Creative Industries 2025 Networking Event

Next date: Thursday, 05 June 2025 | 06:00 PM to 09:00 PM

Welcome to the new world of literacy

Is AI a friend or foe to the written word?

Does AI offer exciting new horizons for creativity and efficiency – or risk diluting the value of human-crafted writing? How do we protect and recognise authentic human creativity and knowledge in this rapidly evolving landscape? Will mastering AI-generated content become a vital skill in itself? Note - AI assisted in the creation of this spiel.

We have gathered a line up of literacy experts to discuss and debate this brave new world of literacy.

Tracee Hutchison - Moderator

Tracee is trailblazing Australian broadcaster, journalist, film maker, author and creative industries leader, with a career spanning 40 years at the highest level in Australian and international radio and television.

Tracee's career began at the ABC's youth station, Triple J, where she hosted the first show of the national network. Her high-profile on-air roles include ABC TV 7.30 Report, ABC NewsRadio, Radio Australia, ABC Radio Melbourne, iconic community radio station Triple R FM – and more recently Music Director and host of FIERCE on Broad Radio.

She’s written extensively on politics, environment and social justice issues as an op-ed columnist and is highly respected for her leadership and advocacy on gender equality, social justice and environmental issues over many decades. Her high-profile interview subjects include prime ministers, rock stars, sports stars and social justice champions. Tracee has served on the Board of Triple R, Music Victoria and is currently Chair of the music environmental organisation, Green Music Australia.

Andrew Dean - Keynote and Panellist

Andrew Dean is Lecturer in Writing and Literature at Deakin University. He has published a book with Oxford University Press on the idea of self-consciousness in post-war literature, Metafiction and the Postwar Novel (2021). He won the Landfall Prize in 2021 for an essay on his family and diasporic Jewish experiences (The New Man, 2021). More recently he has written about AI and its effects on literary studies, in the Sydney Review of Books. He is currently writing a book about post-war Jewish-American comedy.

Annabelle Hale

Annabelle is an author/illustrator based in Eltham. She holds qualifications in both photography and visual arts. In 2023, Annabelle won the SCBWI Australian Picture Book Illustrator Awards in the Emerging Illustrator Category. Annabelle is passionate about children's literature, and the positive effects of stories on children and parents. She loves creating fun characters and stories to which kids can relate and find humour. She creates digitally and through traditional media, mainly watercolour, and colour pencils. Annabelle is a published illustrator and is currently working with Affirm Press to publish her first book as an author/illustrator. The Bin Monster is due to be published in 2025. As a separate project, Annabelle plans to develop a picture book based on Alistair Knox Park and other public spaces in Eltham and all of the different people who use it.

Kate Mildenhall

Kate Mildenhall is the author of three novels - Skylarking (2016), The Mother Fault (2020) and The Hummingbird Effect (2023). The Hummingbird Effect was longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize and shortlisted for the 2024 ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year. In 2024, she released her first children’s book To Stir With Love illustrated by Jess Racklyeft, shortlisted in the 2025 Indie Book Awards and Notable in the CBCA Book Awards for Early Readers. For the past six years she has co-hosted The First Time podcast interviewing hundreds of writers including Tim Winton, Helen Garner, Richard Flanagan, George Saunders and Charlotte Wood. Her fourth novel will be published in late 2025. Kate lives on Wurundjeri lands in Hurstbridge with her partner and two children.

Les Zigomanis

Les Zigomanis is the chief editor and the production coordinator at Busybird Publishing where he oversees book production, and helps authors get their stories out into the world. He is also a screenwriter and an author, with six published novels. He runs workshops on writing, editing and publishing. He blogs, often yelling at clouds, at www.leszig.com. 

Light refreshments will be served from 6pm.

Join us as we explore how AI is reshaping the literacy industry now, and what it means for the future. 

The event is proudly partnered by Nillumbik Shire Council, Banyule City, Yarra Plenty Libraries and Writers Victoria.

When

Location

Eltham Library, Panther Place, Eltham, 3095, View map