NT Writers Festival launches 2023 program
The NT Writers Festival has launched the program for this year’s event, which takes place from 1–4 June 2023 in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden in Mparntwe/Alice Springs on Arrernte Country.
Exploring the theme of mwantye-le awaye | listen deeply, the four-day festival features talks, readings, performances and immersive events that emphasise Australia’s cultural and linguistic diversity, while bringing people together to share stories, language and culture.
In one session, author Anita Heiss and illustrator Samantha Campbell will talk about their children’s book Bidhi Galing (Big Rain) (S&S, June) and Heiss will also run a storytime session for the book. Author and journalist Geraldine Brooks will discuss her historical novel Horse (Hachette). In a session on historical fiction, Brooks and Heiss will join Christopher Raja, who has written a forthcoming novel on the experiences of Afghan cameleers in Australia.
Australian Children’s Laureate Gabrielle Wang will run a session on Zadie Ma and the Dog Who Chased the Moon (Puffin), a session discussing interweaving cultures with writer Yumna Kassab, and a session explaining how to draw a dragon.
Author and Uluru Statement from the Heart campaigner Thomas Mayo will be joined by journalist Kerry O’Brien to discuss The Voice to Parliament Handbook (HG Explore) and answer common queries about how the Voice might operate. At Red Kangaroo Books, author and creative producer Johanna Bell, and artist, publisher and creative consultant Erica Wagner, will chat about their picture book Hope Is The Thing (A&U).
A performance poetry event will feature Ellen van Neerven, Victoria Alondra, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Laurie May, Dave Clark, Jo Yang, Glen Hunting, Jeanine Leane, Meg Mooney and Stephanie Powell. Then in a panel, Eckermann will join Chris Flynn and Maria Taylor to talk about writing the voices of nature.
A panel of three queer First Nations writers with connections to different nations, van Neerven (Mununjali Yugambeh), Alondra (Mestizx), and Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree), will discuss how they survive and resist oppressive social structures, and finding love, joy and solidarity in community, culture and country, as well as through writing and art. They will be in conversation with Wiradjuri writer, poet and academic Jeanine Leane.
At a book launch for John Kean’s book Dot Circle and Frame: The Making of Papunya Tula art (Black Inc.), there will be a sunset performance of the rrpwamper althart (possum public ceremony) to bring to life the ceremonial underpinnings of Tim Leura’s 1974 painting Pulapa Inkata (Possum ceremony). Kean will be joined by historian Mike Warangula Tjakamarra and painter Watson Corby Tjungurrayi in a discussion about the significance of Papunya artists today.
In other sessions, Eastern Arrernte artist Kathleen Kemarre Wallace and academic Judith Lovell will discuss the process of creating Listen Deeply, Let These Stories In (IAD Press), and Kanakiya Myra Ah Chee and Linda Rive will speak about the memoir Nomad Girl (Aboriginal Studies Press); and Upswell Publishing director Terri-ann White will provide practical advice and insights into the publishing process.
Writers and storytellers are invited on a guided tour through Mparntwe by apmereke-artwye (traditional custodian) Doris Stuart Kngwarreye. Another event will look at bush foods of the botanic garden, with Arrernte language teacher, botanist and ecologist Veronica Perrurle Dobson, along with scientist, writer and poet Meg Mooney.
Held annually, the festival’s location alternates between Darwin and Alice Springs. Tickets are available on the website here.
Category: Local news
