Author Talk to Year 9 and Readers Club

On Monday 8 August all of Year 9 were privileged to have the opportunity to hear the exciting new Australian author and actor, Helen Chebatte, talk to us about her new novel, Bro, the writing process and her life. Two of our Year 10 students, Julyana Hadad and Alyssa-Maree Mammoliti expertly conducted an interview with the author.

Helen Chebatte’s new book Bro explores what it means to be a young Australian in a racially diverse country and touches on important themes of identity, race, teen violence, social media, family, mateship and love. Currently, Year 9 students are studying Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet and it was easy for them to see the dilemmas of Shakespeare’s main character, Romeo, played out in the struggles of Bro’s Romeo Makhlouf to not get caught up in the fights and conflict of the playground in a modern day Australian context.

Chebatte is an excellent role model for the students, having worked in a variety of fields including hairdressing, teaching drama and speech, and acting. Chebatte came to Australia from Syria as a small child and went to school in Western Sydney.

She also conducted a writing workshop with the students in the Readers Club , focusing on building characters and creating authentic voices for these characters in their interactions.

Mrs Maria Thomson

Coordinator of Learning – eLearning and Information Literacy