Book of Life Launch with Deborah Conway

You think you know Deborah Conway? You think seeing her scowling and striding and smouldering in her music videos over the years means you know who Deborah Conway is? She figures you probably don't know the half of it.

If you have listened to any of Deborah's iconic songs and were curious about their origins; if you ever wondered what happened to that chick who covered herself in Nutella and was photographed shovelling cream cakes into her mouth; if you gave a nanosecond's thought to whose bare arse adorned the giant billboard ads for jeans in the 1980s and how much someone got paid to do that; if you liked Tracy Mann's vocals in Sweet and Sour but asked yourself, 'did she really sing them?'; if you thought Running On Empty was a classic before it became a cult phenomenon and need behind-the-scenes gossip, now's your chance to find out all this and so much more.

Conway pulls back the curtain on the fevered world of 1980s post-punk and the spectacular rise and fall and rise of one of the more obstreperous women in Australia's music industry, a woman who has straddled the high arts and the low without losing her footing or her mind. A woman who said no to the system and whose fierce independence has seen her produce her best work.

Welcome to the good, the bad and the ugly of an extraordinary life from the vantage point of a music insider (and outsider) with a deep need to tell the truth about it all.

This venue is wheelchair accessible via ramp. Please contact events@betterread.com.au with any additional access requirements and/or questions.

Deborah Conway has been a musician for over 40 years. Innovator, motivator, role model, facilitator and entrepreneur, Conway is fearless in her risk taking, has pushed and pulled existing boundaries and has always argued her cause with integrity and intelligence to pursue the highest standards of whatever is in her sights. For the last 3 decades Willy Zygier, musician, songwriter & composer, has been her primary collaborator. Aside from releasing a dozen studio albums and playing countless live shows, Conway has been a producer, festival director, actor and is soon to be a published author. In 2020 Conway was created a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia and received the Australia Council's Don Banks Award for outstanding contribution to music. In 2022 Conway was inducted into Music Victoria's Hall of Fame.

James Valentine presents Breakfast on ABC Radio Sydney and is also a musician with his own jazz quartet. He plays regularly around Sydney and at music festivals around the country and, in 2009, released the album Debut. A familiar face on Australian television, James was the movie reviewer for many years on Showtime, a reporter and commentator on shows such as Sunrise, It Takes Two, Midday, Good Morning Australia and TVTV. James has also featured as the narrator of Lifestyle Channel's Come Dine With Me Australia as well as the writer of a regular columns for publications including The Australian newspaper.