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Lines of Wisdom: Young Writers, Old Stories, Timeless Encounters

A beautician smuggles her family out of communist Hungary; a man steps off a train and gets his life on track; a Pitjantjatjara woman guards the secrets of a sacred women's Dreaming. In a conversation spanning generations, young writers from around the country sketch the extraordinary lives of ordinary and elderly Australians they find inspirational.

Seventeen authors were selected from more than a hundred submissions (collected through the network of the National Young Writers' Festival). They range from Vogel award-winning novelist Danielle Wood from Tasmania, twice named Young Novelist of the Year by the Sydney Morning Herald; to fourteen-year-old Perth schoolboy Nicholas Dyer.

Each profile is accompanied by moving black-and-white portraits by Sydney photographer Oliver Strewe.

Lines of Wisdom is a heart-to-heart between people at opposite ends of the path of life. Evocative and engaging, sincere and irreverent, it provides a gentle mediation on the march of time and on the history of Australia itself. It contains wise words but, most poignantly, it's an enduring reminder to us all to listen while we can.