Williamstown in June – cooking up a delicious night of music and memoir

Williamstown 2023. Photo by Eric Algra.

Every June we cook up a show with a simple recipe: music and memoir. Then we add an eight-piece band, six guest writers, a light show, 400 ever-loyal fans, a gorgeous venue, a literary festival vibe, a home-town feel.

Tickets are now available for our annual show at the Williamstown Literary Festival on Friday 20 June.

The Stereo Stories band brings you an enchanting night, with songs by Nick Cave, Doris Day, Julia Jacklin, Paul Kelly, Kylie Minogue, Sinead O’Connor,  Garland Jeffreys, Mark Seymour and Taylor Swift.

Guest writers  this year are Alice Pung, Andy Griffiths, Nathan Curnow, Rijn Collins, Claudia Nankervis and Darren Smokie Dawson. Plus stories by band members Gemma Keating and Chris Phillips.

See you in June at the Williamstown Town Hall!

Ticketing details.

Alice Pung OAM is the author of the memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, the novels Laurinda and One Hundred Days, the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson.

Her children’s books include Be Careful, Xiao Xin!, When Grandma Came to Stay and the Meet Marly books.

Nathan Curnow’s words have been projected onto buildings, performed on stage, inscribed on park benches, turned into song, visual art, and published in beautiful books.

His collections include No Other Life But This, The Ghost Poetry Project, RADAR, The Right Wrong Notes, The Apocalypse Awards A Hill to Die On.

Claudia Nankervis  is the curator and producer of Backyard Stories, a spoken-word event that has been performed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, the Brunswick Ballroom, backyards, bars and venues in New York, London and Europe.

Photo by Shannon Sexton.

Rijn Collins’ stories have been published in numerous anthologies and literary journals, presented at festivals, and adapted for performance on Australian and American radio. In April 2016 she won the New York-based inaugural Sara Award For Audio Fiction. Her micro-memoir Voice was published in 2021, followed by her debut novel Fed to Red Birds in 2023. Rijn has been part of Stereo Stories concerts since their inception in 2014.

Photo by Eric Algra.

Andy Griffiths is the author of the rather successful Just Tricking and Treehouse series of books for children. A long-time member of our Williamstown ensemble, his new series is Adventures Unlimited.

Photo by Eric Algra.

Darren Smokie Dawson is the author of the Swifty Taylor crime series, as well as numerous stories about music and sport, all  published on The Footy Almanac website. He is a regular contributor to the Stereo Stories website and a much-loved narrator at our Williamstown concerts.