Marieke Hardy Is Going To Die

LA PETITE MORT: MALIA DEWSE IS GOING TO DIE

Why do so many of us resist writing a will until it's too late?

Holistic end-of-life planning is more than formal documents (will and advanced care plan). It reflects our values, interests and the breadth of our lives: emotional housekeeping, end-of-life, our legacy and more. It needs doing before it’s really needed.

A long-held interest in death and dying, as well as both positive and challenging personal experiences with loved ones’ dying and death, drove Malia Dewse to establish Beyond the Will. The service provides a holistic planning approach to the end-of-life. It supports individuals and families to plan before they really need to and identify and prioritise the things that really matter to them.

Malia currently lives and works in Merri-bek with her family and a demanding cat. She loves to cook, eat, garden and plant trees as well as connect with friends and community. She is also currently on the board of Tender Funerals Greater Eastern Melbourne.

TONY BIRCH IS GOING TO DIE

The brilliant writer and academic Dr Tony Birch was born in inner-city Melbourne, into a large family of Aboriginal, West Indian and Irish descent. An altar boy and exceptional student at his local Catholic primary school, in adolescence, Birch went 'off the rails' as a teenager. He was expelled from two high schools for fighting and found trouble with the police for the same reason. Although somewhat adrift following his expulsions, he remained a voracious reader – once, when he was arrested by police, all they found when they patted him down was a copy of Camus’ The Outsider, which remains his favourite book.

Birch has written a great deal about death and grief, most recently in his 2021 short story collection Dark As Last Night, where he interrogates the death of his brother Wayne. Here, he reads from the collection whilst musing on his own legacy and eventual funeral plans.

Birch has been publishing short stories and poetry regularly since the 1980s, although his first collection, Shadowboxing, only appeared in 2006. Since this, he has published four more collections of short stories and poetry (Father's Day [2009], The Promise [2014], Broken Teeth [2016], and Common People [2017] and two novels (Blood [2011] and Ghost River [2015]).

Among his awards are the Scanlon Prize and the Prize for Indigenous Writing (Victorian Premier's Literary Awards). He has also been shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (NSW Premier's Literary Awards), the Steele Rudd Award (with both the original Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and the later Queensland Literary Awards), and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

In 2015, he joined Victoria University as the first recipient of its Dr Bruce McGuinness Indigenous Research Fellowship. His role sits within the Moondani Balluk Academic Unit and is linked to the University’s creative arts and writing programs. He has also taught creative writing at the University of Melbourne for many years.

In 2022, he was appointed as the third Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, following Richard Flanagan and Alexis Wright.

LA PETITE MORT: CELEBRATING MIKE NOGA

In these special episodes, we celebrate the life of a person who has died via someone who loved them deeply - keeping the memory of them alive through shared recollections, joy and grief.

These conversations can be intensely raw, and many tears are shed. Please move gently as you listen.

TW: Substance abuse, mental health, suicide.

Mike Noga was a singer/songwriter and former drummer of the alt-rock band The Drones - who won the inaugural Australian Music Prize in 2005 for their album Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By. Mike also built a name for himself in the Australian music industry with four critically acclaimed solo albums - Folk Songs (2005), The Balladeer Hunter (2012), KING (2016) and the posthumous Open Fire (2021) which was nominated for the Best Independent Rock Album in the 2022 AIR Awards and one of the best albums of 2022 by NME. He toured extensively both in Australia and overseas during his career, opening for acts such as Spoon, Band of Horses, Mark Lanegan and LOW.

Celebrating him with us is his beautiful sister Ali Noga - a ceramic artist based in nipaluna/Hobart. Her work reveals itself as a quest for meaning and connection in a world that often feels disconnected and occasionally, meaningless, and has been strongly influenced by Mike’s death and grief. It is also an avenue for self-discovery and transformation as she attempts to explore the depths of human consciousness and the ability (or not) to connect with something greater than ourselves. When not getting muddy Ali prefers the company of dogs over humans, particularly her Chihuahua Pedro.

MARK WATSON IS GOING TO DIE

Hyperactive, prolific and emotionally generous UK comedy superstar Mark Watson has won numerous awards for his work in standup over the years. Yet with all his success - in television, radio, and as the author of seven (!) novels, with an eighth on the way in 2025 - he's struggled a great deal with anxiety and mental health issues, both publicly and privately. What does a Dream Funeral look like for someone who has lived such a massive life, with some deeply human triumphs and regrets?

TW: Suicide

LA PETITE MORT: SISTA ZAI ZANDA IS GOING TO DIE

Every second week on MHIGTD we explore a conversation about mortality and survival with human beings who have skin in the game. And today we're asking the question: what does African philosophy teach us about the eternal nature of life? 

Sista Zai Zanda (Sista Zai/VaChihera) is an Afrofuturist, Poet and Womanist. Sista Zai was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and raised in a large extended family. VaChihera is from the Karanga language group and now lives as a Black African settler on Kulin Nations.

Amongst career highlights, VaChihera is a 2019 recipient of the Neilma Sidney Travel Fund and a recipient of a Melbourne Strategic Scholarship for a PhD in Afrofuturism at the University Of Melbourne. One of her favourite Afrofuturistic philosophies is the ancient belief that no one and nothing dies, we just change form and, sometimes, reincarnate.