MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL 312 SEP 2021 MWF.COM.AU TELL ME HOW IT ENDS MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL We respectfully acknowledge that Melbourne Writers Festival takes place on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Melbourne Writers Festival thanks its generous donors, partners and supporters. Principal Partner Major Partners Offi cial Bookseller Cultural Partners Learning Partners Media Partners Offi cial Suppliers Festival Supporters Donors Ann & Michael Cohn Board Genevieve Cizevskis Astrid Edwards Production Manager APRA AMCOS Literary Epic $20,000+ Astrid Edwards Rosemary Geer Rachel Hanley Australian Communities Foundation John Jerome Myers Chair Jo Grigg Ticketing & Sales Manager Australian Poetry Maria Myers AC & Allan J Myers AC QC Fahim Ahad Dr Alice Hill & Mark Nicholson Margie Yi Besen Family Foundation Deputy Chair Leg Up Foundation Front of House, Venues Bunjil Place Novel $10,000+ Joanna Brand & Volunteers Manager Bernard Marin AM Company Secretary City of Greater Dandenong Hart Line Fund (a sub-fund of the Coral Guan Australian Communities Foundation) McLeod Family Foundation City of Yarra Phillip Benedetti (until June 2021) Digital Marketing Coordinator Dr Leonie Kelleher OAM Cecilia J Myers Committee for Melbourne Ahmad Abas Gemma Pass Dr George & Rosa Morstyn Jamila Rizvi First Nations Australia Writers’ Network Dr Alice Hill Marketing Coordinator Mark Rubbo OAM Gail Lister Madelyn Pickersgill Footscray Community Arts Centre Novella $5,000+ Nick Ruskin Jamila Rizvi Business & Operations Coordinator Griffi th Review Paul Andrews, Trustee of the Craig Semple Louise Ryan Winnie Tsang The Moat Robin Campbell Foundation Bernadette Trifi letti Erin Wamala Philanthropy Coordinator Mushroom Group BB & A Miller Fund (a sub-fund of the Michael Webster Jacob Boehme PEN Melbourne Australian Communities Foundation) Linda White First Nations Advisor Public Record Offi ce Victoria, Canny Quine Foundation Staff Janet Whiting AM Ingrid Laguna Ancestry.com.au Peter Garrow Michaela McGuire Education Advisor Quarterly Essay Maureen Wheeler AO Haiku $500+ Artistic Director Joey Chen, Shadi Habash Safety In Numbers & Tony Wheeler AO Andrew Deane Rebecca MacFarling Bookkeepers Science Gallery Melbourne Maggie Haertsch Chief Executive Offi cer CPR Communications Short Story $1000+ The Stella Prize Rebecca Kierce Gene Smith & Public Relations Anonymous United States Consulate Melbourne Barbara Long Associate Director Publicity Fahim Ahad Victorian Association for the Louise Ryan Sonia Nair Sweet Creative Teaching of English Phillip Benedetti Program Manager Robert Sessions AM Graphic Design Vision Australia Joanna Brand Alexia Jordan Adrian Potts The Wheeler Centre Sally Browne Fund (a sub-fund of the Correct at 7 July 2021 Marketing & Partnerships Manager Copywriter Writers Victoria Australian Communities Foundation) Chloe Gordon Philanthropy Manager 2 MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Contents Festival Events 4—15 Families 6 First Nations Curators 7 Digital 8 Teens 11 Calendar 12—13 Workshops 16 In the Suburbs 17 Local Libraries 18 Artists 20 Festival Information & Tickets 22—23 Michaela McGuire What happens when the entire This program also recognises alight (and burned down the English Julian Assange’s lawyer Jen Robinson AC Grayling, Viet Thanh Nguyen world is consumed by the same story? that the invasion of this country language). Noongar author Claire G discuss WikiLeaks, free speech and and Sigrid Nunez are available to The pandemic feels like the fi rst represented the end for so many Coleman and polymath writer Alison covert power. Editor of The Age Gay watch at your convenience on a truly global event: everyone is being members of the world’s longest Croggon discuss the ongoing legacy Alcorn brings commentators from pay-what-you-can basis. clobbered by the same problem, at continuing cultures. For the fi rst time, of Australia’s colonial past. Gunai/ across the political divide to debate For the little readers in your life, the same time, while we’re all online, this year’s festival has been enriched Kurnai writer Veronica Heritage- the newest battleground of free we’ve gathered some of the country’s all the time. by self-determined programming Gorrie and activist and thinker Randa speech: cancel culture. She is joined most popular and entertaining To open a book is, in this world, from two of this country’s most Abdel-Fattah examine how modern- by Louise Adler, Waleed Aly, James children’s authors for MWF Families, a radical act: of learning, of privacy, powerful First Nations voices, day racism is bound to colonisation. Button, Parnell Palme McGuinness an action-packed day of storytelling, of self-care, of rebellion, of hope. Bridget Caldwell-Bright and Marcia Memoirists Lech Blaine and Rick and Nyadol Nyuon. A panel of live mysteries and illustrator battles. As readers and writers, the written Langton. In Marcia’s own words, Morton confront the shortcoming political writers and editors— The program features Australian word is our chosen art form because ‘we have invited writers to tell us of male stoicism in the face of grief Annika Smethurst, Lech Blaine and Children’s Laureate Ursula of its unparalleled power to provide their deepest thoughts about the and trauma. Nick Feik—discuss the larrikin fi gure Dubosarsky, poet and illustrator comfort, answers to impossible predicament of being simultaneously Award-winning Wiradyuri writer in our politics with Jan Fran while Maxine Beneba Clarke, bestselling questions, connection with other Indigenous people and global citizens Anita Heiss talks to Paul Barclay Norman Swan, Osman Faruqi and and much-loved author Morris minds and viewpoints. To change in our Brave New World, being an about Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray Jamila Rizvi debate public safety, Gleitzman, 2020 NSW Aboriginal who we are, and in doing so, change Indigenous person in the midst of (River of Dreams), her epic new politics and the pandemic with Woman of the Year Kirli Saunders, the world. so many challenges to our existence historical novel. Australian screen Raf Epstein. and many more. The MWF Teens In periods of uncertainty, when and our right to be Indigenous, to legend Bryan Brown chats about We’re bringing the best of the program boasts a selection of we feel powerless and buff eted by be writers and thinkers, the truth- turning his hand to crime writing in Festival to Bunjil Place with a new Australia’s exceptional YA talent, with forces outside of our control, we turn telling that is demanded of us and his debut book, Sweet Jimmy. John series of events featuring investigative topics spanning origin stories, urban to storytellers to help make sense the insights that Indigenous history, Doyle sits down with Sam Pang to reporter Louise Milligan, former fantasies and secret identities being of the world. Here, at Melbourne cultures, languages and ways of discuss Blessed: The Breakout Year of Manus detainee and award-winning discussed by authors including Garth Writers Festival, we invite you to thinking and being off er to the world.’ Rampaging Roy Slaven, his warm and author Behrouz Boochani and Nix, Will Kostakis, Leanne Hall, celebrate our chosen panacea for For Melbourne Writers Festival’s witty homage to his larger-than-life bestselling children’s book author Amie Kaufman, Sophie Gonzales the time in which we live. 35th year, our program features a alter ego. Morris Gleitzman. and Gary Lonesborough. Capping We’ve gathered the fi nest cast of astonishing writers who are From parliament to the Supreme Supplementing the voices of off the day is the popular fan-fi ction minds in the country and have shaping the future of literature in Court, Australia’s highest halls of more than 250 Australian writers showcase, where YA writers let their issued them a simple challenge: this country and beyond. Helen power have been rocked by failures is a carefully considered cohort imaginations run wild by dropping Tell Me How It Ends. Garner makes a long-awaited return in protecting victim-survivors of of international authors, who’ll their favourite characters from pop This Festival program stubbornly to the Festival stage to speak with sexual assault. Journalists, lawyers, be appearing via live-cross at The culture into dystopian scenarios to resists the neat ending. Instead, we’ll writer and critic Beejay Silcox about activists and writers argue for Capitol. Acclaimed author Maggie see if they survive. contest and interrogate the pre- the role that doubt plays in her life structural change, using their own Nelson (The Argonauts) talks about Closing the curtain not with a existing conditions that have been and work, the literary power of experiences and expertise to imagine her new book On Freedom, an whimper but a resounding bang, an exacerbated by the pandemic and ambiguity, and the art of unknowing. a new ending to this all-too-common exploration of freedom in the spheres all-Victorian legendary line-up comes dragged into the harsh light of day. Author Bruce Pascoe (Dark Emu) story. Lawyer Michael Bradley, of art, sex, drugs, and climate, together to celebrate the heritage Together, we’ll tackle the tensions of and historian Tom Griffi ths (The Art barrister Rachel Doyle SC, writer with on-stage interviewer Rebecca and future of our City of Literature. racism, classism, sexism, colonialism of Time Travel) transcend the culture Bri Lee and Wiradjuri and Wailwan Harkins-Cross. Regarded as one of Join Evelyn Araluen, Maxine Beneba and nationalism and imagine a new wars to consider the productive lawyer Teela Reid discuss the America’s great writers and thinkers, Clarke, Patricia Cornelius, Nayuka way forward. This Festival defi es the conversation emerging around First disorder in our courts. Amani Haydar, and literature’s spiritual leader, Gorrie, Chloe Hooper, Shaun deep desire to impose a narrative Nations histories, in conversation Jess Hill, Celeste Liddle and Tanya Marilynne Robinson joins Michael Tan and Maria Tumarkin for an structure on chaos. There are no with Sally Warhaft.