2025 PROGRAM
Changing Life
DATE:
Friday 28th March
LOCATION:
Darley Smith Building
COST:
$22
When Christine Newell pulled over to the side of the road in a dinosaur costume, sobbing her heart out, she knew it was time for a change. So she took a role with an experimental theatre company in Seoul, immersing herself in South Korean culture and shifting her mindset, resulting in Five Seasons in Seoul (released in March).
Jo Peck found herself in the middle of a cliché when her husband of 35 years left her for a younger woman. Once she picked herself up and dusted herself off, she wrote an inspiring and funny memoir, Suddenly Single at Sixty, that takes us from shock and despair to a new life.
For the ‘Boomer’ generation, which spawned the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, Carol LeFevre says that turning 70 was like an assault. You’re constantly told your generation had it ‘lucky’ and ruined it for everyone else. In Bloomers, Carol explains that people aged 70+ are not at the end of things but are still on their way and fully intent on embracing late-life flourishing.
Join us as we discuss their journeys of reinvention—whether through immersing themselves in a new culture, finding humour in heartbreak, or embracing the possibilities of later life.
Host: Suzanne Leal
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
The Manly Writers' Festival acknowledges and thanks the original storytellers on the lands on which our events take place, the Gameraygal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge and respect their continuing connection and culture, and we pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present, as well as emerging leaders.