Can Reading Fiction Make You a Better Human?

Talks on Tuesdays: Real lectures in your favourite venues. 45-min& Q+A with Dr Helen Adam Talks on Tuesdays is a live event series bringing big ideas, real experts, and curious minds together - at your favourite local venues. Think thought-provoking lectures, audience questions, and post-talk mingling over drinks and dinner. This isn’t a uni lecture. It’s a social, intelligent night out.Come alone or with friends, leave with something to talk about. Event Schedule: 6.30pm Arrival & Doors Open 7pm Lecture Starts 7.45pm Q&A 8pm Talk Concludes 8.30pm Event Closes. *Please arrive close to 6.30pm A La Carte menu and full bar available throughout the night - pay as you go. Your Topic: Can Reading Fiction Make You a Better Human? Reading fiction is one of the most powerful, and most underrated, tools we have for building empathy, understanding, antiracism, and acceptance. And it's not just a kids' issue: it’s easy to treat reading as something for children and a nice-to-have for adults. Helen Adam’s research says that’s a mistake on both counts. Drawing on international fieldwork and the neuroscience of what reading fiction actually does to the brain — building empathy, rewiring bias, changing how we process other people's experience — Helen makes the case that what's on our shelves, at every age, is quietly shaping who we become and how we treat each other. It's not just a challenge for parents choosing bedtime stories. It's a challenge for every adult who thinks they've already made up their mind about difference. Expect to leave this talk looking at your own reading habits — not just your kids' — very differently. Your Speaker: Dr Helen Adam is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University in Perth, where her research focuses on culturally diverse children's literature and equitable literacy education — work that's currently ranked #1 globally (SciVal) in the field. She is President of the Board of the Primary English Teaching Association Australia, and in 2022 was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study diverse children's literature and literacy practice across Australia, the US and the UK. A regular media commentator, Helen spends much of her time in front of teachers, parents, journalists and community groups, making the case — in print, on air and from the stage — for the power of literature to challenge and disrupt prejudice.