Join us for the RSWWF opening lunch featuring Suzanne and Gina Chick in an intimate conversation that spans three generations of women’s storytelling. They’ll discuss Suzanne’s newly re-released memoir, Searching for Charmian, which chronicles her journey to discover her birth mother—the renowned writer Charmian Clift. This special mother-daughter dialogue explores how women’s narratives and relationships shape identity, creativity, and belonging. Together they’ll reflect on writing as both inheritance and resistance, examining how female bonds—even those marked by absence—can nurture literary expression.
Begin the Rose Scott Women Writers Festival with this powerful celebration of women's stories and the complex, beautiful connections that inspire them across generations.
Suzanne Chick was born in Sydney in 1942 and grew up in Mosman, the same suburb where Charmian Clift and George Johnston settled on their return from Greece is 1964. An adopted child with utterly different talents from those of her new family, Suzanne exhibited an unstoppable creative urge from the earliest age. Educated at North Sydney Girls' High School, she progressed to the National Art School and Sydney Teachers' College. After a long career teaching art and bringing up three daughters, she now makes a living as a painter, with occasional forays into the world of words. Suzanne Chick, who, after finally discovering her mother's identity at 48, wrote her own book, Searching For Charmian, which was shortlisted for the NBC Banjo Award.
Gina Chick is a rewilding facilitator, adventurer, writer and speaker. Gina was one of ten participants of the first series of Alone Australia, made by iTV and screened on SBS in 2023. After 67 days of unforgettable moments of searing vulnerability, Gina was the last person standing, and the second woman to win an Alone solo challenge. Her determination, passion and love of the natural world endeared her to more than 5.5 million people around Australia. Gina's articles have been published in The Guardian, news.com.au, Mamamia and SBS online. Her first book, We Are the Stars, published by Summit Books at Simon & Schuster, is a bestselling memoir of love, connection and the glorious power of letting go.
