Three of Australia's most renowned writers discuss the Erin Patterson case and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime.

In QLF's special pop-up event on 22 January 2026, three of Australia’s most celebrated writers — Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein — will discuss their book The Mushroom Tapes with Hannie Rayson.

The Mushroom Tapes is a true-crime book like no other — a unique study of convicted triple murderer Erin Patterson and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime — that's been described as 'a cultural inquisition with psychological heft' and ‘the non-fiction book of the season.’

Why not wash off the sand and sunscreen on 22 January and join these remarkable women for a fascinating conversation about the case that stopped the nation and its sinister and complex themes: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder.

Revered American novelist Percival Everett discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James, a bold and transformative response to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  

In his reimagining of an American classic, Percival Everett flips the script on Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, placing Huck’s enslaved companion Jim – here renamed James – at the centre of the narrative and granting him the voice he’s been long denied. The resulting novel is gripping, funny and strikingly relevant: a sharp reckoning with American identity, the dehumanising legacy of slavery and the enduring absurdity of racial supremacy. 

In this special event, Everett joins host Osman Faruqi to discuss what drew him to this act of literary reclamation and why he views his work as being in conversation with Twain’s. He will also reflect on his decades-spanning literary career and the recent adaptation of his novel Erasure into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction. 

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear from one of the most inventive and incisive voices in contemporary American literature in Everett’s only Melbourne appearance. 

Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein joined the media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, stayed overnight in the town, and spent countless hours in fervent conversation about their impressions inside the courtroom – an odyssey that resulted in The Mushroom Tapes.

In league with the co-host of ABC’s Conversations, Richard Fidler, the three renowned writers explore the gap between the certainties of law and the messiness of reality, their own ambivalence about the true crime genre, and all that remains unknowable about Erin Patterson.

Satire and subversion with America’s endlessly inventive novelist

Author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning James, Percival Everett joins us for an engrossing conversation about how parody and satire can puncture holes in our ideas about race and identity. Join us for the wit and style of an American literary treasure on his first visit to Australia.

The author of more than thirty books, Percival Everett’s work features strong ideas hitting the current moment. James, which re-tells the story of Huckleberry Finn from the point of few of the enslaved Jim, is darkly funny and boldly eviscerating - a kind of literary restorative justice that provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics influencing American culture and politics. His novel Erasure, adapted into the film American Fiction (which won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay) hilariously skewers American publishing and the expectations of the market for works that purport to reveal the “Black American experience”.

His other notable works include I Am Not Sidney Poitier, So Much Blue, Telephone, Dr. No and The Trees, which was also a Booker Prize finalist in 2022. Don’t miss this chance to hear from one of the most vital voices in contemporary literature.

Percival Everett’s conversation will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing.