AFTER HOURS at the Convent is a curated encounter where ideas, conversations and creative exchange take centre stage.
For this special EWF edition, hosted by ABC’s Paul F. Verhoeven, we celebrate the Convent’s Writers in Residence through readings by Nalini Jacob-Roussety, Ernest Price, Mindy Gill and Mia-Francesca Jones, interwoven with digital works by Cat Yen and music by Rafet that threads its way through the evening.
As daylight fades, the Convent takes on a different rhythm.
AFTER HOURS is your invitation to be part of it.
Paul F. Verhoeven
Paul F. Verhoeven is a broadcaster, author and screenwriter. His chart-topping book series (Loose Units and Electric Blue – Penguin Publishing) inspired his critically celebrated Loose Units spin-off podcast, which recently hit 10 million downloads. In the world of film and television, Paul is known for appearances on Whovians, Utopia and The Project. He co-wrote all six episodes of Stan’s upcoming horror-comedy series Gnomes, staring Asa Butterfield. Paul proudly broadcasts as a regular presenter on ABC Radio 774.
Nalini Jacob-Roussety
Nalini is a 2026 Hot Desk fellow and a participant in the Abbotsford Convent writing residency. She is currently working on a campus novel in which an eccentric philosophy professor brings a series of ethical dilemmas to real life.
Ernest Price
Ernest Price is transgender man living and writing on Bunurong land. His debut novel The Pyramid of Needs was published by Affirm Press in 2024. It is a dark, wry and deeply illuminating examination of family dynamics in a world full of division and misinformation. His creative nonfiction has been published by Overland and Queerstories. By day, he teaches high school English.
Mindy Gill
Mindy Gill is an award-winning poet, editor, and critic, and Australian Book Review’s fifth Rising Star. Her poetry and criticism have appeared in The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, the Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, Australian Book Review, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Confessions, won the 2025 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and is forthcoming with UQP in 2027. She currently serves as the Poetry Editor of Meanjin.
Mia-Francesca Jones
Mia is a writer and researcher, and the recipient of the 2025 Mick Dark Flagship Fellowship for Outstanding Environmental Writing by Varuna National Writers’ House. Her writing has been highly commended for the Peter Blazey Fellowship for auto/biographical writing, and listed for the Desperate Literature Prize, the Rachel Funari Prize, the Overland VU Short Story Prize, and the Richell Prize by Hachette Australia.
Cat Yen
Cat is a writer of memoir. She is interested in unearthing the complexity of gendered and working-class experiences of everyday life, especially those of people of colour. She was the winner of the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition in 2021, a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow in 2024 and an inaugural Abbotsford Convent Writer Resident in 2026. Proudly the daughter of factory and retail workers with no creative credentials, she is a data analyst for her day job.
Rafet
Rafet is a writer and musician. The project is a personal thesis on family and migration, history and faith.
