A Long Way From Home: Peter Carey

 

We invite you to join a lively and entertaining conversation with two time Booker Prize winner, Peter Carey. Featuring live chat, audience members are invited to ask questions in real time. The discussion will be moderated by filmmaker, author, producer and Peter’s fellow New York-based Australian expatriate, Michael Maher.

 

A Long Way from Home is a celebrated novel by Peter Carey. The title also describes, he says, the condition of his life, from his first years at boarding school to his time in New York City where his preoccupation with that home, whether it be True History of the Kelly Gang or any of eight other novels he has written there, have been obvious to the literary world.

 

Paradoxically, he claims to be at home in New York, a city of immigrants who live like he does, with their hearts in two places at once, a long way from home.

 

USA: Wednesday, September 1 | 6:00pm EDT, 3:00pm PDT
AUS: Thursday, September 2 | 8:00am AEST

 

This webinar is complimentary to attend; registration is essential. Questions may also be submitted for Peter upon registration.

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Speaker

Peter Carey

 

It began at age eleven, when Peter Carey left his family’s home in Bacchus Marsh to board at Geelong Grammar School. Just 30 miles from home, it was also the school of Rupert Murdoch and Prince Charles, another universe from P.S. Carey Motors.

 

His classmates went off to Melbourne University where they, presumably, felt at home. Peter chose Monash University, then in its first muddy year. Did he feel at home there? He isn’t sure. He studied science but felt more at home with friends who studied literature and philosophy. He failed science and got a job writing Volkswagen ads. When this seemed morally questionable to his university friends, he said he was really writing a novel.

 

He was what they call a “Melbourne person” but at the age of thirty went to live in Sydney. The following year he had short stories published and was called a Sydney writer. He became a board member of Grey Advertising where he was mistaken for an office cleaner in the lift. He lived with hippies in Queensland. He was short-listed for the Booker Prize. He won the Booker Prize. He won the Commonwealth Prize twice but was not at home in Buckingham Palace and was misunderstood in London. CHIPPY ANTIPODEAN SNUBS HIS QUEEN.

 

Peter Carey is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, where he runs selective Creative Writing MFAs in New York City. Frances Coady, his partner and wife of 20 years is English. He is writing a novel set in the Newer Volcanic Provinces which just happens to be in the south west of the state of Victoria.

 

When he writes each morning he is totally, paradoxically, at home.

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Moderator

Michael Maher

 

Michael Maher is a New York-based documentary filmmaker, producer and writer. His work has appeared on the world’s leading public broadcasters: the BBC, PBS and ABC (Australia).

 

A foreign correspondent for twenty-five years, Maher has reported from throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, Europe and the Americas. He served as the ABC’s Diplomatic Correspondent, Indonesia Bureau Chief, Asia-Pacific Editor and New York Correspondent. He was the founding anchor of ABC TV’s current affairs program Asia-Pacific Focus, has hosted ABC Radio’s marquee national morning show AM and was the Asia Editor of Australia’s oldest newsweekly magazine The Bulletin. He has covered New York’s vibrant cultural scene for the BBC and – as a callow youth – started out spinning The Clash and AC/DC records on an FM radio station in Rome, Italy.

 

Maher’s work has won or been a finalist in a range of awards including the New York Festivals, the United Nations Media Peace Awards and Australia’s premier Logie and Walkley awards. He has a BA (Hons.) degree in Asian and American history from the University of Sydney and has held a number of adjunct lecturer positions in programs run by the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and the City University of New York. Michael is the President of the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia.

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Introduction By

Samantha Schoen
American Australian Association Board Member

 

Samantha is the global head of consultant relations and head of North America institutional sales for Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM), and co-chair of the global diversity council for MSIM. She is based in New York, and joined Morgan Stanley in 2007 and has 17 years industry experience. Previously, she was based in London and was the co-head of MSIM’s international consultant relations team covering investment consultant clients in the U.K., Europe and Asia. Prior to that, she was the retail investment product manager in the wealth management division of Suncorp, Australia, and practiced as a banking and finance lawyer at Mallesons Stephen Jacques, Australia. Samantha received a B.Bus. with distinction in international business and a B.Law with honours from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, a Grad.Dip in applied finance from the Financial Services Institute of Australasia, and a Grad.Dip in legal practice from the College of Law, Sydney. She is also a qualified solicitor.