The power of great literature will inspire, transform and delight inquisitive minds when more than 300 of the world’s leading writers and thinkers descend on Victoria for the Melbourne Writers Festival
The 2013 Melbourne Writers Festival has announced a few sneak peeks into some of the huge events at the Festival this year. The full program will be available from Friday 19 July, and will address the impacts of the digital age on our creative lives and also celebrate creativity off- the-page with special performance, music and arts events.
Between 22 August and 1 September, the power of great literature will inspire, transform and delight inquisitive minds when more than 300 of the world’s leading writers and thinkers descend on Victoria for 11 days of provocative and passionate storytelling, in more than 320 sessions at the MWF.
New York City’s most exciting troupe of storytellers, The Moth Mainstage, will be appearing live and exclusive to MWF as part of the opening night celebrations. MWF will also welcome a contingent of literary heroes from The London Review of Books and the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference.
The 2013 MWF, the first under the direction of Lisa Dempster, showcases the best of Australian and international writers and thinkers in a diverse program, with participants including Magda Szubanski, as well as Colm Toibin, Walter Mason, Helen Razer, Francesca Rendle-Short, Judy Horacek, Brendan Shanahan, Rebecca Starford, Andrea Goldsmith and Deborah Ellis.
The Festival will be welcoming Marjorie Liu, the current writer of Marvel’s Astonishing X-Men which was been nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for its “outstanding representation of the LGBT community” and which featured the wedding of character Northstar and his boyfriend in the series.
Brilliant writer, lad-about-town and self-proclaimed Gaysian, Benjamin Law hosts a literary salon with special guests Jess McGuire, Michelle Dicinoski (Ghost Wife – a memoir about lesbian marriage), Dennis Altman (End of the Homosexual – a new book about the politics of homosexuality) and Lisa-Skye Goodes. An entertaining line-up of fabulous performances, interviews, provocative readings, and gender-bending antics will celebrate queer voices in literature with gay abandon.
