Experience the main stage action of All About Women, streamed live from Sydney Opera House on Sunday 8 March. Byron Writers Festival will be streaming a headline session from this preeminent festival on gender.

Sober Curious with Jill Stark, Shanna Whan & Yumi Stynes.

From boozy benders to weeknight mummy wines to social media posts trumpeting newfound sobriety, our relationship with alcohol has never been more complicated.

There’s nothing wrong with a couple of drinks – right? Girls’ nights out, mums’ weekends away, gathering to support your mate after a breakup – alcohol is at the centre of our social lives. But how much is too much? At what point does a fun time with friends become destructive and problematic? And is sobriety the new morality?

Journalist Jill Stark chronicled her year off booze, broadcaster Yumi Stynes has been public about her alcohol addiction and subsequent sobriety, and Shanna Whan founded Sober in the Country as a support system for other rural Australian recovering alcoholics. Join these three women in an intimate and nuanced conversation about how we navigate our own relationships with alcohol.

Hosted by Clementine Ford.

All About Women features emerging new voices from around the world speaking to future directions in feminism.

Event details

When: Sunday 8 March, 2.15pm – 3.30pm (streamed session starts at 2.30pm)
Where: Byron Theatre, 69 Jonson Street Byron Bay
Tickets: Members FREE*; General Admission $10, bookings essential.

*Free for new or renewed 2020 Members. 2019 Memberships expire 29 February. You can join or renew your membership here.

About the Panellists

Jill Stark
Jill Stark is an award-winning journalist and author with a career spanning two decades in both the UK and Australian media. She spent ten years on staff at The Age covering health and social affairs as a senior writer and columnist, and now works as a freelance journalist, media consultant, and speech writer. Her first book, High Sobriety, was longlisted for the Walkley Book Award and shortlisted in the Kibble Literary Awards.

Shanna Whan
Shanna Whan is a rural woman and the CEO | founder of national alcohol awareness charity ‘Sober in the Country’ – and she’s has hit national media the past two years after her relentless advocacy for remote peers has been heard far and wide. Since her episode on Australian Story aired in November, her authentic and raw brand of conversations have gone viral.

Yumi Stynes
Yumi Stynes is a writer, broadcaster, television presenter, food fanatic, fitness enthusiast and mother-of-four – including two teenage girls. Yumi’s latest book is Welcome To Your Period. Among her daily responsibilities she presents a national radio show on the KIIS network called ‘The 3pm Pickup’. She also hosts an ABC podcast about women’s health called ‘Ladies, We Need to Talk’. The podcast focuses on female sexuality and social issues and is known for its directness and taboo-breaking conversations.

Clementine Ford
Clementine Ford is a freelance writer and broadcaster based in Melbourne. A scourge of trolls and misogynists everywhere, her debut novel Fight Like A Girl was an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon to be, and exposed just how unequal the world continues to be for women. Her incendiary new work of nonfiction Boys Will Be Boys, an examination of toxic masculinity compelled by the birth of her son, was published by Allen & Unwin in October 2018.