Hannah Goldstein: Dream Girls
About the event
6pm for 6.30pm Thursday 5th November Hannah Goldstein in conversation with Madeleine Gray Helena and Ruthie have been best friends since high school, where they bonded over Wuthering Heights, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and photographs of Joseph Stalin when he was young and hot. They dreamed of getting a place of their own in the city and living a life of great passion, art and romance. But as they drift into their late twenties, they are forced to contend with the idea that growing up might mean growing apart. Helena works at an elite boys' private school -- a misogynistic hellhole rife with sexual harassment and paintings of ships. Every day she pines for an ex-boyfriend who left her with nothing but a print of an artwork of Ophelia drowning. Meanwhile, Ruthie is pouring her marital despair into three-tiered funfetti cakes and seeking refuge from her family in solo Friday night trips to Woolworths. When an old school friend invites Helena and Ruthie to a glamorous forest wedding, they jump at the chance to reconnect. But finding their way back to each other, past unrealised dreams and younger selves, isn't as easy as they thought. Inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dream Girls is a novel about love and friendship in absurd times. Hannah Goldstein is a writer and teacher from Sydney. Her fiction has appeared in The Big Issue and the UTS Writers' Anthology and been shortlisted for the Richell Prize. Dream Girls is her debut novel. Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her first novel, Green Dot, was an acclaimed bestseller in Australia and the UK. In 2024, Madeleine won the ABIA for Matt Richell New Writer of the Year Award and the 2025 Russell Prize for Humour Writing. Her second novel, Chosen Family was published in 2025.
