Top 5: navigating the Melbourne Writers festival
It might be cold outside, but Melbourne is a red-hot festival city in winter. With a range of programs in all price brackets, the Melbourne Writers Festival will spread the warmth around. By KELLY PIGRAM Just as you were settling into the couch...
It might be cold outside, but Melbourne is a red-hot festival city in winter. With a range of programs in all price brackets, the Melbourne Writers Festival will spread the warmth around.
By KELLY PIGRAM
Just as you were settling into the couch after the Melbourne International Film Festival, the Coffee Festival, the Emerging Writer’s Festival and the Open House festival, the annual Melbourne Writers Festival, (beginning this Thursday) rears its head and forces you to leave the house again.
Take yourself along to any of the relatively cheap/free events (concession tickets are available for most sessions and this year a quarter of the festival will be free) which includes discussions, intellectual debates, art exhibitions and performances from a range of international and national guests.
Here’s our top 5 to save you the stress of choosing.
Art-folk singer, humourist and writer Justin Heazlewood is very funny. If you don’t know what you’re doing with your life, his new book Funemployed will surely resonate. It’s about being a struggling artist in Australia and figuring out what on earth it means to “make it” in the industry. Accompanied by other funny creatives like John Safran and Ben Watt, this event will be a little less serious and a lot more fun. Bar opens at 6pm.
Sunday, August – $22; $19 concession
Justin Heazlewood: I don’t know what I’m doing with my life
Retired environmental activist and former Senator Bob Brown spent 20 years as the Greens' leader and says that a life of action has made him optimistic for the future. Leave the discussion and launch of his new memoir Optimism (in which he chronicles his life in politics) feeling refreshed and renewed. Followed by a book signing.
Friday, August 22 – $22; $19 concession
For those of us who are less adventurous (or more introverted), you can still join in the festival by bringing a book on your tram/train/bus ride for the #onboardbookclub. Feel the smugness and the superiority among your fellow commuters as you put down your smartphone and pick up a novel. Follow the hashtag on twitter and Instagram if you’re feeling uninspired for weekly reading suggestions and to locate books left on a range of trams by the festival for discussion.
Friday, July 18–Saturday, August 31 – Free
Controversial writer Salman Rushdie has won a Booker Prize, written countless influential novels and will be a guest at two events in the festival. As an alternative to the headline show (An Audience With Sir Salman Rushdie, $130), go for his Freedom to Write session instead. Rushdie will discuss his Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children, for which he received numerous death threats over its view of Muslim culture. The importance and dangers of freedom of expression and the controversy that comes with it in regard to religion, culture and current events will undoubtedly be an interesting discussion and not one to miss.
Thursday, August 28 – $45; $35 (concession)
If you’re not so into writing and much more into art, take yourself along to the Bookends exhibition at Melbourne’s No Vacancy Gallery. Bring along the title, author, first and last line of your favourite book and add to the installation. Discover what happens when the first and last sentences of our favourite books are placed together and explored “through an installation of text, drawing, printmaking and animation”. Visit the Bookends Facebook for more details on how to participate.
Tuesday, August 19–Sunday, September 7 – Free
