About The Same Same 25 The Same Same 25 is an annual celebration of the 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians. They are publicly nominated, and chosen by a panel of community leaders. For the past two years, the announcement of the 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians has attracted widespread national media attention and focused on the achievements and influence of a varied and inspirational group of people. View the Same Same 25 for 2008 here. View the Same Same 25 for 2007 here. About Same Same
The Judges - The Same Same 25 judges are drawn from a wide cross-section of the community, representing a broad field of influence and experience in their chosen professions. Andrew Creagh (Editor, DNA Magazine), Cec Busby (Editor, LOTL Magazine), Rachel Cook (Editor, Cherrie Magazine), Christian Taylor (Editor, SameSame.com.au), David Wilkins (ACON), Kevin Golding (Business Analyst), Peter Walton (Publisher, Evolution), Libby Clark (Co-founder, Sound Alliance), Tim Duggan (Co-founder, SameSame.com.au)
The Process - The Same Same 25 is publicly nominated, and chosen by a panel of community leaders. Anyone in Australia can nominate someone for the Same Same 25.

Christos Tsiolkas

Writer

Christos Tsiolkas is a Melbourne based writer of novels, plays and scripts. His first novel ‘Loaded’ was turned into the film ‘Head On’ by Ana Kokkinos. His third novel ‘Dead Europe’ won The Age Fiction Book of the Year prize in 2006 and also the Melbourne Prize for that year. His latest novel ‘The Slap’ has won him critical acclaim as well as a slew of awards. It won Overall Best Book from the Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2009, ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2009 and Overall Book of the Year 2009, ABA Book of the Year 2009, ALS Gold Medal 2009 and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2009. It was also shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Prize 2009 and the Colin Roderick Award 2008.

“I knew I wanted to be a writer when my Year Eight English teacher held up a piece of my creative writing and declared it ‘filth,” says Tsiolkas. “Though I tried desperately to escape suburbia I soon realised that you can take the boy out of the suburbs but you can’t necessarily take the suburbs out of the boy. My novels, fictions and scripts are an attempt to explore the crevices and dark spaces of the Australian suburban landscape, and in doing so to hopefully scrawl a huge ugly handle-bar moustache over the dirty-blonde, blue-eyed Aryan iconography of this Great Southern Land.”

‘The Slap’ is a set of eight vignettes told from the perspectives of eight different adults, one of them gay, who were all present at a suburban Melbourne barbeque when a man slapped someone else’s out of control four-year-old son. The event forces them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. It’s a novel that examines love, marriage, sexuality, parenting and children.