Upcoming Events
Join us to hear Jennie Orchard in conversation with Alice Pung, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Matt Ottley and Karys McEwen.
Remember the books that shaped your childhood, sparked your imagination, and ignited a lifelong love of reading? In The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation, some of the world's most beloved authors share their own transformative reading experiences - the books and stories that set them on the path of becoming the readers and writers they are today.
Free, but bookings are essential.
Join us to celebrate the launch of Ingrid Laguna's new middle grade fiction, Edie Tells a Lie.
Edie lives with her mum-it's just the two of them. Her best friend, Bowie, lives right next door, until Bowie moves to the country. Edie feels alone and forgotten, but she soon meets Aleki, and she's happy to have a new friend. Aleki has a big family with lots going on all the time. Edie wishes she had a big, interesting family too. So she invents a story-a lie.
Free, but bookings are essential.
Jana Wendt, the much-loved Gold Logie superstar of TV journalism for nearly three decades, feature writer and role model for young career women, has now turned her hand to fiction.
In ‘Bits and Pieces’, an artist talks about his long life: ‘Let me tell you, my friend, journalists ask some very stupid questions.’ In ‘Fame and Nothingness’, a once celebrated journalist calls into a talkback program about meeting Nelson Mandela. In ‘The Stamp of History’, Ada and Albert live through the dark days of Europe. In the opening story, Ludmilla is about to discover an entirely new side to her husband.
Wendt’s stories are polished and exuberant, rich with distinctive voices and precise details. Her characters grapple with fortune and misfortune, with memories of lives in interesting times. Couples are betrayed and redeemed. There are heart-stopping monologues and witty exchanges between friends and rivals. Tragedies alternate with enduring love.
In The Far Side of the Moon, Jana Wendt brings to life a brilliant parade of people, living in a world we instantly recognise.
Game On
After the 2024 federal election, Australia has the most progressive parliament in recent memory. Perhaps ever. What are the game-changing ideas that Australia needs now? Is there a mandate for policy decisions that might safeguard Australia’s democracy, economy, environment and polity beyond the blip of the news cycle?
Leading thinkers and activists — Fiona Stanley, Thomas Mayo and Richard Denniss from all corners of Australia — offer fresh possibilities for our collective future. With host, La Trobe University historian and BWF Co-curator, Clare Wright.
In partnership with The Australia Institute.
Bookings are essential.
On the Lam
Disappearances. Secrets. Escapes. Flights of fancy. Hidden histories and historical mysteries.
Through fact and fiction, three authors bring us a spectacular cast of spirited women. In Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner (with co-author Sharmini Kumar) re-imagines Jane Austen’s heroine as a sharp-minded sleuth seeking out a missing maid.
Lucy Sussex (with co-author Megan Brown) gives us the hitherto little-known story of Australia’s first female crime writer, Mary Fortune, and her career-criminal son in Outrageous Fortunes.
Novelist Tara Calaby weaves a speculative romance amid the concealed cabinets and slippery sceances in 19th century Melbourne in The Spirit Circle. With host, La Trobe University’s, Stephanie Downes.
Bookings are essential.
On Country
What do golf balls, language revitalisation and radical acts of diplomacy have in common? They have all happened – and are still happening! – on country. Unceded sovereign country.
In Golf Dreaming, Worimi man John Maynard reveals the fascinating and complex Aboriginal connection to golf. Clare Wright provides a forensic account of Yolŋu resistance and innovation in Ṉäku Dhäruk, her history of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions. And poet and editor Evelyn Araluen reflects on learning Bundjalung on Tharawal in Words to Sing the World Alive.
Bookings are essential.
Quebec City: Querelle of Roberval
In Kevin Lambert’s Marquis de Sade Prize winning novel, a millworkers' strike in Roberval drags on and tensions start to escalate between workers, yet they rally around the mysterious and magnetic influence of Querelle, a dashing newcomer from Montreal.
By day he walks the picket lines and at night moves through the ranks of young men who flock to his apartment for sex. This wildly imaginative story of justice, passion, and murderous revenge will be the catalyst for a great conversation between host Tara Calaby, Sam Elkin and Kylie Mirmohamadi.
Bookings are essential.
Carrying On
How do you rebuild a life after the death of a much loved one? What brings solace, peace and maybe even pleasure as the living are left to carry on? A new lover? A pub? A rabbit?
Three gorgeous novels meditate on the nature of grief and ghosts, legacies and loss: Melanie Cheng’s The Burrow has been called ‘a rare delicacy’ by Helen Garner. Kylie Mirmohamadi’s first novel, Diving, Falling, is as elegant as it is exhilarating. While Jock Serong’s latest work of historical fiction, Cherrywood, brings a touch of magic realism to a gothic Melbourne. With host, La Trobe University’s Kelly Gardiner.
Bookings are essential.
On Second Thoughts
In the final session of the festival, we once again pay respects to literary elders very much present.
Robert Dessaix is a writer, translator and broadcaster whose novels, memoirs, travel writing and essays have been adored by Australian and global audiences for decades. His latest book is Chameleon, a meditation on art, love, sex, literature, music and happiness, reveals Robert’s trademark wit, intellect and idiosyncrasy. Clare Wright will host Robert in this contemplative reflection on his writing.
Bookings are essential.
