Dish Launch with Rhys Nicholson and Benjamin Law

This is a semi-stream-of-consciousness written tapestry, squeezed out by a profoundly apprehensive overthinker who’s doing their best to unapologetically stop apologising. (It’s funnier than it sounds.)

'This Dish is served hot, funny and sincerely fresh!' – RuPaul

Every now and then, when the planets align in just the right way, a book comes along that changes everything. An author sweats and toils to birth a tome with such colossal cultural impact, it has the power to retune the entire world to a whole new frequency. This is absolutely not one of those books. Not even close. And actually, that all sounds a bit much really, doesn’t it?

In Dish, a debut whack at writing an entire book, Nicholson is reaching out to get some stuff straight in their head. Through a series of revealing stories, intrusive thoughts and a recipe here and there, they’re hoping to ruminate, gossip and generally have a deeply private, wide-ranging conversation with themselves about a whole bunch of life’s smaller questions. What do you do if you think you might have an underwear fetish? How long do you roast a chicken for? Does everyone hate you? Why did no one bring up how hard it is to write a book? What’s going on with heterosexual men, and are they okay?

Rhys Nicholson is a multi-award winning Australian comedian, writer, actor and presenter. Alongside a booming live and televised stand-up career – with performances in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and North America, and on Netflix – they are a favourite across our small screens too, from panel shows to documentary, acting roles (in the sci-fi comedy The Imperfects) and as a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. Hailed as ‘an astute satirist . . . clever and blatantly very funny’ by the Sydney Morning Herald, and ‘hilarious and uproariously catty’ by the Herald Sun, Rhys has opened for Conan O’Brien as he toured Australia, and is co-founder of Melbourne live comedy venue, The Comedy Republic.

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin is also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter who created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning TV series The Family Law (SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia), wrote the sold-out mainstage play Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company, 2020), and is co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer on the acclaimed Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania. He has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Every week, Benjamin co-hosts ABC Radio National’s weekly national pop culture show Stop Everything and interviews public figures for Good Weekend. He hosted ABC TV’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history Waltzing the Dragon and has also written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond— including the Monthly, frankie, Guardian, Monocle and Australian Financial Review—and is a literary scout for Hachette Australia. Benjamin works and lives on Gadigal Country, part of the Eora Nation (Sydney).