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Melbourne Writers Festival

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Photograph: Supplied
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Time Out says

The program for 2023 is full of international award-winners, fresh talent and beloved local voices

The much-loved Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) returns this year with a red carpet-worthy line-up of international award winners, fresh talent and local voices, including celebrity home cook and food writer Alison Roman, 2022 Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka and national treasure singer-songwriter Paul Kelly. 

Running from May 4 to 7, MWF will take place across a variety of venues in the city. This year's theme is I've Been Away for a While, which will invite audiences to reconnect, re-emerge and re-engage with their changed selves, their former ones or with one another.

Opening night will be at the Melbourne Town Hall and will include a session with the American-Australian author Sarah Krasnostein, Wiradjuri poet and artist Jazz Money, and American authors Benjamin Dreyer and Bill Hayes. Paul Kelly will close the event, singing and reciting poems in an exclusive show.

The Booker Prize-winning British-Nigerian author Bernardine Evaristo will close the festival with a talk on her memoir Manifesto: On Never Giving Up. Other international guests on the roster include Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka, who will unpack his Booker Prize-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali; food writer Alison Roman, who will discuss her latest cookbook Sweet Enough; and beloved Kiwi actor Sam Neill, who will reflect on a life well-lived in his new memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?

Other program highlights include Irish novelist Claire Keegan talking about her novella Small Things Like These; Twitter's leading language guru Benjamin Dreyer; Ellen van Neerven on Personal Score, their groundbreaking look at sport from a First Nations and queer perspective; and Richard Fidler unpacking his latest masterwork of historical nonfiction The Books of Roads and Kingdoms. 

"This year, we're welcoming pop culture icons from food, music and film," said the MWF artistic director Michaela McGuire. "Booker Prize winners and shortlistees, local writers of sparkling debut and sophisticated sophomore novels, leading public intellectuals, beloved broadcasts and Twitter's most erudite and witty language guru."

Presented in partnership with Writers Victoria, the MWF Workshops program will provide an opportunity to learn from writers at the top of their game, including a session on The Craft of Writing Magic with Lev Grossman and insights into writing mortality with Diana Reid

You can discover the full program of writers headed to MWF and book tickets here.

Feeling inspired? Check out the best bookshops in Melbourne.

Saffron Swire
Written by
Saffron Swire

Details

Event website:
mwf.com.au/
Address:
Price:
Various
Opening hours:
Various
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