mildura writers festival

19 - 22 JULY 2012 cover artwork - featuring local artists

WELCOMES There is an old usage of the word our literary commonwealth. In The Mildura Writers Festival has However special mention ‘festival’ that means to be glad, remaining small and intimate, our always been one of the highlights in should go to Arts , joyful or merry, and with that sense festival enlarges the opportunity my ‘cultural’ year. Inevitably it brings LaTrobe University in mind we welcome you to these, for that genial interchange between old friends to stay at our home and and the Mildura our festival days. Once again far- people that can be so satisfying and opportunities to make new friends at Rural City Council. flung writers descend upon - or so favorable to creative endeavors. the various events. This year the festival drive up to Mildura, this heart and We hope you can take full advantage that commenced in 1994 enters it’s See you there. homeland of fine writing, fine talk, of the rich program we have on offer eighteenth year a truly remarkable effort and fine food. Since its inception in this year, and we look forward to by all those volunteers, authors, poets Ross Lake 1995, the Mildura Writers Festival joining you in these glad, joyful and directors who have contributed Chairman, Arts Mildura has become synonymous with and merry days ahead. to its long term success. We have hospitality and conviviality, as continued the tradition of making the Robert Watson writers and readers come together Paul Kane festival a convivial occasion, combining Winter 2010 to share the uncommon abundance Artistic Director food and writing at many events. This Medium: Etching Dimensions: 48.5 x 42.5 cm year we are delighted to announce the return of Barry Hill, Peter Robb and This print is from a series based on John Wolesely amongst a number of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. visitor information packages It is my visual interpretation of the words. Freecall 1800 039 043 or visit Festival Package $310 others. Can I encourage you to explore the program to discover all our visiting I have given a contemporary twist to the www.visitmildura.com.au (over 15% saving) 14 events including writers and book early as many events character whilst remaining true to the 1 breakfast, 3 lunches & 2 dinners original spirit of the play. Robert was a finalist tickets > book online now will sell out promptly. As always we in the Rick Amor Print Prize, Montsalvat 2011 www.artsmildura.com.au Saturday at La Trobe Package $60 have many loyal and long serving with this print. Robert is represented by the Festival Office (03) 5022 9542 Includes 6 sessions plus lunch sponsors and supporters all of whom Art Vault, Mildura. Mildura Arts Centre (03) 5018 8330 are acknowledged herein. There will be a raffle held during Mildura Visitor Information Centre the festival with Roberts work 1800 039 043 being the major prize. 1

philip hodgins memorial dinner opening A regional dinner featuring local produce Medal Winners saturday presented by Peter Webley- description to 1997 Bruce Dawe night > an come 1998 Kate Jennings festival evening with 1999 Alan Gould 2000 Peter Porter dinner liz moore Awarded annually to an Australian 2001 Carmel Bird writer whose work best reflects the high 2002 Chris Wallace - Crabbe A regional dinner prepared by esteemed Jim was born and raised in Mildura and Liz Moore, American writer, musician and standards and distinguished literary 2003 local chef & teacher Peter Webley in the completed his apprenticeship at The teacher, interviewed by Morag Fraser, a accomplishments that Philip Hodgins 2004 Luke Davies beautiful setting of Gallery 25 Grand Hotel in 2003. He then went on Miles Franklin Literary Award judge and consistently advocated and exemplified in 2005 Judith Beveridge to work as head chef at the Spanish Bar chair of the Australian Book Review. his poetry. The new 2012-15 judge is Chris 2006 Stephen Edgar Guest authors will speak throughout the and Grill. Upon moving to in Wallace-Crabbe who will select the winner 2007 Inga Clendinnen night telling a story relating to Infamous or 2006, Jim worked at Vue de Monde for Through a special arrangement with who will be presented with a unique 2008 Sonya Hartnett famous couplings in the literary world. three years, including one year as sous the U.S. Consulate, Liz Moore comes medal created by Mildura artist Jim Curry 2009 Peter Steele Featuring special guest Joe Dolce chef. He then opened Bennett’s 401 on to Mildura as the exclusive guest of the and a cash prize of $3000. The evening 2010 Don Watson St Kilda Road as head chef where he Writers Festival. One of America’s young includes an interview with and reading 2011 Gail Jones Having worked at Shannon Bennett’s worked for almost acclaimed novelists, she is the author of by the winner and readings of Philip 2012 Robert Gray three-hat restaurant Vue de Monde and two years. two celebrated novels: The Words of Every Hodgins’ poetry by his daughters by Café Vue 401 over the past five years, Jim Song (which Roddy Doyle described as Anna and Helen Hodgins has created a four-course menu influenced 7 FOR 7.30PM “remarkable, elegant, wise, and beautifully by French cooking techniques.The menu SATURDAY 20 JULY constructed”) and, this year, Heft (deemed 7.30PM is predominantly produce driven and uses Quality Hotel Mildura Grand Ballroom “beautiful…stunningly sad and heroically FRIDAY 20 JULY quality ingredients cooked with simple (Arts Mildura accommodation partner) hopeful” by O, The Oprah Magazine). Liz Stefano’s Gallery 25 techniques to showcase each component Cnr Seventh St & Langtree Ave, Mildura will discuss her work with Morag Fraser, 25 Deakin Ave, Mildura within the dish. Comprised of interesting Some Chalmers Wine provided, other and take questions from the audience. Wine provided by Chalmers Wines, and exciting combinations as well as drinks at bar prices 7.30PM other drinks at bar prices familiar elements, the menu has been put Tickets TALKING DIFFERENCE CHAMPI THURSDAY 19 JULY Seats are limited so book early together to take you through a journey of Mildura Club Cnr Deakin Ave & Ninth St Tickets $75pp the senses. 2 Tickets $15 /$ 10 3 FRIDAY 20 JULY on Eliza Emily Donnithorne, long SATURDAY 21 JULY figures and past luminaries, from Julian 4:00 - 5:30PM between fiction and history that this 9 - 11.30AM considered the model for Charles 8.30AM - 5.30PM Assange to Caravaggio, from Peter Carey Ekphrasis: Poems and writing entails. Drusilla Modjeska, one of Professor George Russell Dickens’s bizarre character Miss A day at La Trobe University to Pasolini. Pictures Together ’s most acclaimed essayists and English Workshops in Schools Havisham in Great Expectations. (Arts Mildura higher education partner) Barry Hill and John Wolesley nonfiction authors, has won numerous The Guardian in the UK calls Brian Grogan Theatre, Benetook Ave 12.30PM Since the time of Homer, poets have awards for her non-fiction, as well as an 12 - 2.30PM Evelyn’s work “enthralling.” Tickets All sessions $10 tickets at the door Picnic Lunch $17.50 (pre orders only) written vividly about art. Together, in Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. The Wheeler Centre and Package Deal $60 all sessions & lunch Lines for Birds: Poems & Paintings, Mildura Arts Centre present: The Setts Cnr Orange Ave & Eighth St 1.30 - 2.30PM Barry Hill and John Wolesley continue Brian Grogan Theatre, Benetook Ave A Conversation with Anna Goldsworthy, Tickets $15 / $10 conc 8.30 - 9.30AM Poetry: & Quadrant, this ancient tradition in an unusual Free event interviewed by Michael Williams, Director VCE Workshops Barry Hill & Lucian Freud collaboration, with astonishing of The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing 4 - 5PM Poems of Gwen Harwood Les Murray, often considered the unofficial paintings of birds by Wolesley 12.30PM and Ideas. Anna Goldsworthy, a classical Antipodean Perspectives Frankenstein by Mary Shelley poet laureate of Australia, discusses his matched with dazzling poems by Hill. Festival Finale Slow Lunch pianist and a founding member of the Peter Vale, a prominent South African latest anthology, The Quadrant Book of Facilitator: Tina Kane. Description to come Seraphim Trio, as well as the author of the public intellectual and journalist, who 10.00 - 11.00AM Poetry. There will be presentations of a award-winning memoir, Piano Lessons, held the Nelson Mandela Chair of Hour with Philip Hodgins Memorial number of the poems from the book, and 7 FOR 7.30PM Langtree Ave Mildura will talk with Michael Williams and perform Politics at Rhodes University, joins Medal Winner Robert Gray a reading by Les of his own work. Barry Festival Dinner (See page 4) Tickets 60pp music from the book following lunch. the Thesis Eleven Centre from Robert Gray with Chris Wallace-Crabbe Hill’s latest book is Naked Clay: Drawing Grand Ballroom Seventh St & Deakin Ave (includes a glass of Chalmers Wine) La Trobe University in an innovative Two of Australia’s most prominent and from Lucian Freud, hailed as “illuminating, Tickets $85pp The Setts Cnr Orange Ave & Eighth St presentation on the patterns of popular poets will engage in conversation expansive and profound.” Tickets $35 everyday life. Peter Vale will be about the art of poetry, with readings by Facilitator: Paul Kane. SUNDAY 22 JULY joined by Peter Beilhartz, Trevor Robert Gray from his acclaimed work. 11AM 2.45 - 3.45PM Hogan, Neil Fettling, Sian Supski Gray is the recipient of numerous major 2.30 - 3.30PM La Trobe University Lecture Series Real Stories and Chris Ellem in a wide-ranging literary awards for his poems and for his Prose: Liz Moore & Drusilla Modjeska Drusilla Modjeska Evelyn Juers in conversation with and provocative look at the daily memoir, The Land I Came Through Last. Celebrated American novelist Liz Moore, Drusilla Modjeska, in her extraordinary Donata Carrazza lives of Australians. from Philadelphia, reads recent work: novel, The Mountain, draws upon her Evelyn Juers writes about colorful and 11.00AM “compelling and pleasurable,” says The experience of moving to Papua New remarkable historical figures. House of The Setts Cnr Orange Ave & Eighth St Coffee Washington Post. Drusilla Modjeska, one Guinea in 1968 at the age of 20 and Exiles (winner of the 2009 Prime Minister’s Tickets $15 / $10conc of Australia’s preeminent writers, reads her return there years later. In her Literary Award for non-fiction) tells the 11.30AM - 12.30 PM from her new novel, The Mountain, set presentation in the La Trobe Lecture story of Heinrich Mann (brother to the 7.30PM Lives of the Artists: Interview in Papua New Guinea: “an ambitious epic,” Series at the Festival, she draws upon German novelist Thomas Mann) and his Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal with Peter Robb says ABR. both the experience of living in PNG partner, Nelly Kroeger, as they flee Nazi Dinner(See page 3) “One of Australia’s finest writers,” says Facilitator: Helen Healy. and writing about it, as she considers Germany for the south of France and The Global Mail, Peter will talk with Morag matters pertaining to post-colonialism Stefano’s Gallery 25 eventually Los Angeles. Evelyn’s new Fraser about his new book, Lives, a series 3.30PM and the construction of the other, 25 Deakin Ave work, The Recluse, just released, focuses of remarkable portraits of contemporary Coffee as well as the complex negotiations Tickets $75pp 4 5

2010 she was Writer-in-Residence at the year) and Street Fight in Naples. His most recent University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers book, Lives, came out in May. House. Her short fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in The New York Chris Wallace-Crabbe’s most recent books Times, Narrative Magazine, The Tottenville of verse include Telling a Hawk from a Handsaw Review, Five Chapters, and elsewhere. She and the forthcoming New and Selected Poems is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Holy (Carcanet Oxford Poets). He chairs Australian Family University in Philadelphia, where Poetry Limited and is a Professor Emeritus in Joe Dolce was born in Painesville, Ohio, and was published in the United States. She Barry Hill has won Premier’s Awards for poetry, collections of poems. Among his awards she lives. The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. moved to Australia in 1979, becoming a citizen in is Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring history, non-fiction and the essay, and in 2009 are a Fulbright grant, fellowships from the Read It Again, a volume of critical essays, was 2004. He is known internationally for the highly Music Festival, Board Member of the was short-listed for the Melbourne Prize for National Endowment for the Humanities and the festival’s Patron, is one published in 2005. Overseas he has taught successful Australian song, Shaddap You Face Australian Book Review, Kenneth Moore Literature. He is perhaps best known for his the Guggenheim Foundation. He has taught at Les Murray, of Australia’s leading poets, and one of at Harvard and at the University of Venice. (which was Number One on the pop charts in Memorial Music Scholar at Janet Clarke monumental, multi-award winning, Broken Yale University and Monash University and is the most celebrated contemporary poets Other awards include the Dublin Prize for Arts 15 countries). Over the past twenty years he Hall at the University of Melbourne, and Song: TGH Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession presently Professor of English at Vassar College. writing in English. He has won many and Sciences, and the Christopher Brennan has received award-winning recognition as a founding member of the Seraphim Trio. (Knopf 2002). Necessity: Poems 1996-2006 Together with his wife, Tina, he splits his time literary awards, including the Grace Leven Award for Literature; in 2011, he was appointed a songwriter, composer and poet. He lives in She won Newcomer of the Year at the 2010 won the ACT’s 2008 Judith Wright Prize, and between New York and rural Victoria. Prize, (1980 and 1990), the Petrarch Prize a Member of the Order of Australia. John Carlton, Victoria. Australian Book Industry Awards and her Lines for Birds, a collaboration with the painter, (1995), the prestigious TS Eliot Award Wolseley’s work can be found in all state CD Piano Lessons is out now on the ABC John Wolseley, was short-listed for the 2011 Drusilla Modjeska’s first book, Exiles At (1996), and, in 1999, the Queens Gold galleries and numerous public and private Morag Fraser is a writer, newspaper columnist, Classics label. Queensland Premier’s Award. His latest book is Home, was published in 1981. Poppy (1990) Medal for Poetry. In 1999, he was made an collections. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary and one of Australia’s most experienced literary Naked Clay: Drawing from Lucian Freud. won the National Book Council Banjo Award for honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy degree of Doctor of Science by Macquarie commentators. She was the editor of Eureka Robert Gray lives in Sydney, where Non-Fiction, the NSW Premier’s Douglas Stewart of the Humanities. His latest book of University, and the Emeritus Medal from the Street magazine and Adjunct Professor in he has worked in journalism and Evelyn Juers has lived in Hamburg, Sydney, Prize for Non-Fiction and was short listed for the poems, Taller When Prone, was one of Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. He is Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe advertising, as well as serving as a buyer London and Geneva. Her essays on art and Fawcett and PEN International Awards. The New York Times Book Review’s represented in Sydney by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery University. A judge of the Miles Franklin Literary for bookshops and a teacher of literature literature have appeared in a wide range of The Orchard (1994) also won the NSW Premier’s 100 Notable Books for 2011. and in Melbourne by Australian Galleries. Award from 2005 to 2011, she is currently chair of classes. His volumes of poems, published Australian and international publications. She Douglas Stewart Award for Non-Fiction and the His work is currently on display as part of Australian Book Review, of the John Button Prize since 1970, have been gathered in six is the author of a collective biography, House of Nita Kibble Literary Award, as did Stravinsky’s was born in Toorak and grew the Sydney Biennale at the Art Gallery judging panel, and of Victoria’s oldest artists’ different selected editions, for which Exile, which won the Prime Minister’s Award for Lunch (1999). In 2004 Modjeska was one of the Peter Robb up in Australia and New Zealand. He lived of New South Wales. colony, Montsalvat. Between 2009 and 2011 she he has won numerous literary prizes. Non Fiction, and has been published to acclaim first outsiders to visit the barkcloth artists of for many years in Southern Italy and other was judge of the Mildura Writers Festival’s Philip Most recently, he received the Australia in the UK, US, France and Spain. Her most Ömie in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, from places in Europe and Brazil, and is the Mildura Writers Festival also welcome Hodgins Memorial Medal. In 2004 she was made Council’s Emeritus Award. In 2008, he recent book is The Recluse, a biographical essay which The Mountain’s fictional mountain people author of Midnight in Sicily (which won the special guests: a Member of the Order of Australia, for services published his prize-winning prose memoir, about reclusion and Eliza Emily Donnithorne, are drawn. In 2011 she co-founded the SEAM Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and Janet Shaw, Anna & Helen Hodgins to journalism. The Land I Came Through Last. Cumulus, believed to have been a prototype for Miss fund - Sustain Education Art Melanesia. the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction), Michael Williams, The Wheeler Centre his collected poems, has just appeared Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations. M (a biography of Caravaggio), Pig’s Peter Beilharz, Trevor Hogan, and Peter Vale, Anna Goldsworthy is an Australian classical from John Leonard Press. Liz Moore is the author of the novels The Words Blood and Other Fluids, A Death in Brazil Thesis 11 Centre. pianist and writer. In 2009 her memoir Piano Paul Kane, the festival’s Artistic Director, of Every Song (Broadway Books, 2007) and Heft (awarded The Age non-fiction book of the Lessons was released in Australia and in 2010 it has published twelve books, including five (W.W. Norton, Hutchinson, 2012). From 2009 - 6 7 acknowledgements sponsors & funding do you have an opinion Festival Patron Les Murray Artistic Director Paul Kane on diversity, difference, Festival Management Rachel Kendrigan & Stedman Watts racism or isolation? Administration Ben Rata

Visit the Talking Difference Portable Studio and Festival Chair Donata Carrazza share your view with us. It’s free and available at the library during opening hours. committee Judi Harris, Michael Hogan, Talking Difference is an award winning project Stefano de Pieri, Win Scott, from Museum Victoria that generates community Dean Worthington, Brian Murphy dialogue around identity, celebrating diversity and the harmful impacts of race based discrimination. patrons Brian & Jenny Murphy TALKING DIFFERENCE CHAMPIONS WORKSHOP Sunraysia Murray Group Training If you’re between 15-30 years old have an The Art Vault interest in community leadership or multimedia production, you can be a Talking Difference refunds Portable Studio Champion. Artsmildura regrets it is not possible to refund or exchange on completed bookings Artsmildura welcomes sponsor and donor enquiries and has deductible gift status allowing donations to the Contact Dave Henry for more information about unless the event is canceled Festival to be fully tax deductible. Contact the Festival Director on (03) 5021 5100 for further information or this workshop [email protected] to make a donation. Program Design Saunders Design 3 JULY - 23 JULY Proudly printed by: Sunnyland Press Mildura Library 180-190 Deakin Ave, Come on down and have your say www.artsaboutus.com.au

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