Ryding appointed director of Melbourne City of Literature office

Arts Victoria has announced the appointment of David Ryding as the inaugural director of the Melbourne City of Literature office based at the Wheeler Centre.

Ryding is a former executive director of the NSW Writers Centre and was director of Melbourne’s Emerging Writers’ Festival from 2007 to 2010.

‘There’s a whole reason we’re a City of Literature, with our magnificent organisations, bookshops and libraries,’ Ryding told the Age. ‘The office has a role to play to make sure those organisations are sustainable, both in development opportunities and funding opportunities, it has a role to play in promotion across all the areas—because they’re quite disparate when you think about it—and obviously in promoting us as a City of Literature to new audiences.’

Victoria’s Minister for the Arts Heidi Victoria said Ryding’s ‘national experience and involvement with a range of literary and arts organisations’, as well as his ‘deep knowledge of Victoria’s literary scene and his passion for writing’, made him the standout candidate for the role.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the Melbourne City of Literature office was announced by Arts Victoria in May. The role of the new director is ‘to oversee the coordination and promotion of literary activity which celebrates Melbourne as a City of Literature, and also to represent the city on the UNESCO Creative Cities Network’, said Arts Victoria.

Melbourne is one of seven Cities of Literature in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Read more about the program here.

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Category: Local news