Your Guide to the Festival - Melbourne Writers Festival

Your guide to this year's Festival

Too much to choose from? Have no fear, we've curated events tailored to your interests so it's easier to pick what to see.

International Highlights

A. C. Grayling: Making Peace in the Culture Wars

Asako Yuzuki: Butter

Colm Tóibín: From Brooklyn to Long Island

Colum McCann: Twist

Kaliane Bradley: The Ministry of Time

Marian Keyes: My Favourite Mistake

Mariana Enríquez: A Sunny Place for Shady People

Rumaan Alam: Entitlement

Local Highlights

Afternoon Tea with Sarah Wilson

Carrie Tiffany: Bitten – A Snake Performance

Emily Maguire and Josephine Rowe: Are You There, God?

Hannah Kent: Always Home, Always Homesick

Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland: Broken Brains

Jessica Townsend: Silverborn

Jimmy Barnes: Highways and Byways

Book Club Picks

Asako Yuzuki: Butter

Bora Chung: Your Utopia

Colm Tóibín: From Brooklyn to Long Island

Colum McCann: Twist

Kaliane Bradley: The Ministry of Time

Lev Grossman: The Bright Sword

Marian Keyes: My Favourite Mistake

Mariana Enríquez: A Sunny Place for Shady People

Yael van der Wouden: The Safekeep

Rumaan Alam: Entitlement

Free Events + Pay What You Wish

The Bookshelf Live with ABC Radio National

Someone Like Me: Autistic Writing and Belonging

Thin Red Lines: An Evening of Poetry

The Writer as Witness

Drawing the Line

The Next Big Thing

First Knowledges First

Special Events

Better Off Said: Eulogies for the Living and Dead

Culture Vultures: Griffith Review

Queerstories

The Next Big Thing

Thin Red Lines: An Evening of Poetry

The Fifth Estate: Citizenship and Its Discontents

The Bookshelf Live with ABC Radio National

Top 100 Books with ABC Radio National

Badass Women of Melbourne Walking Tour

Afternoon Tea with Sarah Wilson

Carrie Tiffany: Bitten – A Snake Performance

Maxine Beneba Clarke and Amaya Laucirica: Fire Moves Faster

Live Podcasts

The Psychology of Your 20s with Lucinda Price AKA Froomes

Culture Club Podcast: Live with Chloe Elisabeth Wilson

YA & Kids

Jessica Townsend: Silverborn

Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner: Lady’s Knight

The Library of Bears with Cat Rabbit

Wonders Under the Moon with Tai Snaith

History & Politics

First Knowledges First

John Button Oration: Decoding the Federal Election

Kate Grenville and Anita Heiss: Unsettling Australian Stories

The Fifth Estate: Citizenship and Its Discontents

The Past is a Foreign Country

Post-Referendum Voices: Where Do We Go From Here?

Santilla Chingaipe: Working with Archives

Poetry

Afra Atiq: The Healing Power of Poetry

Maxine Beneba Clarke and Amaya Laucirica: Fire Moves Faster

Norman Erikson Pasaribu: My Dream Job

Peter Steele Poetry Conversation: Pádraig Ó Tuama

Thin Red Lines: An Evening of Poetry

Philosophy and Psychology

A. C. Grayling: Making Peace in the Culture Wars

The Psychology of Your 20s with Lucinda Price AKA Froomes

Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland: Broken Brains

Someone Like Me: Autistic Writing and Belonging