The acclaimed Celebrating the Voice returns, featuring the launch of ‘This country anytime anywhere: an Anthology of New Indigenous Writing From the Northern Territory’ with readings by Ali Cobby Eckermann, Marie Munkara, Rosemary Plummer and Maureen Nampijinpa O'Keefe. Plus readings from special guests Peter Yanada McKenzie and John Muk Muk Burke.

Presented by South Coast Writers’ Centre and Woolyungah Indigenous Centre, University of Wollongong. Supported by Arts NSW, Wollongong City Council and Wollongong City Gallery.

John Muk Muk Burke (Australian)
John Muk Muk Burke was born in Narrandera, New South Wales, in l946 of a Wiradjuri mother and an Irish father. His fiction ‘Bridge of Triangles’ won the 1993 Unaipon Award and his poetry volume ‘Night Song and Other Poems’ won the national Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2000. He served as a Unaipon judge 1998-2001.

Ali Cobby Eckermann (Australian)
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a Nunga author and poet. Her first poetry collection, ‘Little Bit Long Time’, highlights her journey to find her Yankunytjatjara family in central Australia. Her poem ‘Intervention Pay Back’ won the Red Earth Poetry Award in 2008 and was published in ‘Best Australian Poems 2009’. Ali’s latest chapbook is titled ‘Kami’. ‘My Father’s Eyes’ is her first verse novel.

Marie Munkara (Australian)
Marie Munkara is of Rembarranga descent and was born on the banks of the Mainoru River in Arnhem Land. She comes from a long line of self-confessed eccentrics and is an avid breeder of green tree frogs and swamp frogs. Marie lives in Darwin with her three cats and two dogs. Her first book ‘Every Secret Thing’ won the 2008 David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writing and the 2010 Territory Read Northern Territory Book of the Year Award.

Rosemary Plummer (Australian)
Rosemary Plummer is from the Warumungu tribe. She writes poetry, short stories and essays. Her work has appeared in the anthology ‘Voices from the Heart’. Rosemary also has a joint publication with fellow writer Jan Hill entitled ‘Two Cultures Meet’. In 2000 Rosemary received the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award for a poem about her grandmother titled ‘Napanangka Has Gone Digging For Sand Frogs’, which was published in ‘Northerly’. In 2009 Rosemary attended Eye of the Storm, the Alice Springs Writers’ Festival.

Maureen Nampijinpa O’Keefe (Australian)
Maureen O'Keefe is a Warlpiri woman who was born and raised in Alekarenge, 350 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Maureen is a respected writer and poet who began writing by keeping a personal diary in her twenties. Since that time she has nurtured and extended her passion by creating short stories and poems about her family history and country. In 2010 she was a panellist at the WordStorm Festival in Darwin.

Peter Yanada McKenzie (Australian)
Peter Yanada McKenzie is an Aboriginal person from the La Perouse community, Sydney. He is a musician, singer/songwriter, artist and photographer, and was the inaugural ATSIC/Fulbright Scholar to the USA. He has developed and curated exhibitions for the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and the Centre George Pompidou, Paris. He also makes guitars.