Totally Lit: Alkira
Dates
Sunday 28 September | 2.15pm - 3.15pm
General Admission | $10 + booking fee
Concession | $7 + booking fee
Ages
All ages
Duration
60 mins
Site access information
WA Maritime Museum is mostly accessible, excluding tours aboard the HMAS Ovens. Call 1300 134 081 for assistance. More about accessibility and amenities >
When Alkira Buti was born in 1993 her parents knew little about cri du chat syndrome other than it was a chromosomal abnormality that would render their daughter ‘disabled’.
As they searched to understand more about the syndrome and the likely future for their daughter, they learned more about the social treatment of, and attitudes towards, children with disabilities.
Alkira is a story of resilience, determination, heartache and triumph for Alkira and her parents. In conversation with Gillian O’Shaughnessy, Tony Buti will challenge us to rethink how we approach disability and move toward a more just and inclusive society for all.
About the artists
Antonio Buti is the Attorney General and Minister for Commerce, Tertiary and International Education, and Multicultural Interests in the Western Australian State Government and Member for Armadale in the Legislative Assembly of the Western Australian Parliament. He was educated at Kelmscott Senior High School, University of Western Australia, Australian National University, Oxford University and Yale Law School. Prior to entering Parliament, he has been a legal academic, practicing lawyer and high school teacher. Dr Buti’s biography of Sir Ronald Wilson, A Matter of Conscience, won the 2007 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for non-fiction, as well as the Premier’s Prize in the same year.
Gillian O’Shaughnessy is an award-winning author of flash fiction and a former broadcaster and senior journalist with the ABC for 25 years. She has won the London Independent Story Prize, the UK Welkin Mini, the US Fractured Literary Anthology Prize and the UK Reflex Prize for flash fiction, among others. Her work has been widely anthologised and chosen for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 international Best Small Fictions. She is a submissions editor for US flash narrative journal, SmokeLong Quarterly, a judge of the Australian Stella Prize, and a former curator of the Perth Writers Festival. Her debut collection of flash fiction is due in 2026, published by Night Parrot Press.
Presented in association with the WA Maritime Museum
