It’s been another huge month here with plenty of events in Sydney and Newcastle: two ‘Sisters for Sale’ screenings, a huge gala, our exhibition closing event, and a night of storytelling tomorrow!
You’ll also find information below on our books, documentary, and podcast, and our second tour north to Queensland and Northern NSW, which begins next month!
Newcastle events
The ‘Sisters for Sale’ exhibition of photos and stories finished up with a great closing event on Sunday 29th May. It was followed the same evening by our second screening of the ‘Sisters for Sale’ documentary at the delightful Royal Exchange Theatre on Bolton Street.
I’ve been invited to tell my story alongside four other authors and travellers tomorrow evening – Tuesday 21st June – as part of Story Room Newcastle. It will be an evening of dinner, drinks, and old-fashioned storytelling at the Wickham Park Hotel – if you’d like to join us, it will be great to see you there! You can find more details and save your spot right here.
Sydney events
On Thursday 9th June we ran the first ‘Sisters for Sale’ screening in Western Sydney. As with the Newcastle event, it was co-presented by the wonderful Kim Miller of Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, which has rescued over 1,000 people from slavery.
The screening was hosted by the lovely people at Fairfield RSL, who generously gave us the use of their enormous Sapphire Ballroom and prepared a great table full of Vietnamese and Western nibbles for us.
This past Friday 17th June I was invited to join a panel at a huge fundraising gala night for Blue Dragon, organised by the phenomenal community at South West Entrepreneurial Hub (SWEH). It was a fantastic evening of music, comedy, martial arts, dancing, and neverending food at the Villa Capri in Cabramatta.
A special thank-you to all the SWEH crew (including Kim Tran-Flores for her gorgeous calligraphy!), and to Carla and Zoe Oluk for doing such a great job running the merch table!
Photos by Josh Shot That and unknown
‘Sister for Sale’ books, documentary, and podcast
We’ve had an amazing response to the ‘Sisters for Sale’ books. I haven’t even had a chance to add the fourth and final book to the website yet, and it’s already selling by the boxload! (For now, if you’d like to grab your copy, you can reply by email and I’ll send you the details.)
For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, or want to see it again, the ‘Sisters for Sale’ documentary is now available in many countries here on Vimeo.
In early 2020, we released the ‘Sisters for Sale’ podcast as an extension of the first book. The podcast received thousands of downloads and, though I haven’t promoted it for over two years, I was amazed to learn that people are still listening to it every day.
I never loved the podcast (it reminds me of those strange first months of the pandemic!) and I’m thinking about taking it down soon – if you’re a podcast person and want to hear it before it disappears, for the moment you can still find it on Apple, Spotify, and elsewhere.
Second tour to Queensland and Northern NSW
After the success of our first trip north in April, Kim Miller and I will be returning to Queensland and Northern NSW between mid-July and early August. This time, we’ll be covering the coastal region as far north as Rockhampton.
If you’re in that area and are interested in having your own ‘Sisters for Sale’ screening or a school workshop, now’s the time to reach out so we can fit it into our developing plans!
While it’s too early for a full announcement just yet, we’ve begun planning out the next stages of ‘The Human, Earth Project’, and have some really exciting things coming up in the next few months – stay tuned!
– Ben