland Press in a small group where we had the opportunity to listen, learn, share and ask questions.
I also graduated from LaTrobe University in 1996 with a Bachelor of Social Science (Major: Law, and Minor: Sociology). Members of the Social Work department decided I would be a great mentor and invited me to speak to post grad students and final year students on the work I have done since university and the opportunities available.
Come and hear me talk about my experiences in working in homelessness, drug and alcohol and mental health in Australia, volunteer work in Vietnam and India, my life in Cambodia and my world now as an author, writing therapist and yes, still a social worker. The sky is the limit.
If you are a uni student and want to join, message me. It is almost at full capacity with over 30 signed up to date.
Monash University, Social Work department, 24th May, 5pm 2017
Writers, translators, editors and agents from Australia, Asia and the Pacific meet annually to connect and share. On this night in Guangzhou after a full day of speakers, panels, workshops and discussions at the Sun Yat-Sen University, I read from my latest book ‘The 5-Minute Guide to Emotional Intelligence’ to a room full of colleagues and now friends.
“APWT is the largest, longest running, functioning literary network I know of in South East Asia and the Pacific”
Says Philipino Jose Dalisay better known ‘Butch.’
What an absolute pleasure it was for me to join this gang of amazing writers, publishers and translators. This is my third year at this conference which is in a different country every year. 2015 was in Manila with the theme ‘Against The Grain.’
– I was on a panel titled ‘True Stories Need to be True’ with Beth Yahp (Malaysian), Irena Cristalis (Dutch), Neil Garcia (Philipino) and moderated by Qaisra Shahraz (Pakistani).
– I attended Tim Tomlinson’s incredible workshop on learning how to write/say a pitch.
– I did a public reading of my story ‘Climbing the Walls’ published in Griffith Review: New Asia Now to a full room. I was also pleasantly surprised (actually straight out shocked and excited) to arrive at the reading and find my name and a photo on a large projector… naturally I took a photo of me… and me… having a moment 😉
Learn some tips and tools for life from Romi’s presentation at Wellthy Living, Collective Wisdom: Let’s create magic together.
In this interview she explains how to listen to your body in decision making and demonstrates this through ‘The Art of Gutism’ live with an audience member. She discusses negative thought patterns, the impact of our tone of voice, shares tips on journalling and identifying emotions and ends with sharing the importance of letter writing as a process of letting go.