Blog Archives
Welcome to the spooky corridor of DOOM!
It’s not really that spooky, but isn’t that a nicely dramatic name? I find myself wishing for a ghost to waft smokily through a wall, shush me ala Ghostbusters, then continue on. The passage is part dust, dirt, chill and echoing footsteps. Just what the State Library of Victoria building should be.
Post in the comments if you know any State Library of Victoria ghost stories, and in the lead up to the festival, during the long hours and late nights, we’ll make a pretend camp fire with cellophane (so to not disturb the smoke detectors) and hold touches under our chins, telling tales to scare one another.
Louise
Festival Administrator
We’re he-e-e-e-r-e
Ah, finally we’ve made it to the shiny new premises at the newly entitled Wheeler Centre at the corner of Little Lonsdale and Swanston Streets, in the old museum building. It’s been quite a process to get here, but finally, finally we are esconced in the basement, looking out at builders’ legs as they finalise the lift, and the entrance to our space.
Still living out of boxes and crates of course, but we’re getting there, even though the main question is “Has anyone seen the…..?”.
Our new festival director, Steve Grimwade, is very busy talking to writers, publishers and agents about the 2010 program, and already some exciting news about potential guests for next year. You’ll just have to make sure you subscribe to our e-bulletin for news!
Apart from the lovely building, the brand new computers (bliss after years of elderly equipment and software drag), new furniture and sharing space with fellow writing organisations, there is an absolute plethora of fantastic eating spaces, shops and other vitals of urban living which has been lacking in Southbank. All I need now is to track out my new cycling route!
Helenka
Festival Manager
A few piccies
Artwork: Chay-ya Clancy; Photography: Jim Lee
Atrium, Federation Square; Photography: Jim Lee
Author green room; Photography: Jim Lee
Prime Mover free ticket offer!
Thanks to Miranda Brown Publicity the Melbourne Writers Festival has 10 double passes and 20 Buy One Get One Free passes to give away for new Australian film Prime Mover, released 12 November. 
Prime Mover is a diesel charged love story about ambition, pressure, responsibility and the love shared by a man, a woman and his truck.
Thomas dreams of owning and driving his own prime mover. But not just any old truck. A huge, bitumen eating chrome metal juggernaut, as powerful and unstoppable as his love for Melissa, a disarming Dubbo beauty who gives as good as she gets.
Loaded up with big dreams, big credit and soon a new family, young Thomas goes into business for himself. Now he’s a real truckie, hauling loads day and night, driving faster and faster. But as the screws of responsibility and reality tighten Thomas must decide between sanity, family or his diesel powered dreams.
Prime Mover stars rising talent Michael Dorman as Thomas; 2006 AFI Award winning actress Emily Barclay as Melissa; the star of Sea Change and Look Both Ways William McInnes; iconic screen favourite Ben Mendelsohn; and new hit sensation Gyton Grantley of Underbelly.
Prime Mover is written and directed by David Caesar (Dirty Deeds, Mullet, RAN) and produced by Vincent Sheehan (Little Fish, Mullet)
To be in the running send an email, including your full name, postal address and the subject line ‘Prime Mover comp’ to admin@mwf.com.au.
All entries must be received by Friday 23 October, 5pm. Winners will be selected at random. Only winners will be notified.
The Lost Art of Letter Writing special offer
“a wonderful solo vehicle that also contains terrific writing for orchestra… with enormous emotional range and depth.” Marc Satterwhite, Director Grawemeyer Award
Academy student Kristian Winther will perform Brett Dean’s 2009 Grawemeyer Award-winning violin concerto, The Lost Art of Letter Writing with the Orchestra of the Academy. A deeply-felt composition, each movement is based on an excerpt from a letter written in the 19th century including Ned Kelly’s famous Jerilderie letter.
Haydn Symphony No. 82 in C major The Bear
Ligeti Cello Concerto
Brett Dean Violin Concerto The Lost Art of Letter Writing – Australian premiere
Kristian Winther, violin
Sharon Draper*, cello
Orchestra of the Academy
*Winner of ANAM’s 2008 Concerto Competition
21 November, 8pm
South Melbourne Town Hall
210 Bank Street, Sth Melbourne
The Australian National Academy of Music is delighted to extend a 10% Arts partner offer to Melbourne Writers Festival subscribers. To take advantage of this special offer contact 136 100 and quote ‘ARTS PARTNER OFFER’ or book online at Ticketmaster.
Tickets $50 (full) & $25 (concession)
A little bit of craftiness
The festival office has gone all quiet. We’re back down to five staff members only for roughly the next six months, and I’m starting to miss the windswept hijinks of festival time. I lie; there were few hijinks. High-pressure deadlines, but hijinks, not so much. If asked nicely I may be persuaded to make something up. Oh, the family have gone into the world to other jobs; don’t forget us guys!
We’re still wrapping up and debriefing; I personally have paid more invoices in one month than I thought existed in the entire history of the WORLD (again, not quite true). Today I met with the lovely Kim Brockett of Craft Victoria (meeting over at Craft Victoria in Flinders Lane more or less so that I could peruse the storefront and current exhibition). All agree; Craft Hatch @ MWF was a wonderful thing and brainstorming has begun for more ways to have craftiness in the festival. I’m writing a wish list. Lists are fun.
In the meantime, because everyones loves photos, here are some photos of Craft Hatch @ MWF 2009. I’ll be posting more photos of the festival in the weeks to come – keep an eye on this space.
Pictured: Zoe Churchill, Wah Wah Wears; Photography: Jim Lee
Pictured: Nicholas Jones; Photography: Jim Lee
Pictured: Samantha Parsons, Studio Sam; Photography: Jim Lee
Louise Angrilli
Festival Administrator
Blogs about the 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival
It has been wonderful to see the flurry of online activity that this year’s festival has generated on this blog, on Facebook and on Twitter. However, there has also been an extraordinary amount of blogging done elsewhere by both MWF guests and visitors.
Here is a list of all the bloggers we could find who wrote about MWF during the festival. The writing collected here is diverse and ranges from event reviews, interviews, personal reflections, festival wrap-ups and humorous takes on the festival. There’s a lot of content here but we certainly had a great time pouring over it all (and noting the feedback!) so we’re sure you’ll enjoy it too.
Finally, we did our best to make contact with everybody who blogged about MWF this year but if we did miss you then apologies and please feel free to submit links to your blog in the comments.
Blogging from within:
Official MWF bloggers Estelle Tang and Frenchelbow (Simon Keck) here at mwfblog.com.au
Philip Hensher, whose novel The Northern Clemency was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, wrote about his visit to Melbourne for MWF here for the UK newspaper The Independent.
Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah wrote this post on her personal blog about her visit to Melbourne as a MWF guest.
Festival guest Angela Meyer is the author of the LiteraryMinded blog and she kept an incredibly comprehensive online diary during the festival:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Festival guests Jessica Au and Sophie Cunningham from Meanjin Quarterly wrote this piece about The Future of the Book session on Spike (Meanjin‘s blog).
Young adult and children’s fiction writer Julia Lawrinson blogs here on her Writing in the margins blog.
Artist Chay-Ya Clancy created the Federation Square word board installation, which so many of you had fun with. Chay-Ya did some behind the scenes blogging on her Stillness in flight blog.
MWF Copywriting intern Megan Burke covered MWF extensively throughout these posts on her Literary Life blog.
MWF related content from Readings, the festival’s official bookseller.
Blogging from without:
Freelance writer George Dunford covered the festival on his blog Hackpacker in the posts collected here.
On ANZ LitLovers LitBlog, the blog for the online reading group, Lisa Hill covered the festival on the posts collected here.
Perry Middlemiss, who has written online about Australian literature since 1996, filed these four reports on his Matilda blog.
Ghostlines author Nick Gadd wrote about MWF in these three pieces from his blog The writer in disguise.
Joyce Kwok, the author of the decisive guide to Melbourne Mel: Hot or Not, covered MWF in these posts.
Benjamin Solah, Marxist Horror Writer, covered MWF on these posts and a summary of those posts appears at The Specusphere.
Writer, reader and teacher Sherryl Clark filed these four reports on her Books and Writing blog.
Thuy Linh Nguyen wrote about MWF across these posts.
Kathryn Daley covered MWF in these posts on her A little bit of life blog.
Also check out:
Author Jon Bauer’s festival wrap-up
Planning With Kids on the Schools Program
Miscellaneous Adventures of an Aussie Mum on the MJ Hyland masterclass
Emancipation of Eve on Marketing in the Info Age
eleventyone on Digital Publishing and McSweeney’s (Futuristic) Antipodean Adventure!
Words in progress on Award Winning Australian Fiction launch and Liner Notes: Michael Jackson’s Thriller
Ambrosia : A Memoir on Krissy Kneen (interview)
Just for fun
The satirical news blog The Late Breaker did a series of literary theme posts to celebrate MWF and they can be found here.
Idiot’s View on Writers Festivals
Gone and done.
A few last things: Thomas Buergenthal signing a young lawyer’s copy of his book with a salutation to her future career as a human rights lawyer; Hitomi Kanehara and the ten sleepers in her ear; a room full of people celebrating sex with Krissy Kneen, Linda Jaivin and Nikki Gemmell; MJ Hyland and that jibbering microphone; another MJ and Thriller at the Toff; the exhortation to contemplate the future of the book; a missed rendezvous between Heidi Julavits, Eli Horowitz and Lord of the Fries; revisiting childhood wonder at maps with Reif Larsen; the poetry of domesticity with Chris Wallace-Crabbe; Jeff Sparrow and how we conceptualise killing; fiery rumpus on the parallel importation of books; chewy duck canapés; bourbon and bitters; one lost pair of shoes; two shaking arms and a heart full in all its chambers.
Estelle Tang, 3000 BOOKS
Festival Blogger
Paradise Found
I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to break character for my final post. No absurd whimsical short story, for today is the last day of the 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival. It should be a sad occasion, but there are still so many events to get through, that one doesn’t have the time to mourn the passing of yet another amazing festival.
One of the most notable elements of the MWF has nothing to do with the events and everything to do with the people attending them. They are all so different. Cast your eyes across the rows of an MWF event and you’ll see silver foxes and their balding gents, scruffy authors conversing with suited sharks, heads weighed down with warm woollen hats and minds inflated with new ideas, Mohawks and faux-hawks in deep talks, hands slapping thighs in mirth – when they’re not brushing tears of empathy aside, tiny hands proudly clutching at their first book with no pictures. All of them gathered for a shared purpose – the written word.
Despite this being a festival of the word, not one can come close to describing the mutual elation that erupts from the audience when a writer shares an idea that changes their thinking. I’ve witnessed these moments on an almost hourly basis in my time here. There is something wonderful about being seated with hundreds of other minds all glutting themselves on concepts and themes. Knowing that anyone seated in that theatre could be an instant friend. I can say that I have made many; I hope you can make the same boast.
The myriads of individuals that come together, to not only create this festival, but also to be a part of it is immensely comforting. It dispels all the nonsense talk of the death of books. For me, books are incredibly important, but it’s ultimately the ideas within them that are the key. I’ll confess to stroking the pages against my face and delighting in the familiar fetish of paper on skin. Though in the end, books are the method of obtaining the content. The book is just a means of engaging with concepts, and more importantly, with people.
The Melbourne Writers Festival is much like the covers on all of those books being verbally dissected each day. Take a solitary dot of ink and it means nothing. But when you combine it with thousands of similar specks, a larger image is realised by the millions of points pooling together.
It’s one book you can judge by its cover. You’ve just got to look a little deeper.
by Simon Keck
Festival Blogger
Good times and hot toddies
Three's a litcrowd.
I took a break after Textual Fantasies to have a drink at Madame Brussels with a little crowd of MWF guests and supporters. Above, Angela Meyer, Fiona Wright, poet and publisher at Giramondo Press and Josephine Rowe. Good times and hot toddies!
