@bonitamersiades
Gets Stuff Done | Publisher @fairplaybooks.bsky.social | Curator @manlywritersfest.bsky.social | #FIFA whistleblower | author & editor | politics, #football, #books, dogs I #volunteer | #ausrepublic | Sydney | X refugee (& also daughter of real refugees)
Remember when it seemed impossible to imagine the USA having a more incompetent president than George W and FIFA having a more corrupt president than Blatter.
These guys sure proved us wrong
One of the pleasures of the Manly Writers’ Festival is its scale. Conversations take place in intimate venues where audiences can listen closely, ask questions and engage directly with writers and thinkers.
🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au
Stories Across Manly
19-22 March 2026
What a BS report in #ABC730.
What really happens after the "rescuers" arrive? Two historians, two very different stories — the same troubling truth about power and its aftermath. Martin Thomas and Nadia Wheatley. Friday 20 March. #ManlyWF26
🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au
Danish football president Jesper Moller re-elected, means he’ll be in office for 16 years. Speaking of which he has called on Ceferin to stay on beyond his once stated 12 years at UEFA. Infantino will also bust through 12 years by the time he’s done. Football looking very similar to those old days.
What can humans do that AI can't?
Saturday 21st at #ManlyWF,26 we find out. Live.
Writers versus AI. Musicians versus AI. Heather Morris on what stories can do that facts can't. And a cocktail called The Afterword.
The Night Shift. 8pm.
🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au
Iran’s brave players have stood tall. Now Australia must stand with them
Opinion in SMH. www.smh.com.au/national/ira...
#Iran
At 90 years old, Thomas Keneally — author of Schindler's Ark, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and dozens more — will open #ManlyWF26 on 19 March with an oration. There are writers you should hear while you still can. This is one of those moments. 🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ThomasKeneally
4 crime writers walk into a bar in Manly. James Dunbar, Jack Heath, Matthew Spencer & Dave Warner read from their work & talk about what the writing revealed that they didn't fully expect. Saturday 21 March, Henry G's, which is, actually, a bar. 🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ManlyWF26 #CrimeFiction
Algorithms. Media concentration. Misinformation. AI. @amyremeikis.bsky.social on how the systems controlling information flow are quietly reshaping democracy. If you've ever wondered why public debate feels broken, this is for you. 20 March, 8pm. 🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ManlyWF26 #Democracy
THE WORLD ON EDGE
US-China rivalry. Disinformation. A weakening West. Where does Australia stand? Bob Carr, Peter Hartcher and Michael Pembroke bring sharply contrasting views. With Michael Brissenden. Sat 21 March, 4pm. 🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ManlyWF26 #Geopolitics
Who gets to belong in Australia & on whose terms? Joshua Gilbert brings an Indigenous, future-focused perspective. Tyree Barnette, an African American migrant, asks how race shifts across borders. Sat 21 March, 1pm. 🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ManlyWF26 #IndigenousAustralia #Belonging
Listen to this remarkable interview about childhood, belonging, safety and abuse, & why the stories we find hardest to tell are often the ones most worth telling.🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ManlyWF26 #MichaelMohammedAhmad #Fiction buff.ly/Tq7OjcN
Sue Woolfe started a novel in 2017. Then the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse tabled its findings & she discovered her own mother had been among the victims. It took her 8 years to find the form to tell it. Hear about it at #ManlyWF26. buff.ly/7J2wpdY
Obama: "We are living in a time where it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions. Another setback to the idea of the rule of law ... but this man - Rev. Jesse Jackson - inspires us to take a harder path ... bc if we don't step up, nobody else will"
Hey #Insiders, it’s not a #FIFA tournament! It’s the Asian Football Confederation.
Elysse Perry now the highest run scorer for an Australian woman in test cricket. 1005 at a lazy 62 avge
Penny Wong is so clever. #Insiders
#Spurs finally got a win. (Sent by a friend).
Fascinating. Frightening. A must read from Michael Koziiol. www.smh.com.au/world/north-...
“If we didn’t do what we did, we would have had a nuclear war,” Trump said. He also said last June that Iran’s nuclear capacity was “obliterated”.
Bob Carr reflects on love, grief and the emotional afterlife of a 50-year shared life with Helena. What does it mean to go on living after losing your person? Bring Back Yesterday. Sat 21 March, 5.30pm.
🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au #ManlyWF26 #BobCarr #Grief #Memoir #Love
So you want to be a writer? How does that happen? How do you get your manuscript into a book and into bookstores? And what happens then? ASK US ANYTHING! 4 industry experts to kick-off Saturday morning at #ManlyWF26. manlywritersfestival.org.au
The Opposition and One Nation in one word. ➡️ Appalling. #ABCNews
That feeling when you hold your book for the first time! Anna Dombkins with ‘Home, Forever’. It will be launched at @manlywritersfest.bsky.social on 22nd March.
#Israel #Iran #Ukraine #Russia #MiddleEast #Somalia Where does #Australia sit in the global disorder? Come to #geopolitics at Manly & find out. 1pm-5pm, 21 March.
Who gets to belong in Australia & on whose terms? Joshua Gilbert & Tyree Barnette examine how land, race & power shape identity. An Indigenous future-focused perspective meets a Black American migrant discovering how race shifts across borders.
A sharp, forward-looking conversation. 🎟️
By the way, Albo could have avoided all this drama but simply not agreeing to participate in a word association game during an event hosted by the Herald Sun
Dr Jamal Rifi is fabulous. #ABC730
What can a wine cellar reveal about power & fear? Nick Place uncorks the politics behind #Stalin's taste for luxury. How food, drink & private indulgence intersected with paranoia & control inside the Soviet regime. Sharply told history with an astringent aftertaste. 🎟️ manlywritersfestival.org.au
