Big Ideas

How surfing writer Tim Baker and doctor Peter Goldsworthy learnt to live well and laugh with cancer

loading...

January 22, 2025 12:00am

54m

Meet two men who will change the way you think about an experience most of us fear but will be touched by in some way.  In Patting the Shark, surfing writer Tim Baker describes his wild ride to reclaim a sense of control and agency after a cancer diagnosis. Celebrated author and GP Peter Goldsworthy’s memoir The Cancer Finishing School started out as a journal but became so much more.They join Natasha Mitchell for intimate an intimate, revelatory, funny, and generous conversation about the Big C and how medicine needs to change. 

This event was hosted by the 2024 Queenscliffe Literary Festival

Speakers

Tim BakerJournalist, editor, patient advocate, PhD candidateAuthor, Patting the Shark: A surfer's journey — learning to live well with cancer (Ebury Australia/Penguin, 2022)

Dr Peter GoldsworthyGP, author, librettist, poetAuthor, The Cancer Finishing School —lessons in laughter, love, resilience (Penguin, 2024)