Emerging Writers Festival 2023 program launched
The Emerging Writers Festival (EWF) has launched its 20th anniversary program for 14–24 June, featuring nearly 200 artists in over 60 events in various locations across Melbourne.
The opening night event ‘Truth Telling’ features the writers Lay Maloney, Yaraan Bundle, Sofii Belling-Harding and Elijah Money, who will ‘share their truths’ in an event co-curated by Maya Hodge.
‘Celestial Bodies’, the closing night event, features the ‘final slew of starry, cosmic words, sounds and visuals from a dreamy line-up of well-loved writers, artists and inter-galactic DJs’, including the writers Genevieve Callaghan and Simone Jordan, and performer Maki Morita. Attendees are encouraged to dress in an ‘other-worldly garb’.
The National Writers’ Conference (NWF) on 17 June is a centrepiece event of EWF, aimed at informing and inspiring writers of all genres and styles. Authors Yumna Kassab, Bella Li, Debra Dank and Victoria Hannan have been selected as ambassadors and will be in presenting their ideas at NWF.
EWF will include two full-day masterclasses featuring one keynote speech from an industry leader, one panel discussion and two workshops. The Memoir Masterclass will include authors André Dao, Eda Gunaydin, Kris Kneen and Natasha Sholl, and the Fiction Masterclass will include authors Sharlene Allsopp, Elizabeth Bryar, Anna Snoekstra and Sean Wilson. Three Writers’ Night School workshops will also be held: Writing Family with Elfy Scott, Writing for TV with Alistair Baldwin and Writing Short Stories with Paige Clarke.
Special events include ‘Hibernal’, an outside nighttime storytelling event around a campfire at Collingwood Yards during the winter solstice; ‘Fright Night’, a horror-themed evening of ‘chilling, silly, and captivating stories’; and ‘XOXO’, for writers and readers who love gossip.
The program also includes many free sessions and workshops, such as zine-making, archiving, and diary-writing. There will be lunchtime events in the library with facilitated creative and critical conversations, such as writing collaboratively, writing for children and parents, and multi-practice storytelling. At night, there will be ‘The Sun, The Moon, The Stars’ event, which celebrates First Nations writers in partnership with Blak & Bright Festival and Arts Centre Melbourne, as well an event with LGBTIQA+ writers in the Australian Queer Archives.
EWF artistic director Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh said, ’Over two decades, this wonderful festival has flourished—growing from a zine fair into the foremost independent emerging writers’ festival in the world. While recent years have proved challenging across the arts, we are proud to have adapted this festival to the needs of our community, and to have reached this milestone.’
Pivet-Marsh added, ’We dreamed big this year, extending our efforts to bring to life the events and projects that were merely speculative in previous years. EWF’s guest curated events and exciting, experimental projects and locations have stretched the understandings of what a literary festival is and can be. We are proud every year to present our program, but this 20th offering of our festival feels especially significant.’
Category: Local news
