Hannie Rayson is a playwright, screenwriter and columnist. Her works—including Hotel Sorrento, Inheritance and Life After George—have been performed around Australia and internationally. She has been awarded two Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, four Helpmann Awards, two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Her play Life After George was the first play to be nominated for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her memoir Hello, Beautiful! was adapted for the stage and performed as a one-woman show around the country. In 2023, Hannie and her husband Michael Cathcart created Hello, Queenscliffe!
Saturday 18 October
11.15am
Bestselling, award-winning author and political commentator Jane Caro will talk about her new crime novel Lyrebird and how she weaves her real-life advocacy into her fiction, creating worlds that are uncannily familiar while crafting plot twists and absorbing mysteries to keep readers guessing. With Hannie Rayson.
buy ticketsSaturday 25 October
4.30pm (bar from 4pm)
The Greer Effect is an interrogation of one of Australia’s most audacious thinkers. For over fifty years, Germaine Greer has been a consistently fearless and deliberately provocative figure. This play is based upon unprecedented access to the Germaine Greer Archive, portraying Greer at key points in time, giving voice to the many and varied responses she has provoked. This playreading of Vanessa O’Neill’s exciting new work is a fascinating exploration of one of Melbourne’s most formidable daughters, featuring actor Louise Siversen (Rosehaven, Utopia, Rake) as Germaine Greer. Q&A after the reading facilitated by Hannie Rayson.
Presented in partnership with Queenscliffe Maritime Museum
SOLD OUT
Saturday 25 October
7.30pm (bar from 6.30)
At one time or another, we all find there was something we wish we’d said aloud, someone out there in the world waiting to hear an important message, a piece of history we feel our voice could have improved. Better Off Said offers the opportunity to find closure and sing truth from the rooftops before it’s too late. Four guests will speak to the phrase ‘The words I wish I’d said’, and a special guest will deliver a Living Eulogy to someone or something still of this earth, to celebrate the best in our lives while we're here to hear it. From members of the team behind international literary phenomenon Women of Letters, Better Off Said is a spoken-word art salon celebrating words, stories, and human experiences. Created by Marieke Hardy and Emilie Zoey Baker and featuring Antoinette Lattouf, Hannie Rayson, Brian Nankervis, Shokoofeh Azar and Andrew Rule, with music by Sarah Carroll.
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We acknowledge that the Festival is held on the traditional lands of the Wadawurrung people;
we honour and pay our respects to elders past and present.
© 2025 Queenscliffe Literary Festival Inc.
