Event #13

First Word Opening Address

Thu 8 Oct 2026

Debra Dank + Bruce Pascoe + Samantha Faulkner + Bebe Oliver

Parkside Marquee

Regular Program / Special Event / Free Event

#Performances

Thu 8 Oct 2026 - 3:00pm

Parkside Marquee

Book Now

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

First Word Opening Address
Keynote by Debra Dank

3–4pm, Thursday 8 October, Parkside Marquee

BWF’s 2026 opening speech will be delivered by one of Australia’s most accomplished authors and educators: the Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon writer Debra Dank. Dank’s luminous 2023 memoir, We Come With This Place, won an unprecedented four prizes at the 2024 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, plus the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal; her recent books, Ankami and Terraglossia, delve with lucidity and grace into the vicissitudes of language, loss and living.

At this very special event, you'll also hear from BWF’s 2026 First Nations Cultural Curators, Bruce Pascoe, Samantha Faulkner and Bebe Oliver, from select event sponsors and from BWF Artistic Director Jackie Ryan.

Presented in partnership with The University of Queensland

#Artists

Debra Dank

Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon writer, Dr Debra Dank’s first book, We Come With This Place, was awarded a record four out of fourteen NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the Australian Literature Society (ALS) Gold Medal as well as several other awards in 2023. She published Terraglossia and Ankami in 2025.

Bruce Pascoe

Bruce Pascoe is an Aboriginal farmer and writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children’s literature, based on Yuin Country. His publications have won numerous awards. He is the author of the groundbreaking, bestselling book Dark Emu.

Samantha Faulkner

Samantha Faulkner is a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman with family links to Badu and Moa Islands in the Torres Strait and Wuthathi and Yadhaigana peoples, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Sam is a writer, poet and editor whose publications include: Life Blong Ali Drummond: A Life in the Torres Strait, written with her grandfather; Pamle: Torres Strait Islanders in Canberra; and Growing Up Torres Strait Islander in Australia, published by Black Inc, 2024. Her short stories and poetry have been published nationally and internationally and her poetry has been translated to French, Indian and South Korean. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection.

Bebe Oliver

Bebe Oliver is a Bardi Jawi award-winning author, poet and illustrator. Moving across Country, memory and the layered realities of Blak and queer life, his writing celebrates grief, love, identity and survival with a voice both vulnerable and strong. Bebe is the Artistic Director and CEO of Blak & Bright, is a Director of Na Djinang Circus, a Director of National NAIDOC, and is the Deputy Chair of Magabala Books. He lives and works on the unceded lands of the Kulin peoples and approaches story as responsibility and accountability to the strength and presence of Blak voices across Country.