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Sport’s Troubled Relationship with Race, Gender and Sexuality: Ellen van Neerven with Melanie Saward

  • The Carrington Hotel 15-47 Katoomba Street Katoomba, NSW, 2780 Australia (map)

Award-winning writer Ellen van Neerven played football from a young age, learning early on that sport can be a painful and exclusive world. The more they played, the more they understood about sport's troubled relationship with race, gender and sexuality.

Join Ellen as they shine a light on sport on this continent from a queer First Nations perspective, and remind us that some athletes have long challenged mainstream views and used their roles to effect change not only in their own realm, but in society more broadly. Hosted by Melanie Saward.

Ellen van Neerven is a Mununjali writer, editor and educator based in Meanjin. Ellen’s book of poetry, Throat, won Book of the Year, the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and the Multicultural NSW Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Melanie Saward is a descendent of the Bigambul and Wakka Wakka peoples. She is a Tulmur (Ipswich) based writer, an associate lecturer in creative writing at QUT, and a PhD student. Her debut novel, Burn, was published in September 2023 by Affirm Press.


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