Fullers Bookshop

Some bonds are too powerful to be broken, even by death . . . Fern lives on Bruny Island in Tasmania, with her partner, Adam and their young daughter, Freya. Adam spends his time protecting the old-growth forests, while Fern is a herbalist who no longer heals. Instead, she’s filled with a growing sense of foreboding. When a stranger tells Fern she must resolve the divide between herself and Freya, she dismisses him, but in the wake of a tragedy, she’s forced to reconsider his advice. Seeking answers, Fern and Freya travel to the home of a renowned past life therapist in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. Here she begins delving into the past and is drawn deep into an historic drama that threatens to possess her. At once a metaphysical story and a celebration of the magic of everyday life, Between Worlds explores grief, healing, and the complications of love between a mother and her daughter. ‘A compelling and powerful story of how past lives can shape and shadow the present.’ Kate Forsyth Rosie Dub is the author of Flight, Between Worlds and Gathering Storm, which is currently being developed as a feature film. Rosie’s short fiction and non-fiction works are published in Australia, the UK and the US. Her writing, teaching and mentoring are all deeply rooted in the role story plays as a vehicle for individual and social transformation. This was the subject of her PhD, and her Alchemy of Story newsletter on Substack continues this journey into the heart of story. She also runs a range of Alchemy of Story workshops in Australia and the UK, which fuse big ideas with practical techniques for creating stories that reimagine ourselves and our world. Alchemy of Story: https://rosiedub.substack.com/ In conversation with Rosie is Meahd Farnaby. Meahd is a bookworm, writer, event organiser, avid supporter of the many literary happenings about town, and believes we live in one of the most creative and beautiful places around. She is Deputy Chair of both TasWriters and A Fairer World, championing for the storytellers as well as for inclusion, kindness and celebration of diversity within Lutruwita/Tasmania. Join Rosie and Meahd at the Afterword Cafe.

The first Silent Book Club started in a local bar in San Francisco in 2012 by a couple of friends, Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich. There are now Silent Book Club chapters all over the world. There are no ‘reading books’ prescribed: you simply bring a book you are reading, or want to read, and then have an hour of uninterrupted reading time. There is no requirement for you to discuss your book with anyone either. Created for introverts, there is no pressure to speak, converse, or cringe through awkward small talk. Engage as much or as little as you like. Silent Book Club is about community. Everyone is welcome, and anyone can join. The Hobart Silent Book Club meets on the first Friday of each month at Fullers in the Afterword Cafe. Reading begins at 5.30pm and finishes at 6.30pm. You are welcome to come at 5.00pm and grab a coffee beforehand. This is a free event. RSVP is appreciated but not necessary. Contact: hobartsilentbookclub@gmail.com

It's a lot, we say. And it's true – sometimes everyday life feels like too much. So what habits can we prioritise for mental clarity and creative verve? How can we continue to do what's normal and necessary but wind back to care for our basic human needs? In this gentle, wise and actionable guide, best-selling author and respected health journalist Jodi Wilson explores the simple, evidence-based changes we can make to give our brains the breathing space they need. After a lifetime with anxiety, Jodi wanted to better understand herself so she could continue to be creative and productive without slipping into overwhelm and exhaustion. In this fascinating exploration of the brain and body, she discovers that neuroscientists and psychologists, as well as artists and sustainable living experts, all agree on the one habit that can change how we live. It's something our ancestors had in abundance but we've essentially eradicated from our lives: free time, spare time, leisure time – real space to breathe. Jodi Wilson is a bestselling author, respected health journalist, and postpartum doula. Her work has been published in theGuardianand ABC, and she writes two weekly newsletters on Substack. She lives in Tasmania with her partner and their four children. This is her fourth book. Jodi will be in conversation with Rachel Edwards. Rachel is a former editor of Island Magazine, and was a senior producer for ABC local radio. She is currently the Events Coordinator at the State Library and Archives Tasmania. Join Jodi and Rachel at the Afterword Cafe.

In 1963—a year of agitation for civil rights worldwide—the Yolŋu of northeast Arnhem Land created the Yirrkala Bark Petitions: Naku Dharuk. ‘The land grew a tongue’ and the land-rights movement was born. Naku Dharuk is the story of a founding document in Australian democracy and the trailblazers who made it. It is also a pulsating picture of the ancient and enduring culture of Australia’s first peoples. And it is a masterful, groundbreaking history. Clare Wright’s Democracy Trilogy began with The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and continued with You Daughters of Freedom. It concludes with this compulsively readable account of a momentous episode in our shared story. Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster, podcaster and public commentator who has worked in politics, academia and the media. Clare is currently Professor of History and Professor of Public Engagement at La Trobe University. She is the author of five works of history, including the best-selling The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (winner of the 2014 Stella Prize) and You Daughters of Freedom. Her latest book, and the final instalment in her Democracy Trilogy, is the highly acclaimed Ṉäku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions which won the ,Australian Political Book of the Year, Queensland Literary Award for Non-Fiction and NT History Book Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Victorian Premiers Literary Awards, Age Book of the Year Awards and ABIA Awards, and was longlisted for a Walkley Award and the NIB Literary Award. Clare will be in conversation with Geordie Williamson. Geordie has been chief literary critic of The Australian since 2008. He is publisher of the Picador imprint at Pan Macmillan, a former editor of Island Magazine and Best Australian Essays, and author of The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature. Join Clare and Geordie at the Afterword Cafe.

The best of Niki Savva's columns from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, along with riveting new chapters, about an epoch-making period in Australian politics. When the Coalition government was overthrown in 2022, it was tempting to portray the loss as merely a personal repudiation of Scott Morrison. Then, after Antony Albanese's initial honeymoon period, the Labor government became increasingly unpopular while having to negotiate a period of high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis while not provoking the Reserve Bank to either increase interest rates further or delay lowering them. And when opposition leader Peter Dutton torpedoed the referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to parliament, his credibility as a political leader improved at the expense of the prime minister's. That was when, according to Niki Savva, the conservative Coalition thought it had the forthcoming election in the bag. What followed was a sequence of events that resulted in an improbable triumph for Labor and a historic drubbing for the Liberal Party. Niki Savva is an award-winning political commentator and author. She was a staffer to former prime minister John Howard and former treasurer Peter Costello, and is a member of the board of Old Parliament House. Sabra Lane has been the presenter of flagship ABC Radio Current Affairs program AM. She was a journalist more than 20 years, filling roles from TV reporting to being a chief of staff, executive producer of a national TV program and chief political correspondent for ABC Radio current affairs. Join Niki and Sabra at the Afterword Cafe.

Seasonal Poets is a quarterly gathering of poetic talent, organised by Gina Mercer, Anne Collins, and Irene McGuire, and has been running for ten years. At each session, three different poets are invited to share their work. The Seasonal Poets program for the Summer reading will feature Ben Walter, Adrienne Eberhard and Esther Ottaway. Ben Walter is a Walkley award-winning essayist, and the author of a book of short stories, What Fear Was, and the new poetry collection, Lithosphere. His poems explore the Tasmanian natural world in surprising ways. Adrienne Eberhard has published four previous collections of poetry, Agamemnon’s Poppies (2003), awarded second place in the Anne Elder Prize and longlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Prize; Jane, Lady Franklin (2004), adapted for PoeticA, Radio National; This Woman (2011), short-listed for the 2013 Tasmania Book Prize and The Voice of Water (2019), in collaboration with artist, Sue Lovegrove. "Marie & Marie" is her latest bi-lingual collection of poetry (2025). Adrienne was poetry editor of Island (2008 to 2011), and has taught poetry at UTAS. Esther Ottaway is the winner of the $25,000 Tim Thorne Prize for Poetry in the Tasmanian Literary Awards, and holds multiple national and international shortlistings. Her poems are about family bonds, Tasmanian life, experiences of joy, and winter swimming! Tickets are $12, and include a glass of wine or non-alcoholic drink. You can purchase below, or on the door. Join Ben, Adrienne, and Esther at the Afterword Café.

What is left when we let go of everything? When all the stories we tell ourselves run out? Three brothers, their lives traced in thirteen linked short stories as they grow up, fight, fall in love and try to let go. Mick is over it – the battle to perform. Bill’s story is written by a landmine in Vietnam. John seeks answers in the poets, in the monasteries and high places, chasing a mystery that only stopping will reveal. And daughter/niece Haley dances the narrow path of strip clubs and motherhood, raising a child of extraordinary insight. Moult’s poetic, transcendent language traces a path of renunciation, moving between the inner world and a contemporary story of the New England Tablelands and the forests of Lutruwita / Tasmania. It asks the reader to explore the very essence of being. Andy ‘Ryugen’ Baird has lived in Lutruwita / Tasmania for the last 35 years, drawn to the island as a sacred land of possibility, existential homecoming and deep natural beauty. He spent his early working life in environmental education, with time in high schools, outdoors in Landcare and Bushcare roles, and in places as diverse as Antarctica, the Arctic and as an environmental trainer in the Dalai Lama’s monastery in India. He also worked for many years at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. In 2021 he ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk and now resides in a straw-stone-timber home and hermitage he built with his partner in the Huon Valley. Andy will be in conversation with Danielle Wood, Hobart author extraordinaire. Join Andy and Danielle at the Afterword Cafe.

Henry Reynolds’ ground-breaking re-examination of Australian colonisation from the north down. When acclaimed historian Henry Reynolds moved from Hobart to Townsville to teach Australian history in the 1960s, he discovered the books of the period covered very little about northern Australia and First Nations peoples. He set out to help remedy the situation and ended up transforming Australian history in ways he could never have imagined. In 'Looking from the North', Reynolds again turns Australian history on its axis with an exploration of colonisation north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Reynolds tells the stories of the European, Chinese, Japanese and Pacific Islander people who were vital to the settlement of the north. Along with the experience of First Nations peoples, from employment on stations and as native police to the land rights and homelands movements, Reynolds shows how the colonisation of the north, officially beginning in 1861, was a very different venture to settlement in the south. He argues that it provides profoundly important lessons for the world we live in today. Henry Reynolds is a historian who wrote an MA thesis on nineteenth- century colonial politics. He taught in Tasmania and the UK before accepting a lecturing position in Townsville University College (now James Cook University). He lived in North Queensland for over 30 years, teaching Australian history and politics, where he became deeply involved in race politics with local Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, which greatly influenced his teaching and research. Henry has written over 20 books—many of them prize winners including: The Other Side of the Frontier, The Law of the Land, Forgotten War and Truth-Telling. David Marr has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian and The Monthly, and has served as editor of The National Times, reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch. His books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson), Panic and six bestselling Quarterly Essays: His Master’s Voice, Power Trip, Political Animal, The Prince, Faction Man and The White Queen. Join Henry and David at the Afterword Cafe. Seating will be limited and you may need to stand. If you require a seat, please let staff know and we can accomodate. Ticket price includes a free drink on arrival.

The writer of a zuihitsu follows the ink the way Matisse followed the hand. The Japanese form, presaged by poetic prose in Chinese, is a kind of lyric essay, an assemblage of fragments—description, narration, meditation, social commentary, manifesto, journal entry, travelogue, reportage and memoir. Helga Jermy's zuihitsu, Following the Ink, is a poet’s day book of a journey through Japan, a touching and quietly profound consideration of belonging, otherness, modernity, youth and aging, the passage of time, the kitsch and the classic, and, always, love. Helga Jermy is an English-Estonian poet, now living on the northwest coast of Lutruwita/Tasmania. Her work has appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies. Poems and short fiction have been commended and shortlisted in major national and international prizes. Following the Ink is her fifth collection. See more of Helga’s work at helgajermypoetry.com.au Dr Melanie Jansen grew up in Logan City, and she lives, writes, and practises medicine on Turrbal and Jagera land in Meanjin Brisbane. A Churchill Fellow in clinical ethics and medical humanities, and now a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Queensland, Melanie has had poems published in medical journals and poetry anthologies and one of her poems, “Some Days the Air is Soft”, won one of the major prizes in the Grieve Competition. All That Could Be Lost is Melanie’s first poetry collection. Join Helga and Melanie at the Afterword Cafe.

Charles Taylor’s new book Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment, published 2024, invites us to think through, reflect, and, if one is so inclined, celebrate what Taylor calls our “cosmic connection,” our human embeddedness within a “cosmic home.” Taylor argues that, corresponding to the disintegration of traditional beliefs in a cosmic order (largely due to the scientific revolution), Romantic poetry developed an original and compelling language to express our human connectedness to the world at large. As such, it does not fall victim to the forces of disenchantment and it cannot be “refuted” or “sidelined” as mere inconsequential daydreaming by recourse to the “facts” of science or the so-called "hard facts" of life. Instead, it opens up a powerful and still viable model for disclosing our place in the world, and indeed our human essence. Taylor’s book is a passionate plea, filled with thought, to take inspiration from the poetry of the Romantics. Let’s discuss it. All welcome. For this Philosophy Café, Ingo will deliver some reflections on these themes, followed by discussion. This is a free event, but please RSVP so we know how many people we’re expecting!

In 2025, Island Magazine, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy and Fullers Bookshop collaborated on the inaugural Nature Writing Prize, setting out to discover what Australian writers are thinking about our changing relationship with the world around us. What are we thinking and feeling about climate change, deforestation, the depletion of wildlife, scientific discoveries, the roiling nature inside us all and the increasingly quieted nature outside? What does it all mean and how might we consider it differently? As we continue thinking about these questions, join us for a panel discussion with the inaugural winner, Bridget Webster, who will be joined by Andrew Darby and Ben Walter, and chaired by Jane Rawson. Bridget Webster is a writer and theatremaker living on unceded Wurundjeri Country. As well as winning the Island Nature Writing Prize, she has been shortlisted for Overland’s Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, longlisted for Frontier Poetry’s Nature and Place Prize and awarded an Emerging Poet Prize by Liquid Amber Press. Their work has been featured in Meanjin, Island, Jacaranda, Liquid Amber Press anthologies, and elsewhere. Andrew Darby is the author of Flight Lines, on long distance migratory shorebirds, and Harpoon on whales and whaling. Flight Lines won the Royal Zoological Society of NSW's Whitley Award for the Best Natural History, and the Premier's Prize for Non-fiction in the Tasmanian Literary Awards. It was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Award for Non-fiction. He was the Hobart correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Ben Walter is a Walkley Award-winning essayist, the author of the short story collection What Fear Was, and winner of the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award. A past fiction editor at Island, his writing has appeared widely in Australian journals, including Meanjin, Overland and Griffith Review, and internationally in 3:AM Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review and The Kenyon Review. Lithosphere is Ben Walter’s debut book of poetry. Jane Rawson is the author of Human/Nature: On life in a wild world, as well as novels A History of Dreams, From the Wreck and A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, a novella, Formaldehyde, and, with James Whitmore, the non-fiction book The Handbook: Surviving & Living with Climate Change. You can read her essays in Living with the Anthropocene; Fire, Flood, Plague; and Reading Like an Australian Writer. She is the managing editor at Island magazine and lives in south-east Lutruwita/Tasmania, where she is studying a PhD in creative writing at UTAS. Join Bridget, Andrew, Ben, and Jane at the Afterword Cafe.

Fullers Bookshop and HQ Books invite you to join Mary-Lou and Karen at The Wrest Point Hotel in the Showroom from 6.00 pm for drinks and canapés for a 7.00 pm start. A stunning gold dress, a forgotten key and a whisper through history ... the compelling new Tasmanian historical fiction from a bestselling Australian author. December 1939: The grand opening of Australia's most glamorous and talked about hotel, the Wrest Point Riviera.The equally glamorous Sabine Winters, recently arrived in Hobart from the Continent, anticipates a safe port from the storm that rages in Europe along with a few select items of jewellery to add to her (stolen) collection. What she doesn't expect is to be blackmailed into becoming a spy, torn from the safety of Tasmania and taken to the viper's nest of intrigue and plots that is South America during the rise of Nazi power. Her instincts and charms will only get her so far ... February 1973: The grand opening of Australia's most glamorous, talked about and controversial hotel, the Wrest Point Hotel Casino.Jenny Davies anticipates a night surrounded by dizzying decor and thrilling action. What she doesn't expect is an invitation to become a Ladybird, one of the casino's croupiers. But Jenny's choice to pursue this exclusive career creates a devastating chain of events that could destroy her life as she knows it. Can a mysterious letter and the gift of a key from a relative Jenny has never heard of somehow be the answer to all of her problems? Mary-Lou Stephens was born in Tasmania, studied acting at The Victorian College of the Arts and played in bands in Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney. Eventually she got a proper job - in radio, where she was a presenter and music director, first with commercial radio and then with the ABC. She received rave reviews for her memoir Sex, Drugs and Meditation (2013), the true story of how meditation changed her life, saved her job and helped her find a husband. The Australian called her debut novel, The Last of the Apple Blossom (2021), 'an outstanding historical novel about women and the secrets and burdens they carry'. She is also the author of the bestselling novel The Chocolate Factory (2024). Mary-Lou has worked and played all over Australia. Now she travels the world with her husband, slowly, and writes, mostly. Karen Brooks is the author of sixteen books – historical fiction, historical fantasy, YA fantasy, and one non-fiction. She was an academic for over 20 years, a newspaper columnist and social commentator. She has a Ph.D. in English/Cultural Studies and has published internationally on all things popular culture, education and social psychology. An award-winning teacher, she’s taught throughout Australia and in The Netherlands and keynoted at many education conferences. Nowadays, she finds greatest contentment studying history and writing, and helping her husband in his Brewstillery, Captain Bligh’s. People purchasing tickets will receive a discount token on the book on the night of the event.