On the edge of life - fiction, cognition and emotion

Join us at the Garden Lounge Creative Space on Saturday 26 March 2022 for a discussion to celebrate the launch of Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature (Routledge) by Jean-François Vernay.

As humans we are driven by our emotions and desires and hardly think twice about how our brain is influencing our choices on a daily basis. Fiction allows us to negotiate our relationship with the world and ourselves, and enables creative writers to lay bare their emotions with just the power of words, to which readers respond emotionally. Come and engage with a neuroscientist, a literary critic, and novelists to discuss feelings, desire, ways of thinking, aesthetic representations, slices of life and matters of the heart. All writers will be available for a book signing session.

Special guests MC: Michael Aiken (Poet and Owner of Garden Lounge Creative Space) Literary critic: Jean-François Vernay (Editor of The Rise of the Australian Neurohumanities, Routledge) Neuroscientist: Professor Mark Williams (Macquarie University) Novelist: Peter Polites (The Pillars, Hachette) Fiction and nonfiction writer: Sue Woolfe (The Mystery of the Cleaning Lady: A Writer Looks at Creativity and Neuroscience, UWAP)

All writers will be available for a book signing session.

Venue: The Garden Lounge Creative Space, 573 King Street Newtown 2042 (http://gardenlounge.com.au) Event date: Saturday 26 March Event time: 6.00-8.00 pm RSVP through Eventbrite (RSVP is strictly required for attendance): https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/on-the-edge-of-life-fiction-cognition-emotions-book-launch-talk-tickets-279998542177?aff=erelexpmlt

Note: ALL guests must check in and have proof of double vaccination. This is non- negotiable. Further details of the Garden Lounge COVID considerations can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/gardenloungenewtown/