I’m talking at the Melbourne Writers Festival

I am very pleased to announce that I will be a panellist and an interviewer at the 2013 Melbourne Writers Festival.

I spent some time helping the team from MWF as part of my role at Ballarat Writers and now I can announce that I’ll be involved in 2 events.

My first event is on Saturday as part of the M.A.D.E. by Writers Panel. I will be discussing how my life as a writer interacts with the ideas of freedom, power and democracy. I’ll be sharing the panel with some great writers and must confess to having what singer/songwriter Paul Kelly calls ‘the pretendies’.

On Sunday I’ll be hosting, In Conversation with M.J. Hyland. I’ve written about her work before and a few years ago participated in a workshop that she was running.  I’m looking forward to this event as it closes out the weekend of events and I’m hoping will have some great audience participation.

So let me know if you’ve got any advice, or any questions you’d like me to ask.

If you’re in Ballarat please come along to some of the events. It’s a great chance to encourage Melbourne arts groups to run regional events.

There are heaps of workshops and panel discussions so please book in.

The Best of the Fest – MWF

When I think of way to describe last nights ‘The Best of the Fest’ session of the Melbourne Writers Festival all I can think of is fun. Sponsored by the University of Melbourne with some great local and international writers the session could have easily turned into a wanky lovefest. But with Catherine Deveny as the host the pace was set early, this was going to be a fast-paced and exciting show. It was advertised as a ‘an early evening, late-night-TV-chat-show-type of event’ and that is just how it felt. Continue reading →