This month, we invited our superstar line-up to share with us a story of hope—something big or small that gave them a reason to have faith in this world. Maybe they found hope in a practice, or a place, or some hard-won personal growth. Their little light of hope might be tied to the emotional, the political, the social, or the sexual (you know we love a sexy story at Generation Women!). Whatever our line-up cares to share, you can expect our usual blend of warmth and wisdom from performers of all ages, here to provide some inspiration and insight as we journey through this mad thing called life.
Our performer line-up:
Team 20s: Ashleigh Streeter-Jones is an activist, founder, speaker, writer and advisor lifting the floor to close gender inequality gaps locally, nationally and internationally. Ashleigh has been recognised by the Foundation of Young Australians as one of the Young Social Pioneers, was named the youngest ever Australian Capital Territory Woman of the Year and on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2018.
Team 30s: Sunanda Sachatrakul is a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Best Newcomer nominee and screenwriter. They’re from New Delhi, Bangkok, New York and Los Angeles all at once. Sunanda moved to Melbourne for love in 2019, and now performs stand up around Melbourne, collaborates with award-winning groups, and is currently developing some screen projects.
Team 40s: Clementine Ford is a writer, broadcaster and feminist community builder. She is the bestselling author of the feminist manifestos Fight Like A Girl and Boys Will Be Boys, which have also been published to great acclaim in the UK and the US. In 2017, she won the Matt Richell Award for Best New Writer of the Year at the ABIAs. Her most recent book is How We Love: Notes on a life.
Team 50s: Emilie Collyer writes poetry, plays and prose, published and produced widely in Australia and internationally. Her poetry book Do you have anything less domestic? (Vagabond Press 2022) won the Five Islands Press Prize. She is currently under commission with Red Stitch Theatre and is the 2023 Melbourne Athenaeum Library writer-in-residence.
Team 60s: Lyn Yeowart is a consulting writer and editor, and author of the award-winning bestseller The Silent Listener, a psychological thriller based on events from her childhood. She’s self-assured and shy…boisterous and mild…hilarious and solemn…fascinating and boring…profound and shallow…hard-working and lazy…honest and deceptive…it all depends on her perspective—and yours.
Team 70s: Mig Dann is a Naarm/ Melbourne-based artist, writer and researcher who completed her PhD in 2022. Her work is informed by memory and forgetting, absence and presence, feminism, queer culture and decades of lived experience. Her work has been exhibited both internationally and nationally in solo and group shows.
Generation Women is an award-winning cross-generational storytelling night founded in New York in 2017, Sydney in 2018, and Melbourne in 2020. Each month, six women of note read an original piece on a theme. Of those women, one is in her 20s, her 30s, her 40s, her 50s, her 60s, and her 70s+.
Hosted by Devi Palanisamy. Produced by Donna Logue, Hopepunk Productions. Created by Georgia Clark.